Hugh I long for someone to say no. When you hire a writer, you surround yourself with people who make you happy. I understand that. But what we’re looking for is people who can help us build the best shows. And sometimes that means telling us: you know what? I personally don’t think it works, and here’s why.
Lindelof The worst thing to say to me in an interview is i am a big fan of your work. Because either it causes a certain amount of discomfort and self-loathing, or it’s very flattering and very nice but just a bit contradictory to what you’re talking about. Can’t this person say I’m stupid? As a matter of fact, most of the time I’m an idiot.
Do your writers open their eyes to ideas you never thought of before?
Hugh all the time.
Lindelof all the time.
Hugh I think the higher you go, the more you lose your sense of balance. Don’t worry about money anymore. I’m also hungry. You will have fewer opportunities to come into contact with different people. Age limits the human experience, for better or worse. I think what I love about the writer’s room and why it’s probably my favorite part of the process is the sudden expansion of my sense of the world. Now I see it through the eyes of seven or eight people.
Lindelof You see, the first room I walked into was actually basically white guys. So I thought, oh all you’re doing is copying yourself. That way there are different versions of yourself and you don’t have to waste time explaining things. That led to a culture of tokenism, for which I take full responsibility. In “LOST,” we had Korean-speaking characters, and Harold Perrineau played a black father, so it was like this. Perhaps a black writer and a Korean writer should be used in the episode. But of course, these writers are fully human beings who have a point of view on all the other characters as well.
The idea that arose after that—the idea of curating a room that looks nothing like you, but has a very different life experience than you, and can sometimes clash—results in better, more interesting work. I think
As a writer-turned-producer, how did you learn how to row a large staff in the same direction?
Hugh I realized that my job as a showrunner was mainly to say: not enough But say it with a smile. what can we do How can we move it forward?
Lindelof I believe that when you create something, it is an act of making, as opposed to writing. For example, if you are a novelist, you should be writing novels. But then you say: Well, Jonathan Franzen, Make “The Collections” a TV series, and that would be an entirely different skill set. It requires ongoing daily sacrifices and compromises from people not necessarily accustomed to it. Every day, every email we receive is for the next version. I know you wanted to do this, but how about this instead? If you always say yes, what are you there for? Where do you dig your heels? To someone outside our bodies it may seem arbitrary, but we must take the arbitrary and make it seem essential. yeah.
