Speaker 1: Welcome Back Man night viewers, where we cover whatever the
Speaker 1: hell I want. Apparently I'm follom alone, and today it
Speaker 1: is a very special bonus episode. We're gonna be taking
Speaker 1: a look at the Sci Fi Channel Limited mini series
Speaker 1: The Lost Room, and we have a special guest here
Speaker 1: to help us do just that. Chances are if you've
Speaker 1: been a fan of paranormal horror television, then you have
Speaker 1: no doubt sampled this man's wares. He started his writing
Speaker 1: career with the end of Decent Stephen segoal Flick's That
Speaker 1: Was under Siege two Dark Territory, and he managed to
Speaker 1: make Chapstick a horrifying notion in the Mothman prophecies. In
Speaker 1: the intervening years, he has been a writer and or
Speaker 1: producer on some of the best television of the past
Speaker 1: quarter century. He could mic drop with his involvement with
Speaker 1: season one of Eric Kripke's endlessly running series Supernatural Alone.
Speaker 1: But wait, there's more. He's lent his unique voice to
Speaker 1: the Dead Zone, The Gates. He created that one too,
Speaker 1: Heavenly Grim, which is of East End, Damien, The in Between,
Speaker 1: and most recently on the DC Comics television series Titans
Speaker 1: and While I certainly encourage you to check out all
Speaker 1: of his work. For an immediate dose of mister HadAM,
Speaker 1: check out his podcast, Richard Hadam's paranormal Bookshelf, part memoir,
Speaker 1: part horror story, part book review and recommendation. Their Tale,
Speaker 1: Their tales, well told by a raconteur par excellence, and
Speaker 1: he's here today to answer all of my questions about
Speaker 1: the Lost Room. Welcome to Midnight Viewing, Richard.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Father Malone. I'm so happy to
Speaker 2: be here. And that was a lovely introduction.
Speaker 1: I appreciated my pleasure entirely. Before we get to the
Speaker 1: magnificence that was the Lost Room, tell us how you
Speaker 1: got there, What got you involved in the writing game?
Speaker 1: What were the steps for you?
Speaker 2: Sir Well, I had just left Supernatural in season one
Speaker 2: and it was genuine well what was it? Maybe it
Speaker 2: was a little later it maybe it was more like
Speaker 2: March of two thousand and six, And this came through
Speaker 2: my agent. I was sent a script, as i often am,
Speaker 2: and in this case, I was told they're looking for
Speaker 2: an executive producer. This is a sci fi mini series.
Speaker 2: We don't know, you know, usually those things go three nights,
Speaker 2: but just read the script and see if you like it,
Speaker 2: and we'll kind of go from there. So, as I
Speaker 2: had done a million times before, I started reading the
Speaker 2: script and something different happened. And I've said this before,
Speaker 2: and it delights me to say it. I don't like anything.
Speaker 2: I don't like anything that I read. I have never
Speaker 2: I can almost say I've never read anything that I've
Speaker 2: been that has been submitted to me to either rewrite
Speaker 2: or deal with on some level that I have said,
Speaker 2: oh my god, I love this. But with this thing,
Speaker 2: which at the time was called Motelman that was the
Speaker 2: script that I read. It was called motel Man, and
Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, well that just sounds goofy and great
Speaker 2: reading it. Yeah, And bit by bit I became more
Speaker 2: and more involved. And then there was the scene. You've
Speaker 2: watched the miniseries, so you know what I'm referring to
Speaker 2: multiple times.
Speaker 1: We'll get into it for our listeners.
Speaker 2: Please, well, let me just say that, whether you've seen it,
Speaker 2: whether you haven't seen it, the sequence in the hospital
Speaker 2: where he meets Wally, and then the scene right after
Speaker 2: that where they're talking in the diner, the top of
Speaker 2: my head came off. I'm like, this is the greatest
Speaker 2: thing I've ever read. I've never ever even things I've seen.
Speaker 2: I'm not the kind of guy who's like, I wish
Speaker 2: I wrote that Lost Room. I wish i'd written it.
Speaker 2: Now you get scared because you get to a point
Speaker 2: and you're thirty pages in, four pages in, and and
Speaker 2: you're like, wait a second, this is the greatest thing ever.
Speaker 2: Then you get scared because you're like, Okay, well now
Speaker 2: now it's got nowhere to go but down. It's gonna
Speaker 2: fumble it. It's gonna it's gonna fumble the concept. Something
Speaker 2: is going to go off the rails. Otherwise they I
Speaker 2: wouldn't have this. And by the way, let me be clear,
Speaker 2: they weren't showing it to me to be rewritten. It
Speaker 2: was like, hey, this has been chosen. Lions Gate is
Speaker 2: producing for the Sci Fi Channel. They're they're they're going
Speaker 2: they they want this, So I'm i going boy, home boy.
Speaker 2: And then it got better.
Speaker 1: They're asking they're not asking you for a rewrite. What
Speaker 1: are they asking you for that? You you now they've
Speaker 1: trust you. Obviously you've had this experience on Supernatural, which
Speaker 1: is a fucking amazing television series. I think even by
Speaker 1: season one people could have figured that out, right, Are
Speaker 1: they hoping that this goes to series and you become
Speaker 1: a la on that show?
Speaker 2: Well, at this point all they need is an experienced
Speaker 2: television showrunner. So at this point I had created and
Speaker 2: co ran Miracles, which was my show, and then I
Speaker 2: had worked on Wow, True Calling the Inside Supernatural, so
Speaker 2: I'd done various things. But they were like, and by
Speaker 2: the way, I was not the first person on their list.
Speaker 2: In the ensuing years, I've met two other people who
Speaker 2: got that script before me and were like, I don't
Speaker 2: get it and said no, and I know, And one
Speaker 2: of them was like a guy I sort of knew,
Speaker 2: and I'm like really, and he's like, yeah, but I
Speaker 2: mean I thought it was kind of weird, but you know,
Speaker 2: but but you know, it came out great, And I'm like,
Speaker 2: how do you not this is the best thing ever? Like,
Speaker 2: this doesn't.
Speaker 1: Exist difference to your friends, they sound like morons.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I'll say this particular phrase a lot in marketing, and
Speaker 1: such fiercely original enough that it's kind of become meaningless
Speaker 1: when it's when you actually apply it in its truest state.
Speaker 1: We're talking about the lost drop, right, It is stareringly original.
Speaker 2: Well, and if look, this would be a very different
Speaker 2: interview if it had become the success it deserved to become,
Speaker 2: if it had become lost, you know, or you know whatever.
Speaker 2: Pick your show that came out of nowhere and became
Speaker 2: a part of a cultural conversation as this should have.
Speaker 2: I would be a genius for saying yeah. And I
Speaker 2: was the first one to go, wait, this is great.
Speaker 2: But it doesn't matter because it's still great, And any
Speaker 2: one of your listeners can literally have the best weekend
Speaker 2: of their lives with six hours of something you've never
Speaker 2: heard of, a cast out of heaven and a story
Speaker 2: in which a world is care that's our world, and
Speaker 2: a mythology is created that's made up of things in
Speaker 2: our world. And it just gets deeper and more layered
Speaker 2: and more interesting. And it's one of those wonderful shows.
Speaker 2: I was just rewatching it this afternoon. It's one of
Speaker 2: those wonderful things that just it doesn't happen. I wanted
Speaker 2: to say, it doesn't happen nowadays. It doesn't happen ever
Speaker 2: there where you're watching a show that starts teaching you
Speaker 2: its own rules, and then you start playing along and
Speaker 2: producing You're like, oh, right, but if that's the rule,
Speaker 2: then this is going to happen. And then we see
Speaker 2: that situation play out. Or wait a second, they said this,
Speaker 2: which means that's not going to work. Oh, but they
Speaker 2: thought of that. So you're interacting with the show as
Speaker 2: it's happening, and it's so fun. It's just it's it
Speaker 2: was a blast from beginning to end.
Speaker 1: A show that, as you said, it's an investigation. We've
Speaker 1: got a detective at the heart of it, and he
Speaker 1: is investigating this key that he's found at the beginning
Speaker 1: of the series, which opens that leads to a room
Speaker 1: that was involved in an event. Now as this as
Speaker 1: the as the show progresses, the thing is, it is
Speaker 1: an investigation, but it's not necessarily about the objects or
Speaker 1: the room. I mean, it becomes about him and his daughter,
Speaker 1: which is kind of the wonderful backbone to the entire thing.
Speaker 1: The thing is you mentioned, like the rules of the
Speaker 1: show as it examines the as it sort of lays
Speaker 1: them out. It lays them out so elegantly and so
Speaker 1: economically and so visually. It's like, here's the object and
Speaker 1: then we see what that does and go, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: So another thing from that room? Does that? Oh okay?
Speaker 1: And as you said, they really do think of everything.
Speaker 1: It's just it's endless the applications of these items.
Speaker 2: And I wish, you know, and if I had half
Speaker 2: a brain, we could have arranged for Chris Leone to
Speaker 2: be on this and maybe at a later date you
Speaker 2: can talk to him, because he's fantastic. And I don't
Speaker 2: know if your audience has seen this or knows what
Speaker 2: it is. It's funny. When I was working on it,
Speaker 2: it was one of those things where people would say, hey,
Speaker 2: what are you working on right now? And I'd say, oh,
Speaker 2: it's a it's a show called The Lost Room, and
Speaker 2: they say, oh, really, what's that? And then I would say,
Speaker 2: do you have five minutes, which which retroactively should have
Speaker 2: included me in that that This was not a you know,
Speaker 2: you say one line and everyone's like, I got it.
Speaker 2: But if your audience doesn't know, I'm going to try
Speaker 2: to explain what the show is at okay.
Speaker 1: Because you can't. You said you can't say die Hard
Speaker 1: in them all or.
Speaker 2: On a train, right, okay, So I'm going to try
Speaker 2: to describe what the show is as as clearly and
Speaker 2: succinctly as possible. It begins as a police drama. Okay,
Speaker 2: some people have been killed in a mysterious way. The
Speaker 2: police detective in charge of the investigation, played by Peter Kraus,
Speaker 2: who is wonderful in real life and in the show.
Speaker 2: He's investigating and he picks up on a suspect. But
Speaker 2: something strange is happening with the suspect. He keeps disappearing,
Speaker 2: you know, running up to doors and disappearing inside rooms,
Speaker 2: and it's not making sense. When a little bit of
Speaker 2: the cloud of mystery begins to dissipate, what we learn
Speaker 2: is that there is this key, a motel room key,
Speaker 2: an old fashioned one, not a not a card, but
Speaker 2: one that has you know, had a little plastic thing
Speaker 2: hanging off of it, and it looks like a key,
Speaker 2: and that there's something weird about this key. It fits
Speaker 2: any door that has a doorknob and a you know,
Speaker 2: a lock that you can stick a key into. But
Speaker 2: it fits any one of those, Okay, But when you're
Speaker 2: using that key and you open that door, it will
Speaker 2: always open into a motel room. The same motel room
Speaker 2: that's located in Gallop, New Mexico at the Sunshine Motel
Speaker 2: and has existed out of time since the nineteen sixties,
Speaker 2: so this is already an esthetic that I love. There's
Speaker 2: nothing I love more than a roadside motel from mid
Speaker 2: century Okay, so okay, So what happens from there? Well,
Speaker 2: the key to this motel room is one of only
Speaker 2: one of many many objects that have been stolen from
Speaker 2: this motel room from various people who have the key.
Speaker 2: When objects are taken out of this motel room, and
Speaker 2: it's basically empty, almost everything's been taken out of it.
Speaker 2: When those objects come out of the motel room into
Speaker 2: our world, they have weird, random, almost pointless powers. A
Speaker 2: pencil tapped on a table produces pennies, but the pen
Speaker 2: it has like a lightning power in it, So if
Speaker 2: you jab someone with the pen kind to cook them.
Speaker 2: And then there's the cone scissors, and the clock and
Speaker 2: the box watch and the bus ticket. The bus ticket.
Speaker 2: You tap someone with a bus ticket and they immediately
Speaker 2: are transported to a roadside somewhere outside of Gallup, New Mexico.
Speaker 2: And so it it. But you're you're sort of learning
Speaker 2: this stuff as our hero learns this stuff, and the
Speaker 2: characters involved are really sort of offbeat. And what you
Speaker 2: begin to realize is that the people who live among us,
Speaker 2: who know about all this stuff, become obsessed with it.
Speaker 2: They become obsessed with with possessing or collecting these various
Speaker 2: objects if they can. Some of them are very valuable.
Speaker 2: People have lost their lives and it's very sort of
Speaker 2: almost like low level gangster kind of shit where where
Speaker 2: people are are stealing the objects from each other. And
Speaker 2: then and then you learn that over the day decades
Speaker 2: that human beings have been aware of these odd things.
Speaker 2: And it's all America based. It's all right here in
Speaker 2: our current modern world.
Speaker 1: It's beautifully American.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all about Americana, by the way, but it's all
Speaker 2: existing like just under your you. You could be in
Speaker 2: a diner and the people at the next booth could
Speaker 2: be talking about where are they going to find this scissors?
Speaker 2: So so all of this stuff is going on. But
Speaker 2: but various groups have now formed. And again these are
Speaker 2: not large armies. These are weird ragtag groups of oddball people.
Speaker 2: There's the Legion and the Order and the collectors and there,
Speaker 2: and they're people, you know, some people believe that that
Speaker 2: these objects are all like part of God, almost like horcruxes,
Speaker 2: and if you put them all together, you will meet God.
Speaker 2: And then there's another group that that just wants to
Speaker 2: get them all off the market. They just believe they're
Speaker 2: the legion and they just believe, Look, these things always
Speaker 2: in in bad news, and we've just got to get
Speaker 2: all of them out of circulation, put them back in
Speaker 2: the room, throw the key away, and banish this thing
Speaker 2: into obscurity. Then there's other groups and other people, and
Speaker 2: all these people have their agendas, but they're all kind
Speaker 2: of you know, they're almost like again, like low level grifters,
Speaker 2: you know, and that's what just makes it feels so
Speaker 2: real and so delicious and by the way, so funny.
Speaker 2: So I read the script, I tell my agent, I
Speaker 2: don't know, I really love this. What do they want?
Speaker 2: They just need someone to work with the writers just
Speaker 2: to make sure that this stuff is producible, and you know,
Speaker 2: interact with Lionsgate and Sci Fi Channel and get this
Speaker 2: thing produced because they want to make it right away.
Speaker 2: It's March and they want to be in production in
Speaker 2: three months. And I'm like, okay, this is a tall order, Okay,
Speaker 2: but I love it because let's do it. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm always I'm up. And this is in two thousand
Speaker 2: and six. This is eighteen years ago, young man. So
Speaker 2: it's like, great, so we're going to do this. So
Speaker 2: I go in for the meeting and I'm meeting with
Speaker 2: the Lionsyate executive and I'm telling her, you know, I
Speaker 2: think it's fascinating. I'm telling her all the things we're
Speaker 2: talking about. And then I'm like and it's hilarious, and
Speaker 2: she's like, I love it. She's like, you got to
Speaker 2: meet the writers. And when you do tell them that,
Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, of course. And so I meet with them.
Speaker 2: And so these writers are Chris Leoni, Laura Harkem and
Speaker 2: Paul Workman. These three people and I don't know who
Speaker 2: they are. They've never worked before in terms of writing
Speaker 2: something that's been produced. And I meet them and they
Speaker 2: seem like splendid people. So very quickly the deal gets
Speaker 2: made and I sit down with them and I'm like, look,
Speaker 2: I think this is great, and they're like, well, what
Speaker 2: did you read? And I said, I read this. I
Speaker 2: read this first script. I guess it's two hours, right,
Speaker 2: And they're like, yeah, so we're going to make ten
Speaker 2: hours of this. And I was like oh, ten hours,
Speaker 2: and they're like, yeah, we've got the first eight sort
Speaker 2: of worked out, and then you know, and the second
Speaker 2: two hours are written, the third two hours, making it
Speaker 2: six hours we have outlined, and then also an outline
Speaker 2: for some other stuff. And I'm like, well, okay, so
Speaker 2: more material needs to be generated on the page, but
Speaker 2: we've got something to begin with. So we'll spend the
Speaker 2: next few weeks getting getting all that stuff ready so
Speaker 2: that we can go back to Sci Fi Channel and
Speaker 2: Lionsgate and go okay, so here's the plan. And early
Speaker 2: on I think sci Fi said we don't need ten hours.
Speaker 2: Eight hours would be great, and I'm like, great, So
Speaker 2: we mapped out our eight hours. They were very familiar
Speaker 2: with the first chunk, but we had to sort of
Speaker 2: go into the studio and the network and say, okay,
Speaker 2: so here's the rest of it and here's how it ends.
Speaker 2: And it was pitched and they loved it and we
Speaker 2: were on our way. So which was fortunate again because
Speaker 2: they were moving very very quickly. So let me tell
Speaker 2: you about Chris and Paul and Laura Wheeze. Okay, because
Speaker 2: I had questions, I'm like, wow, what is this, like,
Speaker 2: what is this based on something like is this a
Speaker 2: graphic novel or something. They're like, no, it's just this
Speaker 2: thing we came up with. What it was was that
Speaker 2: Chris and Paul went to school together. I believe it
Speaker 2: was Carnegie Mellon, but they went to school together in Pennsylvania,
Speaker 2: and they both worked at the library and they worked
Speaker 2: late shift, and they worked this sort of job where
Speaker 2: there were a lot of hours unaccounted for, a lot
Speaker 2: of hours that were not busy dealing with people. So
Speaker 2: they were just talking to each other, and as you
Speaker 2: might do when you're two guys in college, you start
Speaker 2: talking about what great superpowers would be. But Chris and Paul,
Speaker 2: being Chris and Paul, two of the funniest, most creative
Speaker 2: people I've ever met, very quickly dismiss invisibility and flight
Speaker 2: and strength, and they're like, in our own personal life,
Speaker 2: what do we need? And one of them said, it
Speaker 2: would be great just to have access to a motel
Speaker 2: room like that we could just go to and would
Speaker 2: almost be outside of time because they're in college and
Speaker 2: they're like, sometimes I just need to sleep, but my
Speaker 2: roommates are coming in and out and people are making noise,
Speaker 2: and I just need my own place, because when you're
Speaker 2: in college, like a motel room is basically a proxy
Speaker 2: for I want an apartment.
Speaker 1: Rich I have an apartment, I still want instant access
Speaker 1: to a timeless hotel room, right were you.
Speaker 2: You know, it's like my wife Susan is always saying,
Speaker 2: I need one extra day a week, one secret day
Speaker 2: where I can get all my stuff done that no
Speaker 2: one else has.
Speaker 1: And then of course perfect, right, and they need to
Speaker 1: rework this calendar. It's had its day.
Speaker 2: Well, well, you know, years later JK. Rowling and the
Speaker 2: Harry Potter thing comes up with the Room of Requirement
Speaker 2: and it's like, yeah, that's great, But these guys came
Speaker 2: up with it first. It's it's the need for your
Speaker 2: own little oasis, but not anything fancy, no one. They
Speaker 2: didn't want to mansion. They just wanted a motel room.
Speaker 2: And then they started talking about the motel room and like, well,
Speaker 2: what are the rules, and it's like, well, you go in,
Speaker 2: you can get there from anywhere, and then you come out.
Speaker 2: And there was probably a time travel aspect to it,
Speaker 2: you know when they were talking about it, but they
Speaker 2: just continue talking about it, and just for their own
Speaker 2: self entertainment, they began building the mythology of the motel
Speaker 2: room and building the rules, and well, can you like
Speaker 2: put all your stuff there? And it's like, well, no,
Speaker 2: anything you put there, once you leave, it's gone. And
Speaker 2: when you come in it's like a real motel room.
Speaker 2: It's like we all have the feeling of walking into
Speaker 2: a motel room and it's been fixed up right, perfect
Speaker 2: motel room, right. I mean it's like, oh, the bed
Speaker 2: got made, you know, all the stuff got put away.
Speaker 2: The hotel room yet magic. It's the magic of roadside hospitality.
Speaker 2: It's the magic of hotels, which which are magic?
Speaker 1: I think to who we are right, particularly that that
Speaker 1: snapshot of American history nineteen sixty one roadside motel. Well,
Speaker 1: isn't that heaven? And it's perfect every day every time
Speaker 1: you turn around that room that's perfect.
Speaker 2: Some version of it is just down the road, and
Speaker 2: it won't be exactly like the last one, but it'll
Speaker 2: have a drinking glass, and it'll have a piece of
Speaker 2: paper around the toilet seat, and it'll have a pen
Speaker 2: and a little pad, and they'll be branded with the
Speaker 2: motel's name. That was when I was a kid. Maybe
Speaker 2: you had this too, And I would go on vacations
Speaker 2: with my parents. There was the most exciting thing in
Speaker 2: the world to walk into the motel room for the
Speaker 2: first time.
Speaker 1: I spent about a decade as an airbrush artist with
Speaker 1: my wife on the road, and it was magic every
Speaker 1: single time. Like I never tired of opening a door
Speaker 1: to a new hotel room and it being perfect no
Speaker 1: matter where we were, and coming back after a long
Speaker 1: day and suddenly everything has resorted to how we wanted
Speaker 1: it to be, how we expected it to be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and it's clean. You didn't have to clean it.
Speaker 1: I left shit on the floor. Where'd it go? I
Speaker 1: don't know, I don't care, you know.
Speaker 2: And you can collect stuff. My brother and I would
Speaker 2: collect things, or my parents would take us to Las
Speaker 2: Vegas and we would have all these door signs that
Speaker 2: were branded from the Flamingo or the Caesar's Palace, the
Speaker 2: little soaps, the ash trays that you could just take.
Speaker 2: It was friggin' magic. So everything about this show plugs
Speaker 2: into that era of Americana where where your imagination was
Speaker 2: fed by what are the different and individual motels that
Speaker 2: you've never heard of. They're not all comfort Ins, they're
Speaker 2: not all Motel six. They're not all radisons. They're you know,
Speaker 2: they're crazy. They're just the you know, the Lumberjack, the Lumberjack,
Speaker 2: the crazy Lantern, the you know, sleep away whatever. I mean,
Speaker 2: just there's a there were a million of them. Anyway,
Speaker 2: that was part of our childhood. That and that, and
Speaker 2: these guys are younger than me, but it was still
Speaker 2: part of their their cultural imagination. So so they talked
Speaker 2: about this and then and then I guess it kind
Speaker 2: of went away. And then years later Chris and Laura
Speaker 2: met and became writing partners, and and then and again
Speaker 2: I don't I'm a little fuzzy on all the details
Speaker 2: in my recall right now, but but Chris brought up
Speaker 2: this thing that he and Paul talked about, and then
Speaker 2: they all sort of got together and decided, well, let's
Speaker 2: just write this and see what happens. And they did,
Speaker 2: and they got into sci Fi Channel and they got
Speaker 2: it to the network first, and the network liked it,
Speaker 2: and so they it got laid off on Lionsgate to
Speaker 2: produce as the studio. Ah okay, and sci Fi at
Speaker 2: that time did these yearly December little mini series like
Speaker 2: three night events, and they had done the Triangle, which
Speaker 2: was all about the Bermuda Triangle.
Speaker 1: I remember that they've done.
Speaker 2: A few of them then, and then they had decided
Speaker 2: this was going to be the mini series for December
Speaker 2: two thousand and six. Now we're in March of two
Speaker 2: thousand and six, so it's not an impossible schedule, but
Speaker 2: it's you know, we're getting We're not sitting around reconceiving it.
Speaker 2: We're in pre production now.
Speaker 1: Now at this point, they're expecting eight hours. They're expecting
Speaker 1: eight hours four movies. They want you to make four
Speaker 1: movies by December. It's March right now.
Speaker 2: Typically I think they had done three night events, but
Speaker 2: they're like, yeah, I mean, we're sci fi, we can
Speaker 2: do Sure, let's do it. So we pitch them four nights.
Speaker 2: We've got scripts for the first two nights and then
Speaker 2: we're gonna outline and generate the scripts for the rest
Speaker 2: and great. So every day Paul and Chris and Laura
Speaker 2: and I meet at that big building just outside of
Speaker 2: Universal Studios. So if you're going into Universal Studios off
Speaker 2: Lancasham and you're driving up that big sort of that
Speaker 2: big street that goes up right, So if you know
Speaker 2: that just when you begin that drive upward underneath the
Speaker 2: big archway that says Universal Studios. There's this giant building
Speaker 2: on your right, a high rise. We're in that building,
Speaker 2: twenty stories up, and we're in a conference room with
Speaker 2: these giant windows looking north up the freeway and up
Speaker 2: Ventura and across the valley, and we're working on the
Speaker 2: Lost Room. Is the greatest, It was the greatest. It's march.
Speaker 2: I'm literally every day I'm looking down because in La
Speaker 2: if you're not familiar, in the springtime there is the
Speaker 2: there's these things called jacaranda trees, and jacarata trees are purple,
Speaker 2: these crazy lavender purple trees that that they they sort
Speaker 2: of bloom in the spring for about a month and
Speaker 2: then they die out, but they're gorgeous. And so every
Speaker 2: day I'm looking out that window as we're working, and
Speaker 2: I'm counting the jacaranda trees because they're just sort of
Speaker 2: randomly placed, you know, everywhere, and it's like, oh, there's one, Hey,
Speaker 2: there's one over there, Hey there's another one over there.
Speaker 2: So I'm counting the jacaranda trees and we're doing the
Speaker 2: Lost Room. But we got to get into casting now.
Speaker 2: So the casting process begins with a woman named Mary
Speaker 2: Joe Slater. Mary Joe Slater is Christian Slater's mom.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, she is a spectacular She's a legend in
Speaker 1: the casting world.
Speaker 2: Absolute legend.
Speaker 1: Her son does it does not outshine her in anyway.
Speaker 2: Well, that's the fun part when when you are privileged
Speaker 2: to work in the industry, you get to meet people
Speaker 2: who are in these various areas that maybe you haven't
Speaker 2: thought about a lot, but suddenly you're working side by
Speaker 2: side with someone who is an expert at what they do,
Speaker 2: and every day you're blown out of your socks by
Speaker 2: what they're providing you with. Because we would and this
Speaker 2: was you know, again, whether you've seen it if you haven't,
Speaker 2: Big cast a lot of character roles and and so.
Speaker 2: And she's got lists of actors and some of them
Speaker 2: we know and some of them we don't. But she
Speaker 2: brings these people in and we're watching these these auditions
Speaker 2: and we're like, oh my god, Roger Bart, oh my god.
Speaker 1: I know. I wanted to bring him up in specifically
Speaker 1: because I love Roger part And here's the thing, everybody
Speaker 1: out there, if you don't know his face, you know
Speaker 1: his voice. He's the singing voice for Hercules in the
Speaker 1: Walt Disney cartoo hah. Don't understand why he's not the
Speaker 1: voice completely, like I understand sometimes where they have a
Speaker 1: singer who can't actor or an actor who can't sing,
Speaker 1: but he can do both.
Speaker 2: Roger Bart is multi talented. So he he was in
Speaker 2: the movie The Producers. He's the kind of if you
Speaker 2: see his face, you'll go, oh, I've seen that guy.
Speaker 2: Of course, he was in the Lost Room and that's
Speaker 2: where I met him. And then years later when I
Speaker 2: was on Grim, he was in an episode of Grim
Speaker 2: and we were we had written a script and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: you know, who would be great for this? And we
Speaker 2: were having conversations. I don't know if I brought it up,
Speaker 2: or maybe Jim Kalf brought it up, but I was like,
Speaker 2: how about Roger Bart? And Jim Kalf, one of the
Speaker 2: executive producers, knew Roger also, and I'm like, oh, I
Speaker 2: know Roger. I did a mini series with him a
Speaker 2: few years back, the Lost Room, and I was like, well,
Speaker 2: let's bring him in. We brought him in and he
Speaker 2: was great. I mean, we just sort of like gave
Speaker 2: him the role and it was so fun to see
Speaker 2: him again. And then he's done other things in the
Speaker 2: intervening years, and every once in a while he'll say, Hey,
Speaker 2: I'm going to play at the Passing in the Playhouse.
Speaker 2: You know, that's just down the street from you. Come
Speaker 2: on down and see me and we'll hang out. So
Speaker 2: so anyway, Roger Bart lovely guy, great actor, Dennis Christopher,
Speaker 2: star of I mean, come on, Breaking Away one of
Speaker 2: the greatest movies of all time.
Speaker 1: Fade to Black, one of the greatest movies of all time.
Speaker 2: Was still friends with Dennis Christopher. We still have dinner
Speaker 2: with him.
Speaker 1: Tell Handel, it's a treasure and should be treated as such.
Speaker 2: I will, and he will agree with you one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: And he's right to do it.
Speaker 2: So I'll give you a Dennis Christopher memory.
Speaker 1: Good.
Speaker 2: It's his first night, okay, and early in the filming
Speaker 2: we're doing the Pawnshop, which is the opening of the movie.
Speaker 2: So this was all, you know, very very early, you know,
Speaker 2: first week of filming, and he arrives on set. But
Speaker 2: it's one of those weird days where it's what we
Speaker 2: call a split where we work from noon to six
Speaker 2: and then we wait for it to get dark, and
Speaker 2: then we do the next six hours of the filming day.
Speaker 2: So we need to do day at the beginning, and
Speaker 2: then some night stuff at the end. And the night
Speaker 2: stuff was the pawn shop, which opens the movie. So
Speaker 2: he gets there. Of course he's there, you know, bright
Speaker 2: and early in the morning. He shows up in the afternoon.
Speaker 2: He's not needed until the evening. So I get a
Speaker 2: message Dennis Christopher's here and he'd like to talk to you.
Speaker 2: And it's right around lunchtime, which is again six hours
Speaker 2: in and then you've got six hours later. So I
Speaker 2: go to meet with him. But I'm like, we're not
Speaker 2: going to you know, we don't need him for hours.
Speaker 2: So I go and meet him, and we have our
Speaker 2: dinner together, and I'm like, when it makes sense he
Speaker 2: might have a few questions. He had a few questions.
Speaker 2: I answered them. Then we chatted and I love Dennis
Speaker 2: Christopher and I want you to understand this is the
Speaker 2: story is told with love. He then proceeded to talk
Speaker 2: to me for three hours and we're filming. I mean,
Speaker 2: lunch is long over. Yeah, but while this is going on,
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, this is part of his process. This
Speaker 2: is his first day. He doesn't know anyone. He's in
Speaker 2: the location, he doesn't know. It's a big role, big role.
Speaker 2: And as we're talking, I'm like, oh, and this is
Speaker 2: my job as executive producer. My most important job right
Speaker 2: now is to be is to meet him in this
Speaker 2: emotional space that he's in, which you know, is energetic.
Speaker 2: Is it nerves? I don't know, it's it's something, but
Speaker 2: it But it comes very clear to me I'm not
Speaker 2: needed on the set. I needed to engage with this
Speaker 2: guy because he's ramping up. He's ramping up to his
Speaker 2: first minute in front of the cameras on this show.
Speaker 2: So I'm like, I'm you know, everything he needs. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I call Chris and Laura and I'm like, I'm with Dennis.
Speaker 2: Let me know if there's a problem. Until then, I'm
Speaker 2: with Dennis. And so we hung out and we had
Speaker 2: the greatest evening. He told me the story of his life.
Speaker 2: It was I mean, I was I benefited from it.
Speaker 2: I was like, this is the greatest thing. And by
Speaker 2: the time that three hours was over, we were bonded
Speaker 2: as friends. He was comfortable. Any residual energy he had
Speaker 2: was burned off. He was in his zone. And then
Speaker 2: suddenly it's like, mister Christopher, you're needed on set. He
Speaker 2: walks on set and then just nails it and sailed
Speaker 2: through the rest of the mini series and it was beautiful.
Speaker 1: And a spectacular job. He did good thing. You've talked
Speaker 1: to him. I never stopped, you know. I just want
Speaker 1: to mention another actor who showed up in this. Now,
Speaker 1: he had been in dramatic films before, but I had
Speaker 1: never really seen him put into dramatic performance, and that's
Speaker 1: Kevin Pollack in two thousand and six when this comes out.
Speaker 1: His performance here, I had never seen the level of menace,
Speaker 1: and there's such there's a real nobility deep down under
Speaker 1: the menace too, like a real pure human being without
Speaker 1: any joking. I'd never seen Kevin Pollack do a performance
Speaker 1: where there wasn't a joke, just w And it's not
Speaker 1: like he's not funny. In the situations he's in aren't funny.
Speaker 1: But this isn't a comic performance from him at all,
Speaker 1: and it sings there there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, there's there's five other roles, Peter Jacobsen as Wally,
Speaker 2: there's other roles that are more centered in comedy. His
Speaker 2: is not His is centered in drama at bordering on tragedy.
Speaker 2: And when his name came up again. It's the genius
Speaker 2: of Mary Joe Slater. We're all sort of like Kevin
Speaker 2: Pollack really, because he's a comedian. He's super funny. That's
Speaker 2: how we know him. Then he read for the role
Speaker 2: and were like, no, this is good, this, this could
Speaker 2: be perfect. So we cast him and he was His
Speaker 2: performance is lovely. I will tell you that. For me,
Speaker 2: it was heartbreaking in a way because I was a fan.
Speaker 2: I am a fan, and so I was really looking
Speaker 2: forward because I know when you're doing stuff, you're on
Speaker 2: set and you're filming for three percent of the time
Speaker 2: and the other ninety seven percent of the time you're
Speaker 2: standing around and you're talking and sharing stories and joking.
Speaker 2: I'm like, this is gonna be great. I'm gonna hang
Speaker 2: out with Kevin Pollack. I'm gonna hear everything. Kevin Pollack
Speaker 2: had no interest in talking to me at all. He
Speaker 2: was the opposite of Dennis Christopher. He was like Hi.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, hey, mister Pollack, So how you
Speaker 2: doing good? Okay, you're the other end of the spectrum.
Speaker 2: You are not here to chat. You are here to focus, concentrate,
Speaker 2: get it done. I back away and go mister Pollack,
Speaker 2: let me know if you need anything, And that may
Speaker 2: have been the last thing I ever said to him
Speaker 2: in the course of three months. Yes, and he did
Speaker 2: his thing. That's how he works.
Speaker 1: Rich You're doing the executive producing job here, man, because
Speaker 1: everyone is delivering, Like who cares what they were thinking
Speaker 1: during the day. What ended up on the fucking screen
Speaker 1: is superlative.
Speaker 2: Well, I know. And it's so funny watching this and
Speaker 2: remembering filming. And you know, when you watch something where
Speaker 2: you were there, you remember every day. You're like, oh no,
Speaker 2: that day was so hot, that day was so cold,
Speaker 2: that day was so long. I was in a terrible
Speaker 2: mood that day. That day was fun. Every time I
Speaker 2: look at Peter Krausser, I'm like, I love that guy.
Speaker 2: Peter Krause a greatest guy in the world. He should
Speaker 2: be the star of every TV show. Talented, funny, warm, human, humane, uncomplicated,
Speaker 2: no ego, comes in, does his job, does it well,
Speaker 2: makes everything easy for everyone, A great number one. Mostly
Speaker 2: what I remember of him is just joking around and
Speaker 2: being in that hospital. Okay, quick story, the hospital where
Speaker 2: he meets Wally. That was all night shoots, so we
Speaker 2: were blasting light in those windows, I mean on giant cranes,
Speaker 2: because it was a real location in Santa Fe. It
Speaker 2: was a real hospital, and it was really haunted, like
Speaker 2: no joke, legitimately haunted. It's written up like I had
Speaker 2: guide books, you know, Haunted New Mexico that talk about
Speaker 2: this hospital. I know, it's hard to believe, right the
Speaker 2: shirt Adam's paranormal bookshelf, but there it was. And we
Speaker 2: as soon as we get there, I'm telling everyone, I'm like,
Speaker 2: you know this place is haunted, right, And they're like, oh,
Speaker 2: I know. Every the locals were telling us, they're like,
Speaker 2: are you really filming in there at night? You sure
Speaker 2: you want to do that? So upstairs we're joking around,
Speaker 2: Peter's joking around, we're all having a good time. But
Speaker 2: then hours later, middle of the night, we hear, oh,
Speaker 2: it's no joke. The grips, the electric grips. They had
Speaker 2: to go into the basement to tie in. In other words,
Speaker 2: there's always a central point of power on every set
Speaker 2: where you're drawing all your power for lights and cameras,
Speaker 2: that everything you're doing. And so they're these enormous generators
Speaker 2: and you know, and there are electricians who are professional
Speaker 2: electricians that are on your grew at all times to
Speaker 2: make sure this stuff is safe and that it works,
Speaker 2: because without electricity, you're screwed. So it's like, I don't
Speaker 2: deal with it a lot. It's just a thing that
Speaker 2: always happens. These are the guys hauling cable at five am.
Speaker 1: Okay, not the typically jumpy type.
Speaker 2: No, these are freaking tough guys. Now, they had to
Speaker 2: go down and they've done a million places, and they
Speaker 2: go down into the basement and then we start hearing, oh,
Speaker 2: they're never going down there. I'm like, what it's like.
Speaker 2: They went down there, they tied in, but a couple
Speaker 2: of them aren't going back down there because they heard
Speaker 2: children laughing. And I'm like, you're kidding, You're fucking with
Speaker 2: me because I just.
Speaker 1: Sort of assumed area.
Speaker 2: Well, I assumed that it had gone through Peter to
Speaker 2: a PA to a second Ad to the Great and
Speaker 2: it's all going to come back to me, you know,
Speaker 2: the idiot. It's like, oh my god, no, yeah, we
Speaker 2: told them it's really happening. That was not the case,
Speaker 2: and there were people who experienced stuff and that place
Speaker 2: was active. Now I will tell you it's no longer
Speaker 2: a hospital. It has been It has been totally remodeled
Speaker 2: into a hotel, wonderful. It's the Drury In and it's
Speaker 2: right off the plaza in Santa Fe, New Mexico. So
Speaker 2: I'm just waiting to hear if more people have.
Speaker 1: Had experiences, I'm totally going to stay there. Speaking of
Speaker 1: amazing casting, Julianna Marguli's right, everywhere you turn, this cast
Speaker 1: is just like, yeah, I'm also fucking fantastic.
Speaker 2: Well, we couldn't believe the people we were getting, and
Speaker 2: Marry Joe kept saying, you're undervaluing your own work. Actors
Speaker 2: don't care about anything but the material. They don't care
Speaker 2: about the director you think they do. They don't. They
Speaker 2: don't care about where it's being filmed. They don't even
Speaker 2: care how much they're getting paid. They care about the material,
Speaker 2: and if they respond to the material, they will they
Speaker 2: want to do it, and they'll do it. And we
Speaker 2: kept getting amazing person after an amazing person, top choice
Speaker 2: after top choice after top choice, and she's like, it's
Speaker 2: because of the script. They love it, and we're like, okay, okay,
Speaker 2: we'll believe it. That's great, And then on a certain
Speaker 2: level we're like, we would go back into our conference
Speaker 2: room and go, you know what, it makes sense because
Speaker 2: these are not roles that anyone gets offered. These are
Speaker 2: not it's not the normal Oh, I'm the hero cop,
Speaker 2: I'm the you know beautiful It's like these are weird,
Speaker 2: quirky but well written, realistic characters. Like you're not going
Speaker 2: to get to play this stuff every week. This is once,
Speaker 2: maybe twice in a lifetime kind of material. And we
Speaker 2: had people begging. I had agents calling me. This never happened, certainly,
Speaker 2: not on never on anything I've written that we're begging.
Speaker 2: It's like, please please, my client loves this. I just
Speaker 2: want you to know. And the number of people we
Speaker 2: had to say, hey, you know, obviously I'm sorry, the
Speaker 2: role's been cast or we're going with someone else. So
Speaker 2: that was really wonderful, and that was a sheer gift
Speaker 2: of the scripts.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm just gonna wax rapsodic about that concept
Speaker 1: in the script and like it only makes sense that
Speaker 1: everyone would want to be involved with it, like it's okay.
Speaker 1: The fact that it's in Gallup, New Mexico in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty one automatically sort of connotates nuclear possibilities or just
Speaker 1: any number of government through for all going on at
Speaker 1: that time. Like, because here's the thing, everybody, An event
Speaker 1: took place in that room in nineteen sixty one that
Speaker 1: fractured time space, I guess, making this room some sort
Speaker 1: of central nexus, some link between our world and some others,
Speaker 1: and all of these objects are now sort of magically
Speaker 1: possessed because of it. And here's the thing. So clearly
Speaker 1: the series was just going to continue along. We were
Speaker 1: never going to find out what that event was, right, No, last,
Speaker 1: Now here's the thing, Rich, I'm sure our listeners would
Speaker 1: like to know. When people sit down to write a
Speaker 1: mystery series, did you guys know where you were going?
Speaker 2: Well? I didn't know where they were going because I
Speaker 2: was not there. They know, I don't know that they did.
Speaker 2: I think their rule was were you know. There's a
Speaker 2: very simple central set of motivational stakes for our hero,
Speaker 2: which is his daughter went into the room and then
Speaker 2: the door got closed, and when he reopened it, she
Speaker 2: was gone. So she is now lost somewhere. So he
Speaker 2: has no choice but to delve into the mythology of
Speaker 2: the room and to try to learn everything he can
Speaker 2: about the room. And he's learning from all of these
Speaker 2: sort of untrustworthy, you know, kind of street level characters
Speaker 2: who know a little bit or there's a rumor about
Speaker 2: this or that, and they're all in different groups, and
Speaker 2: they're all against each other, and they all want something,
Speaker 2: and he's got a sort of by dealing with them
Speaker 2: in a very smart and canny and sort of a
Speaker 2: heroic way. He's got to try to piece together who's
Speaker 2: telling the truth, who's lying, and who ultimately has the
Speaker 2: answer that will allow him to get his daughter back.
Speaker 2: Wants his daughter's back. He doesn't care about the key,
Speaker 2: the motel room, the objects, anything. He just wants his
Speaker 2: daughter back. But to get her back, he has to
Speaker 2: go into this hidden world, this hidden economy of objects
Speaker 2: and meet all these weird people, all of whom want
Speaker 2: to kill him because he has the key. He's the
Speaker 2: motel man, so holding on to that. Now, there were
Speaker 2: moments I'm like, I'm so blown away. It's like there's
Speaker 2: I mean, has it. He doesn't even say it, because
Speaker 2: if you haven't seen it, I don't want to ruin anything.
Speaker 2: All I'm going to say is there are moments, and
Speaker 2: this is the greatest experience you can have as an audience.
Speaker 2: There are moments when something surprising happens, and then one
Speaker 2: second later you go, oh, of course, because that's the rule.
Speaker 2: And they told us. They just told us, Oh, that
Speaker 2: is so smart. They because Joe, the main character, he's
Speaker 2: learning how to play the game too. He's like, Oh,
Speaker 2: here's how the objects work, here's how they don't work.
Speaker 2: Here's what you do, here's what you don't do. Here's
Speaker 2: how you can manipulate people who are looking for this
Speaker 2: object or that object. And again, the interaction of audience
Speaker 2: and lead character as they're figuring this out. And the
Speaker 2: fun thing is it's like there's no sci fi. They're
Speaker 2: really like, there's no monsters, there's no costumes, there's no spaceships,
Speaker 2: there's no anything. It's just a hotel room. And I
Speaker 2: remember saying we were having some trouble with well, I
Speaker 2: can get into the trouble we had making this, and
Speaker 2: that's part of the story too. But I remember sitting
Speaker 2: down at a certain point with the studio and our
Speaker 2: line producer and saying, we have no spaceships, we have
Speaker 2: no aliens, we have no monsters, we have no Bermuda triangle.
Speaker 2: You know what we have. We have a motel room
Speaker 2: and we have a door and it opens up into
Speaker 2: various environments where it shouldn't. That's the only effect we
Speaker 2: have to carry off. And the room is just a
Speaker 2: built room, so that doesn't even count. The only magic
Speaker 2: is he uses the key to go into a public
Speaker 2: restroom in Pittsburgh and then one second later he closes
Speaker 2: the door and then opens it up inside a house
Speaker 2: in southern California, for instance. That's the only magic trick
Speaker 2: we have to pull off. Now, don't tell me we
Speaker 2: can't pull that off. Figure out how to pull it off. Now,
Speaker 2: what was difficult about making this? Okay, it takes place
Speaker 2: in Pittsburgh, right, it takes place because that's where they.
Speaker 1: Which it makes sense that you told me that they
Speaker 1: that they were, because once we started in Pittsburgh. We
Speaker 1: never get to see Pittsburgh unless it's a George Romero movie.
Speaker 1: Nobodys shooting in Pittsburgh these days, So anytime we get
Speaker 1: to see the city, I'm excited and and and now
Speaker 1: it makes sense.
Speaker 2: Okay, So you know Pittsburgh, So you're like, why am
Speaker 2: I not seeing Why are they not taking advantage of Pittsburgh. Well,
Speaker 2: the reason we're not taking advantage of Pittsburgh is because
Speaker 2: we didn't film in Pittsburgh. We filmed in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Speaker 1: Perfect, perfect replacement for Pittsburgh.
Speaker 2: Exactly when you're in Albuquerque, if you don't really.
Speaker 1: Go where's Primanti Brothers. Every time I'm in Albuquerque.
Speaker 2: You're slapping your face, going, I feel like I'm in Pittsburgh.
Speaker 2: This should be Pittsburgh. I gotta remember it's Albuquerque. Why
Speaker 2: are we in Albuquerque. We're in Albuquerque because Lionsgate is
Speaker 2: greasing the palm of New Mexico government because they are
Speaker 2: going to build a studio in Albuquerque. And so this
Speaker 2: mini series was being handed to New Mexico as a Hey,
Speaker 2: we're Lionsgate, look at us. We're gonna film in New Mexico.
Speaker 2: This is before Breaking Bad, this before anything was in
Speaker 2: New Mexico. We're serious about making an investment in New Mexico.
Speaker 2: All this is decided before I come on. So now
Speaker 2: I sit down with the people at the studio and
Speaker 2: I'm like, why are we doing this in Albuquerque? It
Speaker 2: takes place in Pittsburgh. And I've been to New Mexico
Speaker 2: a bunch and unless I'm I'm mistaken, there really is
Speaker 2: not a good way to even sort of fake it,
Speaker 2: and they're like, it doesn't matter. We're not. We're filming
Speaker 2: in Albuquerque. That's that's a given. So we'll have to
Speaker 2: figure it out. We'll have to shoot carefully and maybe
Speaker 2: put in some backgrounds. We'll figure it out. I'm like, okay,
Speaker 2: the one. But I went back upstairs to Chris and
Speaker 2: Paul and Laura and said, I have an idea and
Speaker 2: it might be the only way we can do this financially.
Speaker 2: The motel that you guys have on a highway in
Speaker 2: the hills of Pennsylvania. I pitched something, let's put it
Speaker 2: in New Mexico because that's where we're filming. It's so
Speaker 2: much better. And I'm like, let's make it. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, the Southwest has a Root sixty six. There's
Speaker 2: a tradition of these kitchy motels. It doesn't change the
Speaker 2: story at all, it doesn't change a single scene. It
Speaker 2: just changes set deck and some production design. So let's
Speaker 2: do that, and let's have the bus tickets send them
Speaker 2: to Gallop, New Mexico, so that we because we'll be
Speaker 2: right there and not every single, single single scene will
Speaker 2: be an insurmountable hill. And let me tell you something
Speaker 2: about producing stuff. Nothing is more frustrating and infuriating than
Speaker 2: spending money to do something that is not impressive. So
Speaker 2: when you're in Albuquerque and you're spending time and money
Speaker 2: and blood, sweat and tears to convince somebody that they're
Speaker 2: looking at a street in Pittsburgh, You're like, this is
Speaker 2: not helping us. This is just we're spending money on
Speaker 2: something that's not going to impress anyone. It is a
Speaker 2: production burden that does not result in creative joy. We're
Speaker 2: just stuck. And so now we're all this money that
Speaker 2: we could be spending on a lot of other stuff.
Speaker 2: We're spending on plate replaced right, and and oh, we're
Speaker 2: gonna get our our art director to reskin a building
Speaker 2: to make it look more like a deli or something
Speaker 2: in Pittsburgh than a you know, a boba coffee shop
Speaker 2: that got built in nineteen two on a street corner
Speaker 2: and Albuquerque. It's like, you know, this is not where
Speaker 2: we should be spending our money, but we don't have
Speaker 2: a choice because guess what we were told we're filming
Speaker 2: an Albuquerque, So I guess we're filming an Albuquerque. And
Speaker 2: every problem that came along with that was now our
Speaker 2: problem and came out of our budget and came and
Speaker 2: reduced all the cool stuff that we wanted to do
Speaker 2: because like, well, we can't because we have to spend
Speaker 2: that money convincing you that a street corner is actually
Speaker 2: in Pittsburgh. So that was very frustrating.
Speaker 1: Richard, Does it make you feel better than I believe
Speaker 1: you shot in Pittsburgh?
Speaker 2: Yes, makes me feel way better.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously there was an establishing shot, but when
Speaker 1: you guys were on the street there, I thought you
Speaker 1: were on the East Coast. The fact that you just
Speaker 1: said you filmed in entirely in New Mexico staggered me
Speaker 1: a little bit.
Speaker 2: So yeah, literally we were. We never filmed anywhere. We
Speaker 2: were in Albuquerque, Santa Fe.
Speaker 1: But it sucks that they made you do it. But
Speaker 1: you guys did it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we did it. Yeah, and it I mean, oh
Speaker 2: my god, Kreutzfeldt's mansion. It would have saved us so
Speaker 2: much money. And we searched, We searched everywhere in New
Speaker 2: Mexico for a house whose interior looked like it could
Speaker 2: conceivably be New England, East Coast, Pittsburgh, Old Pennsylvania. Something
Speaker 2: we went everywhere, we found nothing, and literally we were
Speaker 2: getting to a point. Craig Baxley, the director of the
Speaker 2: first two hours, in the final two hours, and our
Speaker 2: producer Paul Kurta. I remember just sitting in a diner
Speaker 2: on a location scout, and I was just spiraling because
Speaker 2: I'm like, I can't go back to LA until Chris
Speaker 2: and Paul and Laura that we were gonna have to
Speaker 2: make another compromise for this show. It's I can't do it.
Speaker 2: There's I don't know what we're gonna do. And we're
Speaker 2: sitting at there. There's this big table and there's ten
Speaker 2: of us and all the people who are on a
Speaker 2: and I'm sitting at one end of the table and
Speaker 2: Craig Baxley's at the other, and I'm like, we're never
Speaker 2: gonna get it. We're just never going to get it.
Speaker 2: And I see Craig Baxley writing something down and then
Speaker 2: he tears off a part of his paper place Matt,
Speaker 2: and he folds it up and he hands it and
Speaker 2: I see the note being passed all the way down
Speaker 2: to the table, all the way down to me, and
Speaker 2: I open up the little piece of paper and it says,
Speaker 2: don't worry. I promise you we're gonna get this, but
Speaker 2: he didn't say how. Three days later, there's a big meeting,
Speaker 2: and in that meeting, Craig Baxley's like, we got to
Speaker 2: build it. Sorry, I know it's not on anyone's budget,
Speaker 2: but it's important. There's a giant sequence.
Speaker 1: Mass, one of those massive innovations I was talking about
Speaker 1: at the beginning, that takes place inside that mansion.
Speaker 2: You gotta have it, huge sequence that takes place inside
Speaker 2: the mansion. He's like, we were crazy to even look
Speaker 2: for a location. We couldn't even do it. If we
Speaker 2: found the perfect log, if we were in Pittsburgh, we
Speaker 2: couldn't do it. We were always kidding ourselves. If we
Speaker 2: build it, yes it's expensive, but it'll save us so
Speaker 2: much time in travel, in prep. Because he's still got
Speaker 2: a prep location. You know, you gotta you gotta decorate it,
Speaker 2: you gotta art direct it, you gotta op it, you
Speaker 2: got to do everything. He's like, well, we're never gonna
Speaker 2: find it in our world. We will never find it.
Speaker 2: Let us build it. Let us build it to exactly
Speaker 2: our specifications, and I promise you we'll shoot it out
Speaker 2: in two days. And they listen to that logic, and
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, that is right, that is correct. We
Speaker 2: got to build it. It's like, sorry, guys, you're the studio.
Speaker 2: You're the ones who stuck us in Albuquerque fucking build
Speaker 2: us our set, and they had to. The boy today
Speaker 2: hate it, and you know, I will tell you the
Speaker 2: whole summer of two thousand and six, I was just like, God,
Speaker 2: Lionsgate is the worst. They're the cheapest, most miserly studio
Speaker 2: in the world. And I was certain of it until
Speaker 2: I worked with every other studio and then I realized,
Speaker 2: Oh no.
Speaker 1: That's just that's everybody. Baby, that's it.
Speaker 2: That's the job.
Speaker 1: Gets your hand my pocket.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, so yeah, so Albuquerque Orama, that's what it was.
Speaker 1: Rich, What was the event? Are you chewing? He's chewing everybody.
Speaker 1: He's going to tell me what the event is that
Speaker 1: was driving the series.
Speaker 2: I'm sure my dinner is the olives in my Martini glass. Okay,
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: What do you think it was? Which cabal were you
Speaker 1: were you signing with?
Speaker 2: Okay, I'll answer you. Uh here is my personal answer.
Speaker 2: I don't know what the event is, doesn't matter what
Speaker 2: the event is. Okay, that's that's just the you know,
Speaker 2: there was a storm. Okay, now this is the movie
Speaker 2: that about what a town that's been ravaged by a storm.
Speaker 2: That's it. We don't need to know, we don't need
Speaker 2: any more than that. What was interesting to me, what
Speaker 2: was interesting to Laura and Chris and Paul and what
Speaker 2: the show would have become about, was the people and
Speaker 2: these little hidden groups that are fighting for control of
Speaker 2: these objects and how far will they go? And that's it.
Speaker 2: And that's all this was. And you know, I told
Speaker 2: the writers, I said, you know, no matter what happens,
Speaker 2: this is yours. You will get credit for this, because
Speaker 2: I'd been through credit threats in my career and one
Speaker 2: of the first things I told them was, if you
Speaker 2: it literally, if the studio comes down and puts a
Speaker 2: gun to our heads and says, I don't care what
Speaker 2: you guys say, Richard is rewriting all of this, I said,
Speaker 2: I don't care if I rewrite every single word of this.
Speaker 2: I will never ask for credit. I am executive producer.
Speaker 2: You are the writers, and that'll never change. So don't
Speaker 2: even harbor that as a fear in the back of
Speaker 2: your mind. Six months it's never going to happen now.
Speaker 2: Add to that, while we were filming, I took a
Speaker 2: shot at writing a chunk of an episode that needed
Speaker 2: to get done, and completely shit the bed, I mean,
Speaker 2: was unable to match their tone, unable to match their voice,
Speaker 2: unable to match their events. And my work was correctly
Speaker 2: thrown out. And then they came in when they're you know,
Speaker 2: when they got a breath and were able to pick
Speaker 2: up and then write those scenes in their voice, in
Speaker 2: their way, which was a million times better. So that
Speaker 2: was the genius of them. What the event was. Who
Speaker 2: knows how people react to those things, That's what we
Speaker 2: cared about. I added one line, The one line I
Speaker 2: added to the entire six hours was Julianna Margally's saying
Speaker 2: to Joe to you know.
Speaker 1: Joe Miller, Detective Joe Miller.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're talking about the objects. She's explaining that they
Speaker 2: just collect them up from people and want to get
Speaker 2: rid of them. And she says, since the key came
Speaker 2: into your life, has your life gotten better or worse?
Speaker 2: And we cut to him and he doesn't even have
Speaker 2: to answer it. We've seen it. It's gotten worse. And
Speaker 2: that to me was telling the audience this is not
Speaker 2: about oh, we're all having fun here. This is wish
Speaker 2: fulfillment and we're gonna fly through the air. This is
Speaker 2: cursed objects. This is you think this is the monkey's pot.
Speaker 2: You think you know how to use it, You do
Speaker 2: not know how to use it. And and it was
Speaker 2: a way to, in a very succinct way, tell the
Speaker 2: audience what the theme of the show was. And it
Speaker 2: was already there and it just came out of conversations.
Speaker 2: But I'm like, let's have a character say it so
Speaker 2: that we're clear that this is not just avarice, that
Speaker 2: she's coming from a place of I don't love these objects.
Speaker 2: I actually have seen them ruin people's lives, and I
Speaker 2: think they should be banished from the face of the earth.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, to me, that's fascinating because the audience
Speaker 2: is programmed to think it's wish fulfillment, and it is
Speaker 2: because in your own mind, you're like, well, if I
Speaker 2: had that, I think I could come up with something
Speaker 2: to do with it. But the show does such a
Speaker 2: good job of going, no, no matter what you think
Speaker 2: you're gonna do with it, it ain't gonna work out
Speaker 2: the way you planned.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a wonderful sort of fetishization and condemnation of
Speaker 1: materialism because they're both valid. Like those objects on their
Speaker 1: own are so beautiful and so tied to the sort
Speaker 1: of like Americana Motel kind of idea of freedom and
Speaker 1: in America, and then they have these powers that are
Speaker 1: sometimes ridiculous and sometimes profound really should be in the
Speaker 1: hands of none of you, none.
Speaker 2: Of us exactly. Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: I love gadgetsvich I love little things that do nothing
Speaker 1: and do something.
Speaker 2: So totally, you know. And we were talking about the
Speaker 2: whole era of Americana and the romance of the Roadside Motel.
Speaker 2: So imagine if you're the prop master on the Lost Room.
Speaker 2: It was it was magic, and we're talking. You know.
Speaker 2: He sets up a giant room with just table after
Speaker 2: table after table. Here are cones, here are clocks, here
Speaker 2: are boxes. Here are glass eyes, which we'd never seen.
Speaker 2: We didn't know a glass eye was not a big
Speaker 2: marble we've had. A glass eye was like an egg
Speaker 2: shaped eye. And he was like, oh no, it's just
Speaker 2: this piece of glass. It's just like this this sort
Speaker 2: of shell, this outer shell that you just place on
Speaker 2: the dead eye that looks like a real eye, so
Speaker 2: a glass eye looks more like a guitar pick that's
Speaker 2: sort of rounded. And we're like, oh yeah, but they said,
Speaker 2: they said, you know what I love about this show.
Speaker 2: You know what the romance of the show is. It's
Speaker 2: about the stuff on your dad's desk. And I just
Speaker 2: about fell over. I'm like, my guy, have you nailed it?
Speaker 2: Because my dad had the little the pen box that
Speaker 2: opened up and had the little the little tray with
Speaker 2: the section for the little paper clips and the and
Speaker 2: the stamps and the little and I'm just like, that's
Speaker 2: when you're a kid my age and you were looking
Speaker 2: at your dad's desk and all those weird little chi
Speaker 2: and brass and golden figurines, and you're just what is
Speaker 2: dad all about? And I'm like, you're one hundred percent correct,
Speaker 2: And we knew, we knew we had a new member
Speaker 2: of the team.
Speaker 1: There's magic in those objects, totally.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And that's why, and that's why it's so easy
Speaker 2: to accept the conceit of objects that have weird, especially
Speaker 2: since the what they do is so weird and offbeat
Speaker 2: and somehow pointless. And then I love the notion of
Speaker 2: the dormant objects, you know, that case that Kreutzfeldt has
Speaker 2: with the toothbrush and the Holy Bible, and it's like, oh,
Speaker 2: those are dormant objects. Their power hasn't been discovered yet.
Speaker 2: So now it's a whole new level. You're like, oh right, sure,
Speaker 2: Like like the watch if you set an egg, if
Speaker 2: you just the watch just sits on your desk with
Speaker 2: the watch band and you've set an egg in the
Speaker 2: middle of it, it cooks the egg and they make
Speaker 2: a drugs. How did they discover that? I have no idea.
Speaker 2: But then later you realize, oh, the toothbrush, we still
Speaker 2: it's been decades. We still don't know what it does.
Speaker 2: It could do anything, it could do something wonderful, it
Speaker 2: could do nothing, but we don't know.
Speaker 1: Wow, it's yeah, it's so tantalizing, like everywhere you turn,
Speaker 1: like in this show. I mean, it's just how many
Speaker 1: hours rich, But it's so potent. It is so packed
Speaker 1: with ideas and good filmmaking and great writing and great performances.
Speaker 1: Like I do not understand why this didn't become a
Speaker 1: huge fucking deal. Please tell me why, because you were there,
Speaker 1: you watched them do it.
Speaker 2: I think it has to do with the fact that
Speaker 2: it took a minute to understand what the concept was,
Speaker 2: and so from the get go, people were a little
Speaker 2: unclear what they were getting, and I think that affected
Speaker 2: viewers in a particular way. The people. And it's the
Speaker 2: fucking you know, ninety percent of everything I've ever done
Speaker 2: that I've cared about are these things where it's like, well,
Speaker 2: I could describe it to you, but you should just
Speaker 2: watch it. Mofman prophecies. It's like, well, yes it's scary,
Speaker 2: No there's no monster. Yes it's good, No there's no fight.
Speaker 2: I don't know what to tell you. Just watch it.
Speaker 2: And then people watch it and they either like it
Speaker 2: or they don't. But the people who like it, the
Speaker 2: ones who get it get it. My show Miracles, people
Speaker 2: who get it get it. Same thing with the Gates,
Speaker 2: same thing with this. It's very hard to just go, oh,
Speaker 2: it's you know, you know, er meets twenty four or something.
Speaker 2: It's like, okay, whatever, It's like, no, you have to
Speaker 2: watch it. It's an actual creation. And this, more than anything,
Speaker 2: more than anything I've ever dealt with, is something that
Speaker 2: it's like, trust me, carve out some time this weekend,
Speaker 2: get six hours to yourself where you've got nothing else
Speaker 2: to do, and you will not be the same person.
Speaker 2: At the end of those six hours. You will have
Speaker 2: part of your brain will will open up, and forever
Speaker 2: you will never look at your own desk the same
Speaker 2: way ever again. Okay, so let me jump in here
Speaker 2: and explain the If the listener has been listening carefully,
Speaker 2: I said that it was an eight hour mini series,
Speaker 2: and yet we know there's only six hours. So what happened? Okay?
Speaker 2: What happened was the budget. There was a certain budget,
Speaker 2: and a budget depends on time, and it also depends
Speaker 2: on you know, what is what is to be filmed
Speaker 2: in those two hours, you know, to create those two hours,
Speaker 2: which of course takes two, three, four weeks. Okay. At
Speaker 2: a certain point I went to Chris and Laura and
Speaker 2: Paul and said, you know, we haven't really figured out
Speaker 2: the final two hours and the third two hours are
Speaker 2: a wonderful sort of concept, but it's a bit of
Speaker 2: a narrative detour. What if we just made it six
Speaker 2: hours and we compressed everything. I think in six hours
Speaker 2: it's much easier to make the money work. We could
Speaker 2: figure this out, and I think it would take a
Speaker 2: lot of pressure off the studio time wise, because we're
Speaker 2: we're up against a December date and we have post
Speaker 2: production and things to do, and another two hours, I
Speaker 2: mean that's weeks of post production. What if we just
Speaker 2: go to them and say, what if we could do
Speaker 2: our story in six hours three nights, the way you
Speaker 2: usually do, I think they'll go for it, and I
Speaker 2: think it could take a lot of pressure off us.
Speaker 2: We have a big meeting and literally, this is the
Speaker 2: weekend we're all showing up in New Mexico. This is
Speaker 2: we're way into it, and we still haven't figured out
Speaker 2: the budget, and they're hammering us. And we finally sat
Speaker 2: down with them and said, would it work if we
Speaker 2: just did the whole thing in six hours? And you
Speaker 2: know that's you know, one less director, a whole, one
Speaker 2: less production cycle. Just reduce everything by twenty five percent.
Speaker 2: And we talked it back and forth and they're like, okay,
Speaker 2: that can work. And so for a minute, the foot
Speaker 2: was off our throats in terms of how are we
Speaker 2: going to produce this? And so for a little bit
Speaker 2: of time we felt like this is doable. Of course,
Speaker 2: then it's never doable. Nothing is ever doable. And often
Speaker 2: when you're doing a television show that's got a season,
Speaker 2: maybe another season, you can sort of finagle things because
Speaker 2: you can say, well, we'll make up that money later,
Speaker 2: or we'll do a bottle episode in the end of
Speaker 2: the season. But this is more like a movie. It's like, okay,
Speaker 2: so now it's six hours, but it's got a beginning,
Speaker 2: a middle, and an end. So you can't really rob
Speaker 2: Peter to pay Paul. Everything needs money, and that last
Speaker 2: two hours needs a lot of money, because that's your
Speaker 2: big conclusion. So and these aren't traditional episodes. It's sort
Speaker 2: of a six hour story. So it within a few
Speaker 2: weeks we began to realize, oh, we're heading into all
Speaker 2: the same money problems we ever had, and every day
Speaker 2: there's a new money problem. And because the novelty of
Speaker 2: the show required that every hour introduce us to a
Speaker 2: new aspect of the mythology. So we're going to go
Speaker 2: to a new location with a new cast member, new sets.
Speaker 2: We're never repeating anything like TV depends on. Half of
Speaker 2: the scenes will be shot in the hospital where they
Speaker 2: all work, or in the police station. You know, if
Speaker 2: we ever need to, we can just move that scene.
Speaker 2: I know it's supposed to be in a restaurant, and
Speaker 2: he's going to propose at the fancy restaurant. Why doesn't
Speaker 2: he just propose in the break room at the police
Speaker 2: station that we own, and we've already paid for and decorated,
Speaker 2: and we've got all the camera angles worked out and
Speaker 2: we can shoot it in an hour rather than spending
Speaker 2: three quarters of a day in a restaurant that we
Speaker 2: have to pay for. We have, no, the only repeating
Speaker 2: set we have is the motel room. And so then
Speaker 2: they kept saying, well, can you put it in the
Speaker 2: motel room. We're like no, we kept put in the
Speaker 2: motel room.
Speaker 1: So it became they just get the Raiders. They can't
Speaker 1: they get the Lost Dark and scene three, yeah, just
Speaker 1: do they have to go to Egypt?
Speaker 2: And of course you're sitting here going you knew this
Speaker 2: when you bought it, but they never cop to that.
Speaker 2: Of course they knew it, but they're like, well, we
Speaker 2: don't care. That's going to be someone else's problem. Meet
Speaker 2: someone else. He's on the podcast right now. And then
Speaker 2: of course Chris and Paul and Laura keep looking at
Speaker 2: me like you're the executive producer, just tell them what
Speaker 2: to do, and I'm like, oh my god, you guys.
Speaker 2: I know that's what you think an executive producer is,
Speaker 2: because when you see Aaron Sorkin or David Kelly or
Speaker 2: Steven Botchko or Joss Whedon, that's what they are. But
Speaker 2: that's not what I am. I'm the guy who's getting
Speaker 2: punched from all directtionstions, and I'm trying to protect them
Speaker 2: as much as possible, although that was not possible at
Speaker 2: all times. They were dealing with production problems all the time.
Speaker 2: By the way, they were great, like smart creative, and
Speaker 2: they weren't kids. These weren't twenty year old people. They
Speaker 2: were full grown adults with thoughts and ideas who were
Speaker 2: finally getting a chance to do their dream project. And
Speaker 2: they weren't being idiots. And they were on set making
Speaker 2: really good points and really good suggestions and really smart
Speaker 2: ideas in the moment. So we had the benefit of
Speaker 2: their brains and the benefit of my brain. But I
Speaker 2: just got to tell you, man, there's this one night
Speaker 2: at the end of there was our last night of filming,
Speaker 2: the second two hour block, and Paul Kurda and I
Speaker 2: and and you know, the it's our final day, so
Speaker 2: you know, they bring in some champagne and you know,
Speaker 2: they bring in a cake and everyone sort of, you know,
Speaker 2: you do a little celebrate because you want to keep
Speaker 2: everyone's spirits up. It took a month to to the
Speaker 2: first two hours, a month due to the second two hours,
Speaker 2: and it was going to be another month in Albuquerque
Speaker 2: to do the third two hours. That's a long time,
Speaker 2: and people are away from their families, and it's not
Speaker 2: New York and it's not La it's Albuquerque, and your
Speaker 2: options for entertainment run out pretty quick. So Paul Kurda
Speaker 2: and I, and he's the line producer, so he's really
Speaker 2: physically responsible for figuring out the sets and the actors
Speaker 2: and the money and everything. So he and I were
Speaker 2: working closely the whole time. And we were sitting in
Speaker 2: his office and it's late and we're drinking champagne, going
Speaker 2: what did we do wrong? We're eating cake and drinking
Speaker 2: champagne and going fucked and everyone's mad at us did
Speaker 2: we fuck up? And I remember sitting there for over
Speaker 2: an hour as we went back and went, okay, now,
Speaker 2: wait a second. The first problem was this, and so
Speaker 2: we had to do that. The next problem was this,
Speaker 2: So we did that. We solve this by doing that
Speaker 2: we did this. The decision we made there was this.
Speaker 2: We we we retraced our steps. I've never done this before,
Speaker 2: by the way, I have never been so beaten down
Speaker 2: and so done.
Speaker 1: And we went through everything was the only option, the Champagne.
Speaker 2: Gake and we spent two hours and at the end
Speaker 2: of it, we looked at each other and we went,
Speaker 2: if we had it to do over again, we would
Speaker 2: do everything exactly the same. We made the best decisions.
Speaker 2: We don't. There's not there's no point in our journey
Speaker 2: where we're like, well, that's where we got off track
Speaker 2: with the minute we agreed to that, we fucked ourselves
Speaker 2: and blah blah blah, and we're like, no, we did it.
Speaker 2: We did everything right to the best of our professional abilities.
Speaker 2: And we're still the enemy of the studio and the
Speaker 2: network and are are being looked at as as criminals
Speaker 2: who are wasting their money. And I got to tell you,
Speaker 2: the production of it became rasily demoralizing because of the studio.
Speaker 2: Primarily because of the studio. Now, yeah, you have a budget,
Speaker 2: you're trying to work with a budget, but for this
Speaker 2: sort of thing to make it a successful execution of
Speaker 2: this creative idea. There were just certain things where it's like, no,
Speaker 2: we can't. We cannot just do this or just do
Speaker 2: that with your other shows. Maybe that works, it's not
Speaker 2: going to work here. And it got brutal, and it
Speaker 2: frankly never got better, and it ended people were burned
Speaker 2: out and not in a good mood by the end
Speaker 2: of that of filming. And it was too bad because
Speaker 2: we were all friends and we all enjoyed what we
Speaker 2: were doing. But at a certain point it was like,
Speaker 2: this is difficult for the sake of being difficult, and
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, but it's like, if you're talking fifty grand, no,
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna I'm not going to do back flips
Speaker 2: to save the production fifty grand when that fifty grand
Speaker 2: is going to be on the screen making the product better.
Speaker 2: And they just didn't want to hear it. And then
Speaker 2: I was like, did they hire me because they thought
Speaker 2: I would just do whatever they said? And I think
Speaker 2: they were very disappointed at a certain point when they
Speaker 2: were like these new writers and this fucking nobody executive
Speaker 2: producer and they're fighting back against us, and I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's what you hired me for. You didn't hire me
Speaker 2: to agree with you. You hired me to produce a good,
Speaker 2: a great mini series, a mini series that delivers the
Speaker 2: promise of the script. That's all you can ever do,
Speaker 2: and that's what we're trying to do. And everyone on
Speaker 2: that crew did backflips. The cast did backflips. Everyone actually
Speaker 2: doing the work did backflips. And the studio on the network,
Speaker 2: for the most part, stood. They're shaking their heads and
Speaker 2: planning on how they could make sure we never worked
Speaker 2: in this town again.
Speaker 1: Ricks the they read the script same as you. They
Speaker 1: saw the look do they just decide, well, fuck this
Speaker 1: bit of genius.
Speaker 2: No, And but it never matters. That stuff never matters.
Speaker 2: They've got It's like, well, this is how much we
Speaker 2: spent on this other thing, so that's how much you're getting.
Speaker 2: And anyway it was. It was not easy. However, the
Speaker 2: end result I have people who watch it go out
Speaker 2: of their way to say, this is the greatest thing
Speaker 2: I've ever seen. Where did this come from? Yeah, there
Speaker 2: you go. That's what I was looking at today. The
Speaker 2: DVD folks, if you're out there, have some fun this weekend.
Speaker 2: Enjoy what we suffered through. Watch the Lost Room.
Speaker 1: Hey, don't put it like that. Listen. I know you
Speaker 1: went through through some shit with this man, but this
Speaker 1: is a fucking master work. I love this show. This
Speaker 1: is a complete story, like you, and.
Speaker 2: It could go on and on and on.
Speaker 1: It could doesn't need to because, as you said that
Speaker 1: the event does not matter. It's the way these people
Speaker 1: are reacting to it and trying to control it and
Speaker 1: trying to use it and trying to avoid it and
Speaker 1: trying to help us become better through it somehow.
Speaker 2: And here's the thing, Chris and Paul and Laura wildly talented, clearly,
Speaker 2: And the show goes on, does okay, but doesn't you know,
Speaker 2: blow anyone away in terms of ratings, And now they're
Speaker 2: talking about making a series out of it, and then
Speaker 2: they decide not to. And then three months later they
Speaker 2: announced Warehouse thirteen and Chris and Laura are like, you've
Speaker 2: got to be kidding me. That's the Lost Room. It's
Speaker 2: just a wareful of objects, like a right serious.
Speaker 1: I remember when that series came out and thinking that
Speaker 1: and thinking like, I'm not going to be party to this.
Speaker 2: Well, and I know people who worked on that show.
Speaker 2: I know people who like that show. It's almost and
Speaker 2: the people who did that show know nothing about the
Speaker 2: Loss Room. It's not like they went, hey, we're going
Speaker 2: to do this thing. It was it was a studio
Speaker 2: going we want more of this, only we want it
Speaker 2: to be more genre. I actually don't like the fact
Speaker 2: that it takes place in our world and that it's
Speaker 2: fairly low key and more character driven. We wanted to
Speaker 2: be the warehouse at the end of Raiders of the
Speaker 2: Lost Arc and that's where a bunch of weird objects are.
Speaker 2: And by the way, that show came out great, people
Speaker 2: loved it, well done, entertained millions, and more power to them,
Speaker 2: more power to creative people making creative stuff. But when
Speaker 2: you look at it from our point of view with
Speaker 2: the network, we're like, really, so there you go.
Speaker 1: They kind of ended up making another Friday the thirteenth,
Speaker 1: the series with Warehouse thirteen. You guys weren't doing that.
Speaker 1: You guys had the same concept there, like got to
Speaker 1: get these objects back. There are a hundred of them.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's a syndication number. Almost. But this
Speaker 1: show had so much to say.
Speaker 2: And it is funny because I only knew a Friday
Speaker 2: the thirteenth belatedly when people were like, oh, yeah, that's
Speaker 2: that show that's sort of like Friday the three And
Speaker 2: I'm like, what are you talking? I saw the movie
Speaker 2: Friday the thirteenth. Was there a show? And they're like,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, and then they and they described it. I'm like, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: I get how you draw the connection?
Speaker 1: All right, Yeah, yeah, it's a good show. I love
Speaker 1: that show.
Speaker 2: Actually, yeah, I haven't seen it, but you know, hey.
Speaker 1: I loved it when I was a kid. I mean,
Speaker 1: you watch it now. There there are there are certain
Speaker 1: good episodes, but it's an anthology show, so basically.
Speaker 2: Right, and it's a good it's a good way to
Speaker 2: do an anthology show. But but in any event, we
Speaker 2: we we got the show made I see Laura all
Speaker 2: the time, talk to her lovely family. Chris, I see him.
Speaker 2: I had lunch with him a couple of months ago.
Speaker 2: He's working as a director now, has a has a
Speaker 2: movie that that is on the brink of getting distribution,
Speaker 2: so hopefully that's happening the next month or so. And
Speaker 2: and they all.
Speaker 1: Of them that they are appreciated and deserve more than
Speaker 1: they got. And I'm looking forward to everything they're going
Speaker 1: to do. Honestly, like this this space is fucking crazily good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, proud.
Speaker 1: I would wake up proud of myself every fucking day
Speaker 1: that I had anything to do with this series. You
Speaker 1: should too, Richard.
Speaker 2: Well, I look at it and I remember the scenes,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, oh, yes, I remember this, And what
Speaker 2: I tend to remember are the you're reading the script
Speaker 2: the first time and just going, oh right, this is
Speaker 2: the scene where they do that, and where this pays off,
Speaker 2: and this pays off and this pays off. But when
Speaker 2: you look, I mean listen, I will never get tired
Speaker 2: of Kevin Pollack's performance. I will never get tired of
Speaker 2: Julietta Margha Lees's presence and just the humanity she brings
Speaker 2: to every scene she's in. And we did not hang out.
Speaker 2: I mean I chatted with her and she was great.
Speaker 2: The cast was great. We didn't have a problem with anyone.
Speaker 2: They showed up. They were happy to do it, happy
Speaker 2: to work. I made friends. I made the first ad
Speaker 2: Jim Swartz were I'm friends with his entire family. His
Speaker 2: daughter was our assistant and now she's grown up, gotten married, child,
Speaker 2: had a career. I mean, it was all eighteen years
Speaker 2: ago and I'm still friends with Jerem I see Jerem Weekly.
Speaker 2: So a lot of great things, and people who've worked
Speaker 2: in television a long time or in movies, they all
Speaker 2: have that same story. I made that friend during that shoot.
Speaker 2: I made that friend during that shoot, And I made
Speaker 2: a lot of friends during a lost room. And it
Speaker 2: came up fast, and it was. I read the script
Speaker 2: in March, it was on the air in December. It
Speaker 2: was and boom it happened, and then it was gone.
Speaker 2: And yet every time someone brings it up, they have
Speaker 2: a great memory. And when I watched it this afternoon,
Speaker 2: I'm only halfway through and I'm going to go finish it.
Speaker 2: It's beautiful.
Speaker 1: I watched the entire series yesterday. As soon as we're
Speaker 1: done here, I'm going back again. It's that good and
Speaker 1: I'm going to carriage everyone out there. You can find it.
Speaker 1: It's on the Roku channel for free right now. If
Speaker 1: you're good, check it out. Go check it out there.
Speaker 1: I'm sure sci Fi has some fucking version of it.
Speaker 1: You can get it on physics media, get it on
Speaker 1: physical media. Don't trust these streamers. It's all gonna go
Speaker 1: away eventually. I have my copy. When I found out
Speaker 1: we were going to be talking Rach I was so
Speaker 1: excited I was able to dust these DVDs off.
Speaker 2: Isn't a nice to have the DVDs?
Speaker 1: Oh my god, it's so wonderful. Yes, play all and
Speaker 1: I'll just sit back and I'm not going to worry
Speaker 1: about my television requesting that I requesting whether or not
Speaker 1: I'm awake.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it is funny. I mean watching it, I'm like, Wow,
Speaker 2: this thing really was complex because you'll be watching, You'll
Speaker 2: be following this storyline. Then they'll cut to another character
Speaker 2: and you're like, oh, right, that Dennis Christopher is in
Speaker 2: this what's he doing? Oh, he's following. It really is
Speaker 2: a mini series. It's like, oh right, there's four or
Speaker 2: five six different storylines that all connect up to the
Speaker 2: main one. They're all fun, they all have a great cast,
Speaker 2: and you're just like, how is this all gonna come together?
Speaker 1: So yeah, and it all invites flights of fancy every
Speaker 1: single character, every potential plot line. There is so much potential. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there still is. I know so much for joining us
Speaker 1: here at midnight viewing it lost. We're gonna last room.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have to have you back again because guess what.
Speaker 1: I love the Gates too. Man, excellent America. What a
Speaker 1: great comment on where we were right then.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Gates Gates is a Coolates is a cool show
Speaker 2: for sure. Yeah. I'll come back anytime. Man, I love
Speaker 2: talking to you.
Speaker 1: Oh and if people want to hear rich Richard Haddam's
Speaker 1: Paranormal Bookshelf, where that's on every Podcascher, just look for
Speaker 1: it there correct.
Speaker 2: Anywhere you want to hear it. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, good pods.
Speaker 2: Check it out. We're into second season, so check out
Speaker 2: Richard Haddam's Paranormal Bookshelf. I think you'll enjoy it.
Speaker 1: I you definitely will. I know I do. Thank you
Speaker 1: everyone for joining us once again here on mid night viewing.
Speaker 1: Once again, try to enjoy the daylights.
Speaker 2: Sss sss