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What role do the families we’re born into or the traumas we experience shape the people we become? Do good deeds offset bad deeds? How can the arts increase our capacity for empathy, understanding, and kindness?
Dan Futterman is creator, executive producer, and writer of Amazon Prime's American Rust, the acclaimed crime drama starring Jeff Daniels, Maura Tierney, and David Alvarez. Previously, Dan has written screenplays for Capote, Foxcatcher, In Treatment, and Gracepoint. He served as executive producer on The Looming Tower. Dan is also an actor, director, and two-time Oscar nominee.
Adam Rapp is the executive producer and writer of American Rust. He has written plays, films, and series, including Red Light Winter, The Sound Inside, In Treatment, Blackbird, The Looming Tower, and Dexter: New Blood. His latest novel is Wolf at the Table. He recently wrote the book for the new Broadway musical, The Outsiders.
ADAM RAPP
We ended on such a cliffhanger with Isaac presenting the wrench at the police station to Jeff Daniels' character. It allowed us to sort of start from a place of what's going to happen next. And I think because what is drawn in the novel and because of what Danny brought into the original script of the first season and all the ideas he brought in. The biggest thing we talked about was the relationship between Del Harris and Grace Poe and what is the ambiguity there? Who's zooming who? You know, it's not to ever land on one side of it because we're all culpable in some way of being both good and bad, being virtuous and also questionable at times in our own lives. And I think when you start answering questions on either side of that too firmly, I think it allows the audience to disconnect from it and then they go, Oh, he's a monster, or she's a monster. And then you just have this sort of a good and bad guy, good and bad woman narrative that is oversimplified all too often in our culture.
So I think the way season one was built, when we thought about season two, we were trying to run with a lot of the same ideas, even when you go from Isaac's sexuality discovery and the way he's living his life and who he's trusting and who he's giving blind faith to down to Billy. And like, who is he becoming? Is he going to become someone who shoots people? Or is he going to become someone who chooses love and romance?
And I think we kept our North Star about where that gray area is for all our characters. And Rob Yang's character comes to mind (Steve Park), who is driven by the truth and driven by finding justice at all costs to the point where he becomes so self-obsessed he becomes toxic in his own way and hell-bent to find the solution to that mystery in West Virginia.
DAN FUTTERMAN
It felt to me like a lot of the drive of season two is about payback. There are people who feel they're owed things. They want payback. There are people who feel like they have to get back at people because they've been wronged in some way. For Steve Park, there's a feeling of the justice of payback. Something was done that was terribly, terribly wrong, and he's going to right it. In a way, every character has something, some way that they're trying to right the wrong that was done to them or that they did in the first season.
Jeff Daniels’ character, Del Harris, is really driven by trying to right what he sees as wrongs that he did in the first season. And he's staying a little bit away from Grace because he doesn't know how much to blame her for how much were his own decisions or how much she kind of drove him to do things. So that was fun to explore. There's a lot of intertwined stories because of this. So that was a big driver, at least in my mind, and I think in all of our minds.
RAPP
You can't choose your family. You know, I hear that all the time. I'm always amazed when I see families that stick together and wind up being friends at the second, third, fourth decades of their lives. I didn't grow up with that. I didn't see that. I've only seen it as an adult, and it's remarkable when I see it. So I think viewers will relate to this nature versus nurture versus DNA, raising all the questions of psychological and biological inheritance.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
You’ve both been involved in many adaptations. American Rust, The Looming Tower, Capote, In Treatment, Foxcatcher…Adam, you have just adapted The Outsiders as a musical. What were the challenges of adapting these works?
RAPP
The Outsiders, in particular, S. E. Hinton, Susie Hinton wrote that when she was 15 and 16. It was published when she was 17. She was told by one editor in particular that she couldn't have any swear words, so she was sort of forced to write about these very big, intense, love-and-death operatic themes where there's a boy who dies by suicide by cop. There's a boy who dies from a fire. So it's about grief. His parents die in a car crash prior to all that. There's this hugely stacked deck of grief that exists in the novel. But when you read the novel, there's a very sweet and loving tone to it. So when I started working on it, I recall childhood in Joliet, Illinois. My mom was a single parent, and she raised three kids on her own on a nurse's salary. So I had to give myself permission to take her great dark themes and actions that are in her novel and like give language to it that was also from an adult world.
FUTTERMAN
I write with my wife sometimes, Anya Epstein, who's a terrific writer. We did In Treatment together, the third season. That's actually where we met Adam. Adam wrote a great series of sessions for the wonderful actor Irrfan Khan, who unfortunately died not that long ago. And we're writing something now that's not an adaptation. It's been really freeing and wonderful to do. Each project brings with it different challenges. We had a very, very good experience on The Looming Tower. Adam and I both worked on that. Lawrence Wright was kind of in and out of the writer's room, and he is just an incredible font of information. Even though the book is quite long and packed with information, he just had more to give and contacts with all of these people CIA, FBI, State Department...that was incredible to be able to tap into.
If people have very strong ideas of where they want something to go, you just have to work as a writer within those constraints and try to find your creativity. And so trying to absorb that, run it through your process and your creativity, and put something out that feels true can be challenging.
On the novel, American Rust
Philipp Meyer wrote a very, very beautiful book and it was the reason that made me want to do it. Jeff gave me the book. He'd been having trouble getting it made, getting a script that he liked. And he said to me, "Will you read this and just remind me what I love about it? And if you feel that way?" And I read it very quickly and felt that it was terrific. And there were a lot of possibilities in making it. So just kudos to Philipp Meyer. He wrote a beautiful novel. And if anybody's listening is looking for a great novel to read, there's that and there's Adam Rapp's novel Wolf at the Table.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
A lot of your work examines violence in American society. What are your reflections on the ways AI, social media or our addiction to screens may be accelerating this? As you think about the future and the importance of the arts, what would you like young people to know, preserve and remember?
RAPP
Right now, live theater is probably much different than looking at a screen. It's much different than looking at your computer or your Game Boy or whatever. I see grown men on the subway playing video games on their phones. And we're not even looking at each other on the subways anymore. We're like deep in our in a screen. And I wonder what that's done. And so I think theater actually has a powerful ability to rewire us to the human experience. And maybe because of it, maybe we can find more empathy or more capacity toward kindness.
This interview was conducted by Mia Funk with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producers on this episode were Sophie Garnier and Donna Sanders. The Creative Process is produced by Mia Funk. Additional production support by Katie Foster.
Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).
Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
What role do the families we’re born into or the traumas we experience shape the people we become? Do good deeds offset bad deeds? How can the arts increase our capacity for empathy, understanding, and kindness?
Dan Futterman is creator, executive producer, and writer of Amazon Prime's American Rust, the acclaimed crime drama starring Jeff Daniels, Maura Tierney, and David Alvarez. Previously, Dan has written screenplays for Capote, Foxcatcher, In Treatment, and Gracepoint. He served as executive producer on The Looming Tower. Dan is also an actor, director, and two-time Oscar nominee.
Adam Rapp is the executive producer and writer of American Rust. He has written plays, films, and series, including Red Light Winter, The Sound Inside, In Treatment, Blackbird, The Looming Tower, and Dexter: New Blood. His latest novel is Wolf at the Table. He recently wrote the book for the new Broadway musical, The Outsiders.
ADAM RAPP
We ended on such a cliffhanger with Isaac presenting the wrench at the police station to Jeff Daniels' character. It allowed us to sort of start from a place of what's going to happen next. And I think because what is drawn in the novel and because of what Danny brought into the original script of the first season and all the ideas he brought in. The biggest thing we talked about was the relationship between Del Harris and Grace Poe and what is the ambiguity there? Who's zooming who? You know, it's not to ever land on one side of it because we're all culpable in some way of being both good and bad, being virtuous and also questionable at times in our own lives. And I think when you start answering questions on either side of that too firmly, I think it allows the audience to disconnect from it and then they go, Oh, he's a monster, or she's a monster. And then you just have this sort of a good and bad guy, good and bad woman narrative that is oversimplified all too often in our culture.
So I think the way season one was built, when we thought about season two, we were trying to run with a lot of the same ideas, even when you go from Isaac's sexuality discovery and the way he's living his life and who he's trusting and who he's giving blind faith to down to Billy. And like, who is he becoming? Is he going to become someone who shoots people? Or is he going to become someone who chooses love and romance?
And I think we kept our North Star about where that gray area is for all our characters. And Rob Yang's character comes to mind (Steve Park), who is driven by the truth and driven by finding justice at all costs to the point where he becomes so self-obsessed he becomes toxic in his own way and hell-bent to find the solution to that mystery in West Virginia.
DAN FUTTERMAN
It felt to me like a lot of the drive of season two is about payback. There are people who feel they're owed things. They want payback. There are people who feel like they have to get back at people because they've been wronged in some way. For Steve Park, there's a feeling of the justice of payback. Something was done that was terribly, terribly wrong, and he's going to right it. In a way, every character has something, some way that they're trying to right the wrong that was done to them or that they did in the first season.
Jeff Daniels’ character, Del Harris, is really driven by trying to right what he sees as wrongs that he did in the first season. And he's staying a little bit away from Grace because he doesn't know how much to blame her for how much were his own decisions or how much she kind of drove him to do things. So that was fun to explore. There's a lot of intertwined stories because of this. So that was a big driver, at least in my mind, and I think in all of our minds.
RAPP
You can't choose your family. You know, I hear that all the time. I'm always amazed when I see families that stick together and wind up being friends at the second, third, fourth decades of their lives. I didn't grow up with that. I didn't see that. I've only seen it as an adult, and it's remarkable when I see it. So I think viewers will relate to this nature versus nurture versus DNA, raising all the questions of psychological and biological inheritance.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
You’ve both been involved in many adaptations. American Rust, The Looming Tower, Capote, In Treatment, Foxcatcher…Adam, you have just adapted The Outsiders as a musical. What were the challenges of adapting these works?
RAPP
The Outsiders, in particular, S. E. Hinton, Susie Hinton wrote that when she was 15 and 16. It was published when she was 17. She was told by one editor in particular that she couldn't have any swear words, so she was sort of forced to write about these very big, intense, love-and-death operatic themes where there's a boy who dies by suicide by cop. There's a boy who dies from a fire. So it's about grief. His parents die in a car crash prior to all that. There's this hugely stacked deck of grief that exists in the novel. But when you read the novel, there's a very sweet and loving tone to it. So when I started working on it, I recall childhood in Joliet, Illinois. My mom was a single parent, and she raised three kids on her own on a nurse's salary. So I had to give myself permission to take her great dark themes and actions that are in her novel and like give language to it that was also from an adult world.
FUTTERMAN
I write with my wife sometimes, Anya Epstein, who's a terrific writer. We did In Treatment together, the third season. That's actually where we met Adam. Adam wrote a great series of sessions for the wonderful actor Irrfan Khan, who unfortunately died not that long ago. And we're writing something now that's not an adaptation. It's been really freeing and wonderful to do. Each project brings with it different challenges. We had a very, very good experience on The Looming Tower. Adam and I both worked on that. Lawrence Wright was kind of in and out of the writer's room, and he is just an incredible font of information. Even though the book is quite long and packed with information, he just had more to give and contacts with all of these people CIA, FBI, State Department...that was incredible to be able to tap into.
If people have very strong ideas of where they want something to go, you just have to work as a writer within those constraints and try to find your creativity. And so trying to absorb that, run it through your process and your creativity, and put something out that feels true can be challenging.
On the novel, American Rust
Philipp Meyer wrote a very, very beautiful book and it was the reason that made me want to do it. Jeff gave me the book. He'd been having trouble getting it made, getting a script that he liked. And he said to me, "Will you read this and just remind me what I love about it? And if you feel that way?" And I read it very quickly and felt that it was terrific. And there were a lot of possibilities in making it. So just kudos to Philipp Meyer. He wrote a beautiful novel. And if anybody's listening is looking for a great novel to read, there's that and there's Adam Rapp's novel Wolf at the Table.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
A lot of your work examines violence in American society. What are your reflections on the ways AI, social media or our addiction to screens may be accelerating this? As you think about the future and the importance of the arts, what would you like young people to know, preserve and remember?
RAPP
Right now, live theater is probably much different than looking at a screen. It's much different than looking at your computer or your Game Boy or whatever. I see grown men on the subway playing video games on their phones. And we're not even looking at each other on the subways anymore. We're like deep in our in a screen. And I wonder what that's done. And so I think theater actually has a powerful ability to rewire us to the human experience. And maybe because of it, maybe we can find more empathy or more capacity toward kindness.
This interview was conducted by Mia Funk with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producers on this episode were Sophie Garnier and Donna Sanders. The Creative Process is produced by Mia Funk. Additional production support by Katie Foster.
Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).
Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
How can intimate scenes be brought to the screen in ways that respect the emotional well-being and privacy of the artists themselves? How do we make sure that we can create a story about abuse without anyone being abused in the process?
Ita O’Brien is the UK’s leading Intimacy Coordinator, founder of Intimacy on Set (and author of the Intimacy On Set Guidelines). Her company, set up in 2018 provides services to TV, film, and theatre when dealing with intimacy, and is a SAG-Aftra accredited training provider of Intimacy Practitioners. Intimacy on Set has supported numerous high-profile film and TV productions including Normal People & Conversations With Friends (BBC3/Hulu), Sex Education 1&2 (Netflix), I May Destroy You (BBC/HBO), It’s A Sin (Channel 4), (Neal Street Prods / Searchlight Pictures).
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
Tell us about your journey to becoming an intimacy coordinator. Because when you started that role didn't even exist.
ITA O'BRIEN
It's been a very organic journey and one that still surprises me and I feel I'm so grateful for the journey that life has taken me on and subsequently the creation of this work. I was a dancer, and then a musical theatre performer, professionally trained as an actor, and then did the MA in Movement Studies at Central, and worked as a movement teacher and a movement director. During that time I was exploring my own theatre work, and put on my own play called April's Fool, and then was looking at taking that work further and exploring the dynamic of the perpetrator and the victim.
So early 2017, I took the work to (British trade union) Equity. And then, in October 2017, the Weinstein allegations happened, and the industry said we have to do better in the creation of the codes of conduct in that environment. The industry was ready just to listen. And I was there saying within your intention to work with best practice, this is how we work with intimate content. By then, I'd written it into the structure of the Intimacy on Set Guidelines. Then, in 2018, Gentlemen Jack, Sex Education, and Watchmen were the first three productions that I worked on as an intimacy practitioner.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
You've compared it to being a stunt coordinator. But for performers of emotional and intimate content, the injury that can happen can be emotional and psychological.
O'BRIEN
The awareness in the industry, with acknowledging the injury from all those who came forward around the Weinstein allegations is the injury of when someone's coerced into doing something or that their career being threatened is emotional, psychological injury. It's really clear if you've got a stunt and someone's going to be jumping from roof to roof, they might fall down the cracks and break an ankle. Of course, the producers need to mitigate that risk and put in place everything so that the risk that you can perceive might happen is mitigated.
For years, people spoke about how awkward or embarrassing it was to perform the intimate content. And what they're speaking about is feeling horrible. If something's awkward, that squirm, that ring in the body, it feels embarrassing. That's actually an emotion that is not professional. That is not allowing the actor to stay feeling listened to, heard, empowered, autonomous. And so that they can just get on without any of those concerns and do their job to their best ability. And that's the awareness that we brought. So, we're saying, it is not suitable in our workplace for anybody to feel harassed or abused.
On the Making of Sex Education
I felt so grateful to be working on content that had the question of consent and open conversation at its core, particularly on the show Sex Education, from my very first conversation with Ben Taylor and Jon Jennings. It's a young cast exploring in-depth, intimate content, and they're saying, we know that we need to be able to really support our young cast. They came to me, and then I shared how we could journey through that. So there was a real awareness of intention to take care, understanding of the challenges of working with such exposing intimate scenes.
Love, Privacy & Intimate Storytelling
My realization is that in our existence as human beings, who we love and how we love them is a pinnacle, isn't it? Who we love. We're all seeking that and finding a partner, and then our expression with that loved one is, is the most beautiful part of who we are as human beings. That is a private act, and it should be private and stay private.
Chronicling the HIV/AIDS Crisis Through It's a Sin
That production was really close to my heart because I was a musical theater dancer in the eighties and so that whole storytelling was something that I personally had lived through and really understood. You know, I was that kid at the Pineapple Dance Studios. And gradually, as friends around me sort of began to become unwell, and actually, one of the first people that I knew who died from HIV was my singing teacher at the time, a guy called Chris Edwards. He was the first person that contracted HIV that I knew, and he died within 18 months. So Russell T. Davies. Peter Hoar, the amazing director, and myself were of the generation who had lived through this, but for the young cast it was something that was about history, so that work of really exploring it was important. And also then, there was a cast member for whom the experience of HIV was a lived experience. I worked with two fantastic intimacy practitioners who were both under mentorship at that point in time, Elle McAlpine and David Thackeray.
Working with Michaela Coel on I May Destroy You
That was such a privilege and a joy to work with Michaela Coel, just to be witness and to support her amazing creative process as a writer, as it being part of her life story, as executive producer, as co director, and then finally as actor. Those kinds of storytellings are really important in that they're told with full-on emotional content that has been intended. We don't want to have to pull back from really showing the ugly side of our humanity if there are really challenging, intimate scenes. How do we make sure, as Michaela said, that we can create a story about abuse without anybody being abused in the process?
Navigating Intimate Storytelling through All Life’s Stages
Menopause. How do we deal with that? Of course, while menopause might seem that it only affects the person who's going through it, it affects everybody in a family. It affects your partner. It affects your children. They need to know what's going on in the body. If you haven't had conversations about the menopause, it's full on. And then intimacy and into our older years, it is right and proper that we stay intimate and loving, and then the question of how we possibly might grow into our older years in our sexuality, I would want to lift the lid off all of that for us to create that content out in the world.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
As you think about the future, the importance of the arts, education, and how we cultivate our emotional intelligence, what would you like young people to know, preserve and remember?
O’BRIEN
For our art, for our storytelling, what the actor brings to it should be really respected. And the skill and the art of our artists, of our actors, directors, writers – what each individual brings to each part of the creative process. As human beings, that's what we need to stay honoring and respecting and knowing that there can be a place for AI, but we should never take out the human being from the whole process.
For our art, for our storytelling, what the actor brings to it should be really respected. And the skill and the art of our artists, of our actors, directors, writers – what each individual brings to each part of the creative process. As human beings, that's what we need to stay honoring and respecting and knowing that there can be a place for AI, but we should never take out the human being from the whole process.
Brian Bates, who has explored how actors are the modern-day shamans, writes, "The way of the actor is not an esoteric discipline divorced from everyday life. It is everyday life heightened and lived to the full with an awareness of powers beyond understanding." That's what an actor should be mining into when they explore a character and bringing an awareness of ourselves as humanity.
This interview was conducted by Mia Funk with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producers on this episode were Sam Myers and Halia Reingold. The Creative Process is produced by Mia Funk. Additional production support by Sophie Garnier.
Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).
Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
How can intimate scenes be brought to the screen in ways that respect the emotional well-being and privacy of the artists themselves? How do we make sure that we can create a story about abuse without anyone being abused in the process?
Ita O’Brien is the UK’s leading Intimacy Coordinator, founder of Intimacy on Set (and author of the Intimacy On Set Guidelines). Her company, set up in 2018 provides services to TV, film, and theatre when dealing with intimacy, and is a SAG-Aftra accredited training provider of Intimacy Practitioners. Intimacy on Set has supported numerous high-profile film and TV productions including Normal People & Conversations With Friends (BBC3/Hulu), Sex Education 1&2 (Netflix), I May Destroy You (BBC/HBO), It’s A Sin (Channel 4), (Neal Street Prods / Searchlight Pictures).
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
Tell us about your journey to becoming an intimacy coordinator. Because when you started that role didn't even exist.
ITA O'BRIEN
It's been a very organic journey and one that still surprises me and I feel I'm so grateful for the journey that life has taken me on and subsequently the creation of this work. I was a dancer, and then a musical theatre performer, professionally trained as an actor, and then did the MA in Movement Studies at Central, and worked as a movement teacher and a movement director. During that time I was exploring my own theatre work, and put on my own play called April's Fool, and then was looking at taking that work further and exploring the dynamic of the perpetrator and the victim.
So early 2017, I took the work to (British trade union) Equity. And then, in October 2017, the Weinstein allegations happened, and the industry said we have to do better in the creation of the codes of conduct in that environment. The industry was ready just to listen. And I was there saying within your intention to work with best practice, this is how we work with intimate content. By then, I'd written it into the structure of the Intimacy on Set Guidelines. Then, in 2018, Gentlemen Jack, Sex Education, and Watchmen were the first three productions that I worked on as an intimacy practitioner.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
You've compared it to being a stunt coordinator. But for performers of emotional and intimate content, the injury that can happen can be emotional and psychological.
O'BRIEN
The awareness in the industry, with acknowledging the injury from all those who came forward around the Weinstein allegations is the injury of when someone's coerced into doing something or that their career being threatened is emotional, psychological injury. It's really clear if you've got a stunt and someone's going to be jumping from roof to roof, they might fall down the cracks and break an ankle. Of course, the producers need to mitigate that risk and put in place everything so that the risk that you can perceive might happen is mitigated.
For years, people spoke about how awkward or embarrassing it was to perform the intimate content. And what they're speaking about is feeling horrible. If something's awkward, that squirm, that ring in the body, it feels embarrassing. That's actually an emotion that is not professional. That is not allowing the actor to stay feeling listened to, heard, empowered, autonomous. And so that they can just get on without any of those concerns and do their job to their best ability. And that's the awareness that we brought. So, we're saying, it is not suitable in our workplace for anybody to feel harassed or abused.
On the Making of Sex Education
I felt so grateful to be working on content that had the question of consent and open conversation at its core, particularly on the show Sex Education, from my very first conversation with Ben Taylor and Jon Jennings. It's a young cast exploring in-depth, intimate content, and they're saying, we know that we need to be able to really support our young cast. They came to me, and then I shared how we could journey through that. So there was a real awareness of intention to take care, understanding of the challenges of working with such exposing intimate scenes.
Love, Privacy & Intimate Storytelling
My realization is that in our existence as human beings, who we love and how we love them is a pinnacle, isn't it? Who we love. We're all seeking that and finding a partner, and then our expression with that loved one is, is the most beautiful part of who we are as human beings. That is a private act, and it should be private and stay private.
Chronicling the HIV/AIDS Crisis Through It's a Sin
That production was really close to my heart because I was a musical theater dancer in the eighties and so that whole storytelling was something that I personally had lived through and really understood. You know, I was that kid at the Pineapple Dance Studios. And gradually, as friends around me sort of began to become unwell, and actually, one of the first people that I knew who died from HIV was my singing teacher at the time, a guy called Chris Edwards. He was the first person that contracted HIV that I knew, and he died within 18 months. So Russell T. Davies. Peter Hoar, the amazing director, and myself were of the generation who had lived through this, but for the young cast it was something that was about history, so that work of really exploring it was important. And also then, there was a cast member for whom the experience of HIV was a lived experience. I worked with two fantastic intimacy practitioners who were both under mentorship at that point in time, Elle McAlpine and David Thackeray.
Working with Michaela Coel on I May Destroy You
That was such a privilege and a joy to work with Michaela Coel, just to be witness and to support her amazing creative process as a writer, as it being part of her life story, as executive producer, as co director, and then finally as actor. Those kinds of storytellings are really important in that they're told with full-on emotional content that has been intended. We don't want to have to pull back from really showing the ugly side of our humanity if there are really challenging, intimate scenes. How do we make sure, as Michaela said, that we can create a story about abuse without anybody being abused in the process?
Navigating Intimate Storytelling through All Life’s Stages
Menopause. How do we deal with that? Of course, while menopause might seem that it only affects the person who's going through it, it affects everybody in a family. It affects your partner. It affects your children. They need to know what's going on in the body. If you haven't had conversations about the menopause, it's full on. And then intimacy and into our older years, it is right and proper that we stay intimate and loving, and then the question of how we possibly might grow into our older years in our sexuality, I would want to lift the lid off all of that for us to create that content out in the world.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
As you think about the future, the importance of the arts, education, and how we cultivate our emotional intelligence, what would you like young people to know, preserve and remember?
O’BRIEN
For our art, for our storytelling, what the actor brings to it should be really respected. And the skill and the art of our artists, of our actors, directors, writers – what each individual brings to each part of the creative process. As human beings, that's what we need to stay honoring and respecting and knowing that there can be a place for AI, but we should never take out the human being from the whole process.
For our art, for our storytelling, what the actor brings to it should be really respected. And the skill and the art of our artists, of our actors, directors, writers – what each individual brings to each part of the creative process. As human beings, that's what we need to stay honoring and respecting and knowing that there can be a place for AI, but we should never take out the human being from the whole process.
Brian Bates, who has explored how actors are the modern-day shamans, writes, "The way of the actor is not an esoteric discipline divorced from everyday life. It is everyday life heightened and lived to the full with an awareness of powers beyond understanding." That's what an actor should be mining into when they explore a character and bringing an awareness of ourselves as humanity.
This interview was conducted by Mia Funk with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producers on this episode were Sam Myers and Halia Reingold. The Creative Process is produced by Mia Funk. Additional production support by Sophie Garnier.
Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).
Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
How can the arts help us examine and engage with social issues? How do our families shape our views, memories, and experience of the world?
From her role as Dr. Lisa Cuddy on the hit Fox series House M.D, to her starring role as Abby McCarthy in Bravo's first scripted series Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce, Lisa Edelstein's range of roles are as diverse talent. Some of Edelstein's feature credits include Keeping the Faith, What Women Want, Daddy Daycare, As Good as It Gets, and Fathers and Sons. She played a Holocaust survivor and adopted mother in the drama television series Little Bird. The story centres on a First Nations woman who was adopted into a Jewish family during the Sixties Scoop, as she attempts to reconnect with her birth family and heritage.
Lisa’s career began by writing, composing, and performing an original AIDS awareness musical Positive Me at the renowned La Mama Experimental Theater Club in New York City. In the wake of COVID, Lisa began to paint using old family photographs as starting points. Her incredibly detailed paintings capture intimate relationships and spontaneous moments with honesty and compassion.
LISA EDELSTEIN
I have always thrown myself into everything, and that includes terrible things, because I want to have the whole experience. Even if I know it's going to hurt for better or for worse, that has been how I've lived my life. And so it's given me a lot of information and allowed me to play a lot of different roles and understand a lot of different points of view.
I'm the kind of person who – I don't do well in lectures - I don't like sitting for a very long time, but if I can listen while I'm drawing or painting, then I will actually retain more of what I'm hearing because it's connected now to what I've actually made while I'm listening to it. When I look at my paintings, I remember what I was reading at each section of the painting, so that's the way my brain works. And I think a lot of people who are creative, that's the way their brain works, where we need to develop one skill in order to develop another. And using your imagination is key to all of it.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
In watching your acting, you have this air of sensitivity and vulnerability, and then, in a split second, you can become very piercing and strong. And this duality is really interesting to watch because it makes you unpredictable. And then, looking at your paintings, they also have this duality where you may be depicting your family and their everyday candid moments, and we sense their private lives, and you set up these enigmatic stories that make us want to know more.
EDELSTEIN
In the paintings, the imagery that I'm looking for are images that don't feel posed or, even if they were intended to be posed, there are things in there that weren't necessarily meant for public display. So I am really interested in telling secrets in that way. You know, I've always made things made objects, but always very privately. And being married to an artist, I started to realize, and he started to really encourage me that that expression not be just kept in a drawer. And during the lockdown, when there was nothing else to do, I had all this time to really explore and give myself permission to see that part of my life as something that should be valued and exercised.
Character Evolution: Growing with a Role
House was very well written. Since Hugh Laurie was the star of the show, they'd frequently shoot his coverage first, and then they would reverse, and I could do my coverage. I think part of the beauty of being in a long-running television show is that, in season one, you're playing the role they wrote. By season two, they're writing the person you're playing. You start to build your voice, and they start to merge, and so by the time you get to season three, you're much more like full human beings having this dialogue.
The Journey of 'Little Bird' and Representation of Trauma
The Canadian Indian Residential School system was a network of boarding schools for Indigenous peoples funded by the Canadian government's Department of Indian Affairs and administered by Christian churches. Over 150,000 Indigenous children were forcibly taken from their homes and placed in residential schools nationally. From the 1960s until the 90s, the Canadian government was trying to resolve the problem that the residential schools, run by the Catholic Church, were based on the idea that said: you save the child and kill the Indian. So they removed thousands of Indigenous children from their homes and families and erased their culture so they could become "regular normal people" in the world.
I was so excited to be offered that role in Little Bird. They sent me the scripts, and I read them, and I wept so much just reading those scripts because the story is so profoundly sad. And I was really very honored to be playing a Jewish Holocaust survivor caught up in a very difficult story. I was also honored to be on set and a good part of the time that I was there. We were on Indian reservations, having a cultural sharing time, listening to their stories, and really just being a witness to what they experienced. So a lot of that was very profound for me working on that project, and being able to tell the story that my character owned was, of course, really personal to me just being Jewish. A lot of times, being Jewish, we don't necessarily get to play Jewish. So it was really important to me that I honor that story the best that I could.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
You’re always taking on challenging roles and, from the beginning, you’ve used your art to expand awareness of social issues.
EDELSTEIN
When I did my show Positive Me, we were in the middle of a horrible crisis. The AIDS crisis was very real to me and my friends and not real to the people that I knew from New Jersey. They thought it was government hype. They didn't believe in it. And so I couldn't even fathom that. And I had taken a class with Elizabeth Swados about writing satire, and she was very encouraging in terms of what I was doing. And so maybe it was just gumption. I just thought, Okay, then this is what I'm going to do!
I had the first ever lesbian makeout scene on network television on a short-lived show called Relativity. That was another role where I felt really honored to be asked to do that, having been in and around the gay community my whole adult life. In the club scene, it was like all my friends were gay. So I was really happy to represent doing that.
Mrs. Abo’s Class by Lisa Edelstein · Courtesy of the Artist
The Importance of Arts and Education
My favorite teacher was in second grade. I had a teacher named Mrs. Abo who let me write all my homework assignments in rhyme. And it was like such a simple thing. I asked her if I could write all my homework assignments in rhyme. And she said, "Absolutely!" And she gave me permission to be wildly creative while still doing my work. And little moments like that can really change a kid's life. And I lobbied with this group called the Creative Coalition. We went and lobbied in DC to really fight for the arts being added to the STEM programs to make them STEAM programs because they're so interconnected. It's creative imagination that got us to the moon. It's science fiction stories that are getting us to Mars. It's like that. You know, playing the piano helps you in math. It's all part of the beautiful development of the brain, and it helps so much for learning other things.
Photo credit: Mitch Stone · Courtesy of the artist
This interview was conducted by Mia Funk and Aaron Bennett with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producers on this episode were Sophie Garnier and Aaron Bennett.
The Creative Process is produced by Mia Funk. Additional production support by Katie Foster. Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).
Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
How can the arts help us examine and engage with social issues? How do our families shape our views, memories, and experience of the world?
From her role as Dr. Lisa Cuddy on the hit Fox series House M.D, to her starring role as Abby McCarthy in Bravo's first scripted series Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce, Lisa Edelstein's range of roles are as diverse talent. Some of Edelstein's feature credits include Keeping the Faith, What Women Want, Daddy Daycare, As Good as It Gets, and Fathers and Sons. She played a Holocaust survivor and adopted mother in the drama television series Little Bird. The story centres on a First Nations woman who was adopted into a Jewish family during the Sixties Scoop, as she attempts to reconnect with her birth family and heritage.
Lisa’s career began by writing, composing, and performing an original AIDS awareness musical Positive Me at the renowned La Mama Experimental Theater Club in New York City. In the wake of COVID, Lisa began to paint using old family photographs as starting points. Her incredibly detailed paintings capture intimate relationships and spontaneous moments with honesty and compassion.
LISA EDELSTEIN
I have always thrown myself into everything, and that includes terrible things, because I want to have the whole experience. Even if I know it's going to hurt for better or for worse, that has been how I've lived my life. And so it's given me a lot of information and allowed me to play a lot of different roles and understand a lot of different points of view.
I'm the kind of person who – I don't do well in lectures - I don't like sitting for a very long time, but if I can listen while I'm drawing or painting, then I will actually retain more of what I'm hearing because it's connected now to what I've actually made while I'm listening to it. When I look at my paintings, I remember what I was reading at each section of the painting, so that's the way my brain works. And I think a lot of people who are creative, that's the way their brain works, where we need to develop one skill in order to develop another. And using your imagination is key to all of it.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
In watching your acting, you have this air of sensitivity and vulnerability, and then, in a split second, you can become very piercing and strong. And this duality is really interesting to watch because it makes you unpredictable. And then, looking at your paintings, they also have this duality where you may be depicting your family and their everyday candid moments, and we sense their private lives, and you set up these enigmatic stories that make us want to know more.
EDELSTEIN
In the paintings, the imagery that I'm looking for are images that don't feel posed or, even if they were intended to be posed, there are things in there that weren't necessarily meant for public display. So I am really interested in telling secrets in that way. You know, I've always made things made objects, but always very privately. And being married to an artist, I started to realize, and he started to really encourage me that that expression not be just kept in a drawer. And during the lockdown, when there was nothing else to do, I had all this time to really explore and give myself permission to see that part of my life as something that should be valued and exercised.
Character Evolution: Growing with a Role
House was very well written. Since Hugh Laurie was the star of the show, they'd frequently shoot his coverage first, and then they would reverse, and I could do my coverage. I think part of the beauty of being in a long-running television show is that, in season one, you're playing the role they wrote. By season two, they're writing the person you're playing. You start to build your voice, and they start to merge, and so by the time you get to season three, you're much more like full human beings having this dialogue.
The Journey of 'Little Bird' and Representation of Trauma
The Canadian Indian Residential School system was a network of boarding schools for Indigenous peoples funded by the Canadian government's Department of Indian Affairs and administered by Christian churches. Over 150,000 Indigenous children were forcibly taken from their homes and placed in residential schools nationally. From the 1960s until the 90s, the Canadian government was trying to resolve the problem that the residential schools, run by the Catholic Church, were based on the idea that said: you save the child and kill the Indian. So they removed thousands of Indigenous children from their homes and families and erased their culture so they could become "regular normal people" in the world.
I was so excited to be offered that role in Little Bird. They sent me the scripts, and I read them, and I wept so much just reading those scripts because the story is so profoundly sad. And I was really very honored to be playing a Jewish Holocaust survivor caught up in a very difficult story. I was also honored to be on set and a good part of the time that I was there. We were on Indian reservations, having a cultural sharing time, listening to their stories, and really just being a witness to what they experienced. So a lot of that was very profound for me working on that project, and being able to tell the story that my character owned was, of course, really personal to me just being Jewish. A lot of times, being Jewish, we don't necessarily get to play Jewish. So it was really important to me that I honor that story the best that I could.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
You’re always taking on challenging roles and, from the beginning, you’ve used your art to expand awareness of social issues.
EDELSTEIN
When I did my show Positive Me, we were in the middle of a horrible crisis. The AIDS crisis was very real to me and my friends and not real to the people that I knew from New Jersey. They thought it was government hype. They didn't believe in it. And so I couldn't even fathom that. And I had taken a class with Elizabeth Swados about writing satire, and she was very encouraging in terms of what I was doing. And so maybe it was just gumption. I just thought, Okay, then this is what I'm going to do!
I had the first ever lesbian makeout scene on network television on a short-lived show called Relativity. That was another role where I felt really honored to be asked to do that, having been in and around the gay community my whole adult life. In the club scene, it was like all my friends were gay. So I was really happy to represent doing that.
Mrs. Abo’s Class by Lisa Edelstein · Courtesy of the Artist
The Importance of Arts and Education
My favorite teacher was in second grade. I had a teacher named Mrs. Abo who let me write all my homework assignments in rhyme. And it was like such a simple thing. I asked her if I could write all my homework assignments in rhyme. And she said, "Absolutely!" And she gave me permission to be wildly creative while still doing my work. And little moments like that can really change a kid's life. And I lobbied with this group called the Creative Coalition. We went and lobbied in DC to really fight for the arts being added to the STEM programs to make them STEAM programs because they're so interconnected. It's creative imagination that got us to the moon. It's science fiction stories that are getting us to Mars. It's like that. You know, playing the piano helps you in math. It's all part of the beautiful development of the brain, and it helps so much for learning other things.
Photo credit: Mitch Stone · Courtesy of the artist
This interview was conducted by Mia Funk and Aaron Bennett with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producers on this episode were Sophie Garnier and Aaron Bennett.
The Creative Process is produced by Mia Funk. Additional production support by Katie Foster. Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).
Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
What are we willing to give up to find meaning, connection, and a sense of belonging? What happens if we don't self-promote, self-create, and self-brand on social media? Will we find the right partner? Will we get into the right college? Or find the best job?
Tara Isabella Burton is the author of the novels Social Creature, The World Cannot Give, and Here in Avalon, as well as the nonfiction books Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World and Self-Made: Curating Our Image from Da Vinci to the Kardashians. She is currently working on a history of magic and modernity, to be published by Convergent in late 2025. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The New York Times, National Geographic, Granta, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and other publications.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
In Strange Rites, you explore remixed religious movements, some of which I didn't even consider to be spiritual movements – CrossFit, polyamory, SoulCycle, the social justice movement, or Harry Potter fandom. The book opened my eyes to what was going on in different subcultures.
TARA ISABELLA BURTON
I wanted to both look at the kind of vast, rich tapestry of spiritually adjacent practices among millennials and younger people, particularly in the unaffiliated world, but more broadly, what is the underlying ideology underpinning it all? This idea that religion is something for us because the goal of religion is to make us live our best lives, and it doesn't matter, which is the sort of shadow side of this, if it's true or not. If it's real or not. What matters is if it "works for you."
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
How do you think contemporary digital platforms have amplified or altered the dandyism and the theology of self-creation that you explored in your doctoral research?
BURTON
So this idea that we can present ourselves as works of art, that we can create ourselves has always had a particular sort of aristocratic coding, historically associated with monarchs, who create their public image and their public persona, including through fashion. Today, if we don't self-promote, self-create, and self-brand, will we find the right partner? Get into the right college? Even secure the best job?
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
What is your take on archetypes and different practices or hidden forms of knowledge?
BURTON
I think that we always try to find ways of defining ourselves against culture, archetypes, and narratives. And one of the things that interests me most is the process of trying to figure out what story we're in, to try to figure out who we are relative to stories. I don't think we are reducible to archetypes exactly, but I think that constant trying on the different hats, metaphorically speaking, and saying: Am I this? or Am I that? Am I a vamp? Or am I an ingenue? I would say that probably, as a woman, I am very, very aware of it. I think there is actually some kind of self-knowledge that is linked to knowing something true about ourselves.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
As you think about the future, education, the importance of living an examined life, and finding our spiritual path, what would you like young people to know, preserve, and remember?
BURTON
So everyone should probably throw their smartphones in a river, myself included. And I think that it is hard. There's never going to be a version where you get the right answer, and suddenly your life falls into place, and everything's perfect. And that's not what it's supposed to be for anyway. And I think there is a tendency in self-care circles that once we solve our demons and figure out our path in life, we are in touch with the vibes of the universe. Like suddenly, we're going to be wealthy and healthy and happy and have the perfect marriage. And I think the questions of philosophical inquiry are about how to live a good life, but that's not the same thing as assuming, as so much of contemporary wellness culture assumes, that a normatively successful life will come to us by virtue of doing the right things.
This interview was conducted by Mia Funk and Socorro Erekani Carrillo-Lopez with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producers on this episode were Sam Myers and Socorro Erekani Carrillo-Lopez. The Creative Process is produced by Mia Funk. Additional production support by Sophie Garnier.
Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions). Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
What are we willing to give up to find meaning, connection, and a sense of belonging? What happens if we don't self-promote, self-create, and self-brand on social media? Will we find the right partner? Will we get into the right college? Or find the best job?
Tara Isabella Burton is the author of the novels Social Creature, The World Cannot Give, and Here in Avalon, as well as the nonfiction books Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World and Self-Made: Curating Our Image from Da Vinci to the Kardashians. She is currently working on a history of magic and modernity, to be published by Convergent in late 2025. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The New York Times, National Geographic, Granta, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and other publications.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
In Strange Rites, you explore remixed religious movements, some of which I didn't even consider to be spiritual movements – CrossFit, polyamory, SoulCycle, the social justice movement, or Harry Potter fandom. The book opened my eyes to what was going on in different subcultures.
TARA ISABELLA BURTON
I wanted to both look at the kind of vast, rich tapestry of spiritually adjacent practices among millennials and younger people, particularly in the unaffiliated world, but more broadly, what is the underlying ideology underpinning it all? This idea that religion is something for us because the goal of religion is to make us live our best lives, and it doesn't matter, which is the sort of shadow side of this, if it's true or not. If it's real or not. What matters is if it "works for you."
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
How do you think contemporary digital platforms have amplified or altered the dandyism and the theology of self-creation that you explored in your doctoral research?
BURTON
So this idea that we can present ourselves as works of art, that we can create ourselves has always had a particular sort of aristocratic coding, historically associated with monarchs, who create their public image and their public persona, including through fashion. Today, if we don't self-promote, self-create, and self-brand, will we find the right partner? Get into the right college? Even secure the best job?
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
What is your take on archetypes and different practices or hidden forms of knowledge?
BURTON
I think that we always try to find ways of defining ourselves against culture, archetypes, and narratives. And one of the things that interests me most is the process of trying to figure out what story we're in, to try to figure out who we are relative to stories. I don't think we are reducible to archetypes exactly, but I think that constant trying on the different hats, metaphorically speaking, and saying: Am I this? or Am I that? Am I a vamp? Or am I an ingenue? I would say that probably, as a woman, I am very, very aware of it. I think there is actually some kind of self-knowledge that is linked to knowing something true about ourselves.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
As you think about the future, education, the importance of living an examined life, and finding our spiritual path, what would you like young people to know, preserve, and remember?
BURTON
So everyone should probably throw their smartphones in a river, myself included. And I think that it is hard. There's never going to be a version where you get the right answer, and suddenly your life falls into place, and everything's perfect. And that's not what it's supposed to be for anyway. And I think there is a tendency in self-care circles that once we solve our demons and figure out our path in life, we are in touch with the vibes of the universe. Like suddenly, we're going to be wealthy and healthy and happy and have the perfect marriage. And I think the questions of philosophical inquiry are about how to live a good life, but that's not the same thing as assuming, as so much of contemporary wellness culture assumes, that a normatively successful life will come to us by virtue of doing the right things.
This interview was conducted by Mia Funk and Socorro Erekani Carrillo-Lopez with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producers on this episode were Sam Myers and Socorro Erekani Carrillo-Lopez. The Creative Process is produced by Mia Funk. Additional production support by Sophie Garnier.
Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions). Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
What does learning another language and living in another culture do for your humanity and creative process?
Alan Poul is an Emmy, Golden Globe, DGA, and Peabody Award-winning producer and director of film and television. He is Executive Producer and Director on the Max Original drama series Tokyo Vice, written by Tony Award-winning playwright J.T. Rogers and starring Ansel Elgort as an American journalist in Japan and his police detective mentor played by Ken Watanabe, Poul is perhaps best known for producing all five seasons of HBO's Six Feet Under, all four of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City miniseries, My So-Called Life, The Newsroom, Swingtown, and The Eddy, which he developed with director Damien Chazelle. His feature film producing credits include Paul Schrader's Mishima and Light of Day, and Ridley Scott's Black Rain.
He has directed multiple episodes of HBO’s Rome and Big Love, Showtime’s The Big C, Netflix’s Grace and Frankie, and the pilots for TNT’s Perception and ABC’s GCB. He currently serves an an Envoy for the U.S. Department of State’s American Film Showcase program, and as a Tourism Ambassador for the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. He is a member of the board of directors of Film Independent and Playwrights Horizons, and of the Directors Guild of America's LGBTQ+ Representative Committee.
ALAN POUL
I think all great work comes from the need to say something. And so this is the challenge for young artists and also maybe one of the essential elements that can never be completely taken over by AI because there has to be something you feel has not been said, and you feel an urgent need to say it. In fact, you can't not say it. That need to express is what gives birth to unique expression, which is where all of our visual, performance, and creative arts come from.
I was fortunate to be able to be out in Hollywood in the 90s and to be able to work early on seminal LGBT-presenting shows like Tales of the City series, and Six Feet Under with Alan Ball. When it comes to Tokyo Vice, I did push hard for there to be a queer storyline because in the late 90s, in Japan, there was a huge thriving gay subculture. But it wasn't on the table to come out because your sexual orientation was considered irrelevant to your obligations to society.
Career in Theater, Film & Television
I was always a film and theater kid. I just was completely starstruck and only wanted to have some kind of contact with showbiz. I didn't really understand in what creative shape that would take. It was when I was trying to work in theater. Stephen Sondheim was a close friend and advisor for the period. I was trying to work in theater, and he really changed how I think about art. And then before I went to do Mishima, I spent 3 years working with Robert Wilson, the great international stage director. Bob is a complete genius, and I adore him. Just being an apprentice to him and being one of his many producers working on his big international projects was a hugely formative and nurturing experience. And then finally Schrader [was an important mentor] because Schrader just sort of said, "Here, you're going to work in movies. Come with me."
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
For those who haven’t seen Tokyo Vice, lay the groundwork for us as to what was established in season one and how that leads into season two.
POUL
Season one of Tokyo Vice is based on a memoir by Jake Adelstein, who is obviously a real person who still lives in Tokyo and who went to Japan in the 90s and actually graduated from a Japanese university, became fluent and very eloquent in not just spoken, but also written Japanese, and was the first non-Japanese person ever to pass the highly competitive entrance exam for the Yomiuri Shimbun, which is the biggest of the big daily newspapers in Japan. So he did something truly unprecedented, and he was put on the crime beat and worked as a crime reporter for this newspaper. He was chasing stories and publishing stories in Japanese, but obviously, in order to do that, Jake had to have a certain intrepid nature. He also kind of relished the bull in the china shop aspect of his job, and I think we showed this pretty well in the show, the kind of weird intersected relationships between journalism and the police and the world of organized crime, the Yakuza. It meant that for many Japanese journalists, their hands were often tied. There were many reasons why they couldn't break stories about the Yakuza that might put the newspaper, themselves, their families, their other relationships, or sources in danger. And Jake, not being beholden to Japanese society as a whole, was able to break some of those strictures.
I think that from [creator, writer, showrunner] J. T. Rogers's point of view, he loves all of these characters. Even our biggest villain—I would say is the person Tozawa—who we love to hate, but even a character like Ishida, who is the head of a crime family and who has been responsible for untold deaths of people, we always want to get them and see what worries them, what concerns them and see to what extent we can generate empathy on the part of the viewer.
And I think that for J.T. and for us as filmmakers, it's always about putting the character in the context of what they're up against. This is the way season one was structured, but even more so in season two. We're putting each of our main characters in a situation in which they face both an existential crisis, meaning I could get killed for this. Or, on a lesser level, I could get fired for this, and then also create a moral crisis where—especially in season two—every one of our lead characters has to make a questionable moral choice, has to do something that they themselves know is wrong, but in the service of accomplishing a goal that they hope has a larger purpose to it. And so they all, everybody goes a little bit to the dark side. Everybody, even Katagiri, Ken Watanabe's character, our most morally upstanding character in season one is put into a situation in which later in the season, he has to make some morally questionable choices.
Scoring Music for Television
My most formative TV experience having been Six Feet Under, I tend to want to take a rather conservative approach to score, in that if a scene works brilliantly without music, why do you need music? And that score, especially, is usually there to provide an element that you're not getting fully from the dry–when there's no score, we call it dry. So with the dry footage, that was always our philosophy on Six Feet Under: if the scene works just as well without music, we don't need music. And that just runs a little counter to what was, and kind of still is, the prevailing philosophy on television, which is that everything needs music. Like, people won't know what to feel if you don't score it, which I think is a really very insulting underestimation of the intelligence of the audience.
And so there's always pressure to put more music in, and our feeling is, no, if we don't need it, we don't need it. Now, that changes, like when we get to Tokyo Vice because of the genre elements of the show. You know, if you have an action sequence, you need music. If you have a really tense, suspenseful moment, it probably needs music.
So we have brilliant composers, Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans who are really there to help sculpt and shape the drama. But the same way, even though I think Tokyo Vice has more minutes of score per episode than anything I've ever worked on when we get to the final mix. The real final trial for every episode of television is when you do the playback of the sound mix because the picture has already been locked before. You've done all of the rerecording of dialogue. You've done all the color correction. You've put in the VFX, and then you sit there on a soundstage, and you watch it played back. And that's when, for the first time, you know what you have. It's an episode of television. And with myself and J.T., one of the things that we do in playback that is most important to the show is we take music out. Because when you're watching individually, you'll say, this scene needs music, this scene needs music. And when you're watching it, if you suddenly feel that you're just being bombarded by music all the time, it takes you away from your intimacy with the characters. And so, every time we'll watch a play, we'll go through, and we'll say–Okay, this scene, it works better without the music. This scene works better. It's like the music gilding the lily. So we go through, and we take cues out. And I think that always makes the episodes stronger.
The Impact of AI on the Creative Process
There will come a time when AI will have consumed and devoured all the works of all the great filmmakers. And you'll be able to say, I want you to cut this scene as if it was in an Antonioni film. Or I want you to cut this scene as if it was in a Sam Peckinpah film. And it will do the work of the edit. So the finishing touches will probably always be human, but the amount of creative work that's going to be able to be offloaded to AI is something that we don't fully comprehend yet.
The Importance of Mentorship and Personal Aesthetic
I feel like I'm always telling young people, I know you want to make your own films, and I know you think you know everything. And that's one way to do it is to take an iPhone and just make a terrible first feature and then learn as you go. But I'm such a believer in mentorship. And when you have the time when you're young, find people that you admire and put yourselves in their orbit and just absorb and it will serve you so well later in life.
This interview was conducted by Mia Funk with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producers on this episode were Sophie Garnier and Nadia Lam. The Creative Process is produced by Mia Funk. Additional production support by Katie Foster.
Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).
What does learning another language and living in another culture do for your humanity and creative process?
Alan Poul is an Emmy, Golden Globe, DGA, and Peabody Award-winning producer and director of film and television. He is Executive Producer and Director on the Max Original drama series Tokyo Vice, written by Tony Award-winning playwright J.T. Rogers and starring Ansel Elgort as an American journalist in Japan and his police detective mentor played by Ken Watanabe, Poul is perhaps best known for producing all five seasons of HBO's Six Feet Under, all four of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City miniseries, My So-Called Life, The Newsroom, Swingtown, and The Eddy, which he developed with director Damien Chazelle. His feature film producing credits include Paul Schrader's Mishima and Light of Day, and Ridley Scott's Black Rain.
He has directed multiple episodes of HBO’s Rome and Big Love, Showtime’s The Big C, Netflix’s Grace and Frankie, and the pilots for TNT’s Perception and ABC’s GCB. He currently serves an an Envoy for the U.S. Department of State’s American Film Showcase program, and as a Tourism Ambassador for the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. He is a member of the board of directors of Film Independent and Playwrights Horizons, and of the Directors Guild of America's LGBTQ+ Representative Committee.
ALAN POUL
I think all great work comes from the need to say something. And so this is the challenge for young artists and also maybe one of the essential elements that can never be completely taken over by AI because there has to be something you feel has not been said, and you feel an urgent need to say it. In fact, you can't not say it. That need to express is what gives birth to unique expression, which is where all of our visual, performance, and creative arts come from.
I was fortunate to be able to be out in Hollywood in the 90s and to be able to work early on seminal LGBT-presenting shows like Tales of the City series, and Six Feet Under with Alan Ball. When it comes to Tokyo Vice, I did push hard for there to be a queer storyline because in the late 90s, in Japan, there was a huge thriving gay subculture. But it wasn't on the table to come out because your sexual orientation was considered irrelevant to your obligations to society.
Career in Theater, Film & Television
I was always a film and theater kid. I just was completely starstruck and only wanted to have some kind of contact with showbiz. I didn't really understand in what creative shape that would take. It was when I was trying to work in theater. Stephen Sondheim was a close friend and advisor for the period. I was trying to work in theater, and he really changed how I think about art. And then before I went to do Mishima, I spent 3 years working with Robert Wilson, the great international stage director. Bob is a complete genius, and I adore him. Just being an apprentice to him and being one of his many producers working on his big international projects was a hugely formative and nurturing experience. And then finally Schrader [was an important mentor] because Schrader just sort of said, "Here, you're going to work in movies. Come with me."
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
For those who haven’t seen Tokyo Vice, lay the groundwork for us as to what was established in season one and how that leads into season two.
POUL
Season one of Tokyo Vice is based on a memoir by Jake Adelstein, who is obviously a real person who still lives in Tokyo and who went to Japan in the 90s and actually graduated from a Japanese university, became fluent and very eloquent in not just spoken, but also written Japanese, and was the first non-Japanese person ever to pass the highly competitive entrance exam for the Yomiuri Shimbun, which is the biggest of the big daily newspapers in Japan. So he did something truly unprecedented, and he was put on the crime beat and worked as a crime reporter for this newspaper. He was chasing stories and publishing stories in Japanese, but obviously, in order to do that, Jake had to have a certain intrepid nature. He also kind of relished the bull in the china shop aspect of his job, and I think we showed this pretty well in the show, the kind of weird intersected relationships between journalism and the police and the world of organized crime, the Yakuza. It meant that for many Japanese journalists, their hands were often tied. There were many reasons why they couldn't break stories about the Yakuza that might put the newspaper, themselves, their families, their other relationships, or sources in danger. And Jake, not being beholden to Japanese society as a whole, was able to break some of those strictures.
I think that from [creator, writer, showrunner] J. T. Rogers's point of view, he loves all of these characters. Even our biggest villain—I would say is the person Tozawa—who we love to hate, but even a character like Ishida, who is the head of a crime family and who has been responsible for untold deaths of people, we always want to get them and see what worries them, what concerns them and see to what extent we can generate empathy on the part of the viewer.
And I think that for J.T. and for us as filmmakers, it's always about putting the character in the context of what they're up against. This is the way season one was structured, but even more so in season two. We're putting each of our main characters in a situation in which they face both an existential crisis, meaning I could get killed for this. Or, on a lesser level, I could get fired for this, and then also create a moral crisis where—especially in season two—every one of our lead characters has to make a questionable moral choice, has to do something that they themselves know is wrong, but in the service of accomplishing a goal that they hope has a larger purpose to it. And so they all, everybody goes a little bit to the dark side. Everybody, even Katagiri, Ken Watanabe's character, our most morally upstanding character in season one is put into a situation in which later in the season, he has to make some morally questionable choices.
Scoring Music for Television
My most formative TV experience having been Six Feet Under, I tend to want to take a rather conservative approach to score, in that if a scene works brilliantly without music, why do you need music? And that score, especially, is usually there to provide an element that you're not getting fully from the dry–when there's no score, we call it dry. So with the dry footage, that was always our philosophy on Six Feet Under: if the scene works just as well without music, we don't need music. And that just runs a little counter to what was, and kind of still is, the prevailing philosophy on television, which is that everything needs music. Like, people won't know what to feel if you don't score it, which I think is a really very insulting underestimation of the intelligence of the audience.
And so there's always pressure to put more music in, and our feeling is, no, if we don't need it, we don't need it. Now, that changes, like when we get to Tokyo Vice because of the genre elements of the show. You know, if you have an action sequence, you need music. If you have a really tense, suspenseful moment, it probably needs music.
So we have brilliant composers, Danny Bensie and Sondra Uriens who are really there to help, sculpt and shape the drama. But the same way, even though I think Tokyo Vice has more minutes of score per episode than anything I've ever worked on when we get to the final mix. The real final trial for every episode of television is when you do the playback of the sound mix because the picture has already been locked before. You've done all of the rerecording of dialogue. You've done all the color correction. You've put in the VFX, and then you sit there on a soundstage, and you watch it played back. And that's when, for the first time, you know what you have. It's an episode of television. And with myself and JT, one of the things that we do in playback that is most important to the show is we take music out. Because when you're watching individually, you'll say, this scene needs music, this scene needs music. And when you're watching it, if you suddenly feel that you're just being bombarded by music all the time, it takes you away from your intimacy with the characters. And so, every time we'll watch a play, we'll go through, and we'll say–Okay, this scene, it works better without the music. This scene works better. It's like the music gilding the lily. So we go through, and we take cues out. And I think that always makes the episodes stronger.
The Impact of AI on the Creative Process
There will come a time when AI will have consumed and devoured all the works of all the great filmmakers. And you'll be able to say, I want you to cut this scene as if it was in an Antonioni film. Or I want you to cut this scene as if it was in a Sam Peckinpah film. And it will do the work of the edit. So the finishing touches will probably always be human, but the amount of creative work that's going to be able to be offloaded to AI is something that we don't fully comprehend yet.
The Importance of Mentorship and Personal Aesthetic
I feel like I'm always telling young people, I know you want to make your own films, and I know you think you know everything. And that's one way to do it is to take an iPhone and just make a terrible first feature and then learn as you go. But I'm such a believer in mentorship. And when you have the time when you're young, find people that you admire and put yourselves in their orbit and just absorb and it will serve you so well later in life.
This interview was conducted by Mia Funk with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producers on this episode were Sophie Garnier and Nadia Lam. The Creative Process is produced by Mia Funk. Additional production support by Katie Foster.
Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).
The podcast currently has 20 episodes available.