136 | Charlie Day (It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia) On Satire In Our Writing

When Charlie got to post-production of his feature writer/director debut, he was crushed to discover that the film simply didn't work. At that point, he was faced with two choices: ditch the movie and move on, or dig in, dive into his lava, and head back to set for reshoots. He chose the latter, and his new film FOOL'S PARADISE, drops in theaters next week! On today's show we also talk about the genesis of Always Sunny, Charlie's comic voice, "pushing" your tone on the page, and how to write "unlikeable" characters.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Meg: Hey everyone, welcome back to The Screenwriting Life. I'm Meg LeFauve.

Lorien: And I'm Lorien McKenna, and today we are thrilled to be joined by writer, director, and now feature director Charlie Day.

Charlie: Well, thanks for having me. I'm happy to be here.

Meg: Charlie is one of the most recognizable comic voices in our business, starring on the hit FX show It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which he also executive produces and writes for.

Lorien: Charlie's new film, and feature directorial, debut Fool's Paradise drops on May 11th, and we'll be discussing that film today.

Meg: But before we do, we just wanna welcome Charlie and talk about our weeks. So welcome to the show.

Charlie: Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm excited to chat with you guys. It's always, I find writing interesting to talk about because it's so hard to understand and figure out and do. So, maybe we'll open some, inspire each other in some ways. 

Meg: Yeah, absolutely. 

Charlie: Get some new tools.

Meg: Absolutely. And you've, you're game to talk about your week. So, we'll let Lorien go first. Lorien, how was your week? 

Lorien: My week has been good. I've been doing a lot of not writing, and doing other things. So today my manager called me and said, ‘Hey, where's your script?’ And I said, ‘oh, well I'm doing this and this,’ and I had all these other things to talk about.

And he's like, ‘uh-huh, uh-huh. So where's your script?’ And I'm like, ‘well,’ and then I sort of realized like, oh God, these are all excuses, of course. And then I was like, well, actually, I'm feeling really overwhelmed and this thing, and like, it was just like this role of excuses about why I didn't have anything to deliver.

And I knew this as I was saying it. And then he said the most horrifying thing you can hear, I can hear, which is, ‘okay, here's what you need to do: stop overthinking, get out of your way, and just write.’ Which is horrifying because that's all we say on the show. Stop overthinking. Get out of your own way. Sit down, write, come up with it. However the process works for you, whatever you want. 

And I was like, ‘oh my God, I'm not doing what I'm saying that everyone else should be doing.’ And it was just, it made me mad, like it wasn't humbling, or, it didn't motivate me. I was like, fuck you, God damn it. Why? Why do I have to be hearing the same advice? Like I'm the one that gives the advice. 

So that's where I am today. Charlie, how was your week?

Charlie: My week's good. But I've been on a whirlwind. I, we, I planted a lot of seeds and they're all coming up at the same time. You know, I'm out here and I'm promoting the movie that I'm excited to be promoting, but I'm also in the editing room on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

And then squeezed in a podcast this morning. And we just got back from an international tour and I've also been doing a little bit of leftover press on the Super Mario Brothers movie, which is all done now. So it all happened at the same time. And, it's, these are all good problems, I know. But I'm at the same time I'm like, oh, I can't wait to never do anything again.

That's what I'm looking, that's what I'm looking forward to.

Lorien: So basically you had the opposite week I had, right? You're busy, and all these things are coming to fruition, and I'm like, excuses lame, blah, blah. I wanna take a nap.

Charlie: None of those things are actually sitting down in front of a page and writing, and that I'm a master at avoiding. I can avoid that with the best of them.

Lorien: Yeah. 

Jeff: What a little, your go-to procrastination activities. Is it cleaning, is it eating? What are your go-to writing procrastination activities?

Charlie: It's pursuing other things in my life. So, you know, all the acting, and the show running, or the promoting, or the press or, everything else pulls me away, and I think, ‘well, I can't sit and write right now. I have to get this other thing done.’ Even though I could probably carve out the time to finish something else that I'm working on that I feel like I can't get over a hump and I just have to lock myself in a room and do it. But yeah. And the internet is a terrible invention for a writer because just the second you engage with it, just boom, your brain's out.

Lorien: Yep. Yep. That's fun. Cool. Yeah. So, Meg, how is your week?

Meg: I fit right into the theme. I'm on the Lorien side of the spectrum. Which is my husband- 

Lorien: Did you also wanna scream, fuck you into the microphone so loud that it blows out all our listeners?

Meg: But I didn't because it was my husband, so I did not scream fuck you, because it only took 30 years of marriage to realize that–

Lorien: – Oh no, I didn't literally say that to my manager. Sorry. 

Meg: I, my husband went off to Taiwan for a birthday trip he wanted to take, and I, but we're writing a script together and, you know, when he left I was like, ‘absolutely, I will send you pages, I will send that breakdown. You will be in Taiwan and get it, and then you're not gonna wanna work, but that's okay. 'cause I did’ and I didn't do it. 

You know, I don't know. I think I, you know, here's my seat, that my, I'm a highly evolved avoider. Because, like, my things are, well, I did an Instagram for Stage 32, talking to emerging writers. And on Friday I am gonna do an ‘Ask Me Anything.’ 

Like, it's all very altruistic and giving, but it's still taking away from the writing time. And that's just what it is. Like, there, it's hard to, for me, to put up boundaries when somebody calls and says, will you have lunch with me? 'Cause I just wanna talk about my script, and I haven't talked to this person in so long, and I feel like, ‘oh, I haven't, I should really do that.’

But meanwhile, I'm having to relearn the lesson that when you say yes to something, you're saying no to something else, and that is my writing. And it's just like everybody else. It's the advice I give, I don't take. So, I need to do that.

Lorien: So, stop giving yourself to everybody else, and sit down and write, and I will stop overthinking, and self-sabotaging, and sit down and write. Starting next Tuesday. 

Meg: Yeah. Starting not tomorrow. Not tomorrow. I have to start tomorrow because my husband's waiting for pages, so, I gotta start tomorrow.

Alright, let's get into the fun stuff. Let's talk. 

Lorien: So I wanna ask you, I really enjoyed your movie. I had a good time watching it.

Charlie: Oh, thank you.

Lorien: I love so many aspects of it. I love satire, I love the push characters of it, but I wanna know, where the seed of the idea came from. Like, what was that spark where you're like, this is where I'm gonna start. Was it a high concept? Was it like a character moment? What was it? 

Charlie: Sure. Well let me ask you before, before I answer that, just so I have some awareness of context of my work and where you're coming to it from. 

Lorien: Yeah. 

Charlie: Have you ever seen, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia? 

Lorien:  Yes.

Charlie: Have you watched? 

Lorien: Yes. 

Charlie: Okay. So you're familiar with the tone of it? 

Lorien: Yes. Yes. 

Charlie: So I think I was, ‘cause it's interesting 'cause I think some people who have never seen that show will approach this movie from one direction, and people who know it well will see it in a different light, and that's fine.

I have no control over that. I think I was, it was about 2014, and we were on the sixth or seventh season of the show and I was starting to feel pretty confident in my writing ability. So, always wanted to write features, always wanted to write a movie to act and direct. Always liked those movies by those filmmakers.

I, there was something appealing to me that it was from a singular voice and that made me lean in and watch the movie closer, I think. So I knew I wanted to do it, and I knew I loved obviously being there, which is the closest relative to this movie. And I just knew that I would never get an opportunity to be in a movie like that as a performer.

So my initial motivation, and it usually is as selfish as what do I want to act in, and what kind of movie do I want to be in? That's usually the first seed of an idea for me. So I start thinking, well, I've never played a silent character. No one's gonna write a silent character for me.

And especially given what my voice is like, but people aren't gonna think of me, when they think of silent character. They're gonna hire me for the voice, so, or not hire me 'cause of the voice.  

Lorien: Right. 

Charlie: So, I thought, well, boy, it'd be fun to do that, and it'd be fun to be a, in a being-there-esque movie. And I just started writing some scene ideas and taking notes like that.

Lorien: Along those lines, you know, you are so vocal, you have such a great voice in all of your other work. How challenging was it to sink into that, where you didn't have that access to that tool?

Charlie: I think it would've been a lot easier, had I not been directing the film, and I could only pay attention to my acting. But I found that I often, in many scenes, was paying such close attention to, you know, is the camera hitting its mark and is the character saying the line, like, I  wrote it and are they getting the speech right, or am I gonna have to ask them to do another take, and forgetting to react as the, as this silent character. 

And I would see in the editing room, I'd be like, boy, I'm not, I'm gone in this one, and I'm there and others. And it was kind of a fine line. 'Cause in many scenes I'm trying to do a very minimalistic, you know, not like a Mr. Bean type thing, but, the character starts out sort of that way, and then he starts to shed that, and then he starts to sort of become more human by the end of the movie. This is the sort of journey I, in my mind, I wanted to pull off. 

But sometimes I just wasn't there, 'cause I was like, ‘okay, just make sure Ken says this speech right, or just enjoying watching John Malkovich, or somebody. So, it was extremely challenging, and I wound up doing a big reshoot where I think I fixed some of it from, for me, from a performance standpoint, it was great to get, okay, now that I get a chance to go back, let me redo this better.

Meg: I'm interested in the tone, and, 'cause it's so specific. And I know, you're talking about Sunny in Philadelphia, and so, if people know that, I think that, but for you on the page when you're writing it, because sometimes you're gonna hand it to financiers or other people who may be. How did you make sure the tone was clear on the page?

Charlie: Tone is tricky. And tone was the thing I think I struggled with the most. And especially in a movie like this where you're going in and out of so many different, almost worlds, where people come in, and you have these performances, and you're trying to make sure this performance matches that performance.

And, we'll get into the reshoot aspect. I think initially, I had a chunk of the movie that no longer exists, that didn't work, quite, tonally with the chunk of the movie that does exist. So, I struggled with that. On the page, I think I was naive to whether or not that mattered, and just was just, which is probably a good thing. And was just writing the tone that appealed to me, which ultimately is really all you can do. 

Meg: Were you aware of trying to keep it consistent in terms of that tone?

Charlie: Not at the time, not at the time. Now, I'm more aware of it as a writer, having gone through this experience. You know, my first pass of it was a decade ago. And I kept rewriting and adding things, and taking things away, and ultimately did a big rewrite, after having filmed the movie. Which was sort of a lucky accident that I even got into a position where I could do that. But maybe not unlike Pixar, where you get to sort of see some of it and go back and be like, well, what's working and what doesn't?

You normally don't get that. Had I had this been a studio film, I wouldn't have had that opportunity. And had I not sort of hit a pandemic, and had I not also had a Sunny schedule that I had to go back to and I could say, ‘Hey guys, pencil's down. I have to go back to Sunny.’ In many ways, it bought me some, very, time that I needed just from making all the mistakes that you make. That's not really answering your question, I guess–

Meg: –it absolutely is. 

Charlie: I think in terms of tone, it's just, I'm just always just trying to write the movie that I want to see, you know? And then, I want those scenes all to fit into that movie I want to see. So this one tonally, everything's a little heightened.

I think, you know, in my second pass, I grounded sequences and scenes more, but on the page, I'm assuming it all reads as the same tone. But I guess, you know, it's how someone else reads 9s outta my control. Yeah.

Jeff: There's also the element of you directing it too, so, you're probably not quite as specifically aware of knowing that you're handing this off to someone. I mean, if you read a Coen Brothers script, it doesn't necessarily follow the same rules that, like, a traditional studio screenplay would read because they're handing it off to themself, on set.

Charlie: Yeah, that's right. In terms of, I, you know, I don't write a lot of stage direction. I don't write a ton of description. 

I think I do, initially, and then I start peeling it out, and peeling it out, and try to say, just, what's essential. Because I know readers, like myself, are impatient and they're not gonna wanna sort of slog through, if this thing's like 120 pages, and it could be, like, 101, with just being a little more efficacious about when I'm using description, then I'm a fan of that.

It really, it just depends. Sometimes, I'll do a pass after I've gotten something done, and sold for the crew. You know, I'll go back in and I'll say, okay, now let me describe these things in great detail so I don't get into that production meeting and, you know. 

This is not the case on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I feel so bad for everyone who works on that crew 'cause they're, you know, we'll have these production meetings be like, ‘oh, how do you, how did you not know that the garbage bag was supposed to be seven feet long,’ you know, because it was in our head, because we'll forget at times. 

But yeah, I think for a feature, I'm thinking about two different readers. I think, I'm thinking about that executive. I want to buy the movie, who just wants to know, scene by scene by scene, what's funny and interesting. And then, after God willing, it’s sold, I'm thinking about the crew that has to make the movie. And then I can go back in and put a lot of description.

Lorien: My experience of watching their movie, so much of it was about being puppeted, being, like, if you don't control your own narrative, other people are just gonna put their version of you on you. And it really spoke to me. Right? And you know, as a woman, as a writer, sort of, you have to claim who you are and what you're doing. 

I'm just wondering if that's what you had in mind, right? And what, for you, the driving theme of this movie was, like what your, you know, what you were really trying to say, emotionally, the core of it.

Charlie: Yeah, I went through a really interesting process on this one, unlike anything else that I've worked on or, most, a lot of what I'd done, I've co-written. Which I'm much more comfortable doing, because it's terrifying on your own. And, it's hard to not have the person to turn to and say, what do you think? Is this the right direction? Is that to all, to have that argument in your own head. And I'm ruthless with myself, not as I'm going along, I'll write fast and then when I'm done, then I'll hate it after the fact. 

But, so, I think, initially, I had set out, it was a little more biting, a little, harsher, in its satire and, was really only about that puppetry, the idea of identity, and what is an identity? And in a town that's obsessed with, sort of, a fake identity, it seemed like the right setting for that. You know, then, we all sort of call a man, we all collectively call a man The Rock, and like, the sort of, the fact that we all just sort of fall in line, and are okay with calling a man an inanimate object and that we're like, well, this is just what we do now. I, you know, thematically I liked that. 

And then, the movie didn't come alive for me until I stumbled on Ken Jeong’s performance, and realizing, oh, this has to be a movie just about the fact that everything, certainly everything in this town, is meaningless, compared to a connection with another human being. That there is no value, there is no currency, and a town that just overvalues fame and celebrity, that it really is all ultimately incredibly meaningless, that the movies are not nearly as self-important as we sort of like them to be. You know, that in a sense they're wonderful and they're great, they're also disposable. They move on, they find the next person, they make another one. 

And that you know, that the only thing, I have the line at the beginning of the movie where the doctor's saying, you know, if he can have one meaningful connection, you know, perhaps he can find his voice again. Of course he, you know, he spends the entire film trying to, it turns out that Hollywood's not a good place to try to find a meaningful connection.

Lorien: But it can be a good place to find your voice.

Charlie: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And those were the themes that I, uh– 

Lorien: –Use your voice–

Charlie: –I had the luxury of stumbling upon your voice. Yeah, use my voice sponge voice.

Meg: Yeah. Yeah. You talked about the rewrite process that you went through. Can you tell us a little bit more about that and what happened?

Charlie: I'd love to. So I'd had a version of the film, and I just knew, in my gut it wasn't, a lot of people liked it. I showed it to people. They were like, ‘this is fun.’ And it, in my gut, something just wasn't working. 

I knew something wasn't working. I wasn't getting the reaction I wanted to get from people, but more importantly, I wasn't getting the reaction for myself, which is the only barometer you have when making anything. And the thing that matters the most, right? Because ultimately someone's gonna love your work and someone's gonna hate it, but if you don't love it, then you're gonna have to live with it. 

And I have the very good fortune of knowing one incredible filmmaker and Mr. Guillermo Del Toro, who I had sent the movie to. I had a lot of Spanish elements in the movie, initially, because it's a big part of the fabric of Los Angeles. And I was having a hard time tying the two storylines together, and it was, Guillermo was saying like, I don't, I think you have to lose that. I think you, it, like, tonally you're not connecting the dots.

And he had identified Ken as being the heart of the film, and I said, yeah, I, no, I agree. Initially I had his character sort of, die, halfway through the movie when he has his heart attack. But, so, we talked about it and he said, you know, ‘maybe you could have Ken,’ we'd landed on something like ‘maybe Ken could narrate the movie from Heaven or something.’

And I thought about that and I went, and I, you know, wrote versions of that and I shot a version of that. It was a pretty quick shoot, like, you know, one day in the hangar with some clouds and stuff. But of course it didn't work at all. Because it was a bandaid to the larger problem of Screenwriting 101, I didn't have a main character with a driving want. Which is what Hal Ashby pulled off in Being There. 

But I didn't wanna also just remake someone's movie. It's a great jumping off point, but it's gotta be its own thing. There's a million reasons why Being There works. You know, Being There is incredibly subtle and down to earth and understated, and I had already had flushed all that down the toilet.

So, but there was something great in Ken's character, you know, he had this Shelley The Machine Levene type quality, right? It is a Willy Loman, this sad sack quality. And I thought, and here was a guy who very clearly I had baked in the character that he wanted so much to be a part of, show business and so much to be a part of Hollywood, that, I thought, okay, this is the heart of my movie. And I threw out a lot. I threw out a lot. And I wrote 27 pages. I was I just finished–

Meg: –This is after you've shot it–

Charlie: After I shot the movie. And I'd even had an offer to buy the movie. Guillermo, it was, Guillermo was saying, ‘you don't have to sell if your financiers are comfortable sitting and waiting, you should make the changes you wanna make.’

And I would, I wrote these pages. I shared them with Guillermo who was kind enough to take a look. I'd been recutting the film with Leslie Jones, who's an incredible editor. She did The Thin Red Line and Punch Junk Love and 20th Century Women and Inherent Vice, a lot of movies. And Leslie and I, we recut it and we tried different narration, and she was like, ‘don't even bother with the Ken from Heaven thing.’ 

So I now had two people to turn to who had made great movies, which I needed. I needed that support system. I needed Leslie, and I needed Guillermo, and just the two of them together, just giving me the nudge to say, yeah, to go down the road that you want to go down. 

And I was ruthless with the movie. I was ruthless. I was like, if it doesn't work, I'm losing it. And if it does work, I'm keeping it. And if I have a better idea, I'm writing it. 

And it required some really difficult reshoots. I mean, the scene on the rooftop with Ken in the middle of the big party, I had to get back up on that same roof, with those same extras three and a half years later, because we had hit the pandemic. 

And I got back to that bus stop. I got, I all these places where, and every step of the way I tried to be a good Boy Scout and come up with the cheaper option of, okay, maybe we could film, you know, they duck into a closet and they film the scene in here, or maybe we don't have to go to that bus stop.

And it was my production designer Robb Wilson King, who just kept saying, ‘ah, you gotta go to the good location, it was gorgeous’ and everyone kept nudging me. And look, I had the luxury of time, I had the luxury of a very successful career leading up to that, that I was able to say to my financiers, this is gonna be expensive. I'm gonna split some of the costs with you. So that is not an opportunity that everyone has. 

But because I had that opportunity, I was gonna take it. And I went back and then at some point it's pencils down. I mean, I just watched the final DCP last night, and I enjoy it, I let myself enjoy it even though the resections were like, ‘oh boy, if I could've gotten that one, I would've fixed that one.’ You could go forever though forever. 

But so from a writing standpoint, it just as simple as I had this one overly ambitious idea and then realized I needed a little writing 101 of, the character with the driving want. And then, when I had that, suddenly I had the movie. 

And then, now I had this weird sort of romantic movie between these two men. And that wasn't what I set out to do. That was the movie telling me what it was. So, a little bit of just being available to listen to the movie and say, alright, what do you have? 

I wish I had caught that in the writing phase. I wish I had bounced the script off more of those filmmaker friends before I got it made. I was, I never wanna burden anybody. And then I realized that to direct a movie, you have to burden everybody, you know, constantly, which is horrible. But you get better at just not caring, just saying, ‘Hey, listen, I need a favor.’ 

But, so, it was an interesting, this one more so than anything else I've done, was an interesting process of something that kept developing and saying, listen, ‘if you want this to be the best it can be, you have to go down a different lane,’ and then, just trusting that.

Lorien: I know you're used to writing in partnership with people and processing and banging things out, and then writing this alone, is that why maybe you kept it a little close to the vest at the beginning? Like afraid to sort of, share it or have people probably bang on it too hard before you were really done?

Charlie: Probably. Probably some of it was ego, like thinking, ‘I can do this great thing I don't need any help.’ It’s hard to know, I'd have to sit with a therapist for a little bit to shake that one out. But yeah, probably wanting to feel like I can be a great filmmaker on my own. But you know, anyone who's ever made anything good has collaborated with hundreds and hundreds of people to do it.

So, and then the side of me that just doesn't wanna burden people, it's a pain to sit and read your friend scripts. It's hard. It takes time. So it was all those things. And then, you know, perhaps no one would've caught that. That's the other thing. 

Sometimes you have to look at something to say, this has to change. I can think of at least half the episodes of Sunny that have almost completely changed in the editing room, scripts that we thought were airtight. We thought, well, ‘this one's perfect. This one works beginning to end.’ And then you get in the editing room, you're like, ‘no, this part of it falls flat. We gotta lose this completely and let's try this other thing.’

Meg: Yeah, that happens at Pixar all the time. Where you can write your draft and you're like, or even just a section, just a piece of the act. You're like, ‘but that'll work.’ And then it goes into boards and ‘you're like, yeah, nope, that doesn't work.’ Or it works in boards, and then it goes into edit and you're like, ‘yep. Nope. That doesn't work. It works on its own, but it doesn't work with everything around it.’ It's such a gift to be able to see it up and–

Charlie: –it's an absolute gift. And it's a little bit the way they used to make movies. I think there used to be a little bit more of a grace period for reshoots, and they used to spend a little bit more money on making a movie. Everything's gotten squeezed. Except for obviously giant superhero movies. 

But yeah, Pixar is a great example. I mean, it's the best process to sort of say, well, what's working? What's not? The concept of just getting it all on the first go and that it works great. I don't know how anyone does it.

Lorien: I love how you're talking about the editor as, like, an equal creative process. 

Charlie: Oh yeah. 

Lorien: In the, you know, with the director, in partnership with everybody, and that's how it was at Pixar, right? There was like the director, the head of story, the editor, and it was this triad, or more, if there are more people, working together to figure out the story. 

Like you're in the editor's office, you have it up. Story artists come and draw more boards and you put 'em up into, you cut it right there, you’re watching it as it goes, as it iterates live. And the editor is such a key part of that, their eye, the way they feel story. And it sounds like you are having a, you had a similar experience with your editor on this film?

Charlie: Yeah. 

Lorien: You're such a partner.

Charlie: I had started with Tim Roche, who cuts for It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and had for a long time, and actually was a childhood friend of mine in Rhode Island, of all places, where no one is in show business. And we'd done the first pass and he'd identified some of these problems well before I ever dreamt up these solutions.

And then he, you know, obviously didn't, couldn't afford to just stay with me on the movie for five years or however long I was in post. So he got gobbled up by the Marvel machine, and he went on to work on some big projects. But, Leslie's experience in filmmaking was just essential, I think, for me getting to the end, and I think was helpful in me getting Jon Brion to do the score.

And that's another huge component of making the movie. I don't know how anyone sort of says, let's wing it with a score. It's, the composer is talking in every scene and they better be good at their lines, you know, and they better have something interesting to say. 

Lorien: Do people do that? Do people just wing it with the score? Is that a thing?

Charlie: Yeah. People just, most people don't, but I think that, you know, there's a lot of the studio system like, okay, yeah, pick these, this guy or that guy or financiers saying, ‘hey, let's save some money, let's not go for the best composer we can get.’ 

Which is not to say, like Jon Brio had to start somewhere, and Paul Thomas Anderson was smart to snag him and get him. But the composer, the editor, the people who come on in the post process really shaped the movie.

Meg: I'd love to make sure we have time also to talk about It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Charlie: I'll talk about whatever. Yeah, let's go. Go on, on and on.

Meg: So, in the broadest sense, which is, this is a broad question, but hopefully it's something you feel comfortable answering. You've worked on that show for so long creating it. Can you look back now and see what it's taught you, in terms of creating and writing?

Charlie: Oh, it's taught me everything, it's been bootcamp. Well, I didn't, I don't think I aspired to be a writer before we made the show. I had started with acting, although I was always making, like, little movies with friends. So, there was a piece of me that probably did know I wanted to do like an Albert Brooks type thing. But I hadn't really identified it, or maybe just didn't have the vision to see, I needed to get better at each piece before I felt as though I could do the whole thing.

So when we made that show, our initial thought was that we would hire someone, writers and a showrunner to come do it. And FX was the one that said, you guys are gonna run it. And we thought, okay, you know, we don't know what we're doing. I was just, we had, I was just talking to two of our staff writers this morning on the Sunny podcast and they came on season three.

It was the first season we hired a staff and I remember them saying, ‘hey,’ they were saying, ‘hey, what's for lunch?’ And we're like ‘what do you mean you didn't, like, bring a lunch or something? Or you wanna go somewhere?’ And them saying, ‘you know, that normally the studio gets you lunch,’ and us having to call like our line producer saying, ‘hey I think everyone should get lunch.’

And them being like, ‘you know, on our other shows we get computers’ like, what? You get a computer? And that the third season was the first season I ever owned a computer. We used to all huddle around one computer that we were all sharing. So, I was just so, so naively learning the process, but also so lucky to, you know, get this sort of sandbox to play in where we were working at the studio and we don't have these executives telling us what we can and cannot do. They're very supportive. They're, in fact, they're pushing us further than we want to go half the time. 

And the fact that every year I have gone back to that for, 16 seasons, but over the course of like almost 20 years now, getting to go and write those episodes, it's just like, the deadline is very helpful for me. Knowing that, okay, this has to get done. And that there's no one to turn to other than Rob and Glenn, and they'll turn to me and go ‘what are we doing?’

Meg: Do you approach the writing differently than you did when you started? In terms of, because you know now certain things, or is it just more intuitive, do you think?

Charlie: We, well, we waste less time now. I think. I think now we know what's sort of worth arguing about and what's not, you know. There's less sort of discovery of what is the show. 

I miss that because I think that's the really magic sweet spot. And I think it's gotten much more difficult to write. In some ways, some things have gotten easier where we were in a time crunch this year, and then I was trying to fix a script and I was thinking, well, who's funny? Well, the, you know, Mac’s mom and Charlie's mom are funny. So like, let's find a way to have them on a road trip together. 

And, you know, so sometimes some things are easier just knowing, ‘okay, if I get these characters in this scenario, it's gonna be done.’ And some things are much harder in terms of we've done it all. We feel like, oh, we've done this storyline, we've done that storyline.

And keeping it fresh, you know, not trying to repeat ideas or themes or jokes. I think we're starting to realize, boy we're not just like a storyline, but even just a tonal, from a comedy standpoint, a tonal thing it's very hard to keep it fresh. 

So, it's the same process: go into a room, put a bunch of note cards on a board, you know, spend a few days blue skying, then land on the one or two that you get excited about, then break off into separate rooms, try to break it down, try to outline the whole thing off, then go off and write it. 

I wish, I knew nothing about the characters and nothing about the show. It's a curse to know so much about it. Because as hard as it is to not know what you're doing, that's where all the good stuff comes from, I think.

Lorien: Looking back you realize that. 

Charlie: Oh yeah, not in it, in it it was living Hell. 

Lorien: In it and making those mistakes and realizing the mistake and not yet understanding how that's gonna help you moving forward. It's, yeah. It's Hell. 

Charlie: Yeah. 

Meg: And I love that, that you long for the time of discovery, and not knowing.

Charlie: I do, and from a collaboration standpoint too, because I think there was something exciting about, you know, not only were we young and not yet knew what we were doing, but a lot of the people that we hired were, hadn't been staffed up on things before. So that sort of, you know, no one knows what they're doing was a really exciting time.

But I get it with features, when I sit to write a movie. You know, I've written this one, I got made, but I've written four or five. And I never know how to do it. I never know how to do it. I don't have a technique that works consistently or I think something's working, and then I read back through it, and I'm like, this does not work at all. 

But I, the things that I write tend to be slightly different genres from each other. That's what was fun to do. This movie was, even though a lot of humor and tone – this is why I was asking about Sunny – overlap with Sunny, it was still its own thing. And the fact that I got so much of it wrong and was able to fix it was also exciting in a way. I must have written 55, 60, during lockdown, versions of, like, voiceovers, of different people, like, explaining the movie to try to correct whatever tonal issues I had.

You know, I tried to give it a million band-aids until I realized, no, I just have to do what I would do with Sunny if I had three weeks, and just gut half the story and then replace it with something that works.

Lorien: How did you get to the part, you know, you said you just ruthlessly cut it. Like, that's an emotional process of getting to the point where like, all right, I just have to strip it down. How did you get there? I mean, yes, this isn't a therapy session, but like, how did you get to the point where you could be like, all right, I have to just cut what doesn't work and it's about the movie?

Charlie: There was a lot of different ways I got to that. Asking friends, sort of seeing what they were responding to and not, from just a practical standpoint. I had one, one writer friend I had sent it to who, whose advice was, ‘Hey just give up and move on. Like, you got a great acting career.’

Lorien: Oh no. And this is, that's great advice because you can go, wait a minute, that's not what I want. No, I'm not gonna, yeah. 

Charlie: In some ways it was good advice because it was a lot of work, and time, and pain to get it right and get it done and a lot of convincing people. But it was not an option for me emotionally or creatively. 

But I think it was, I knew what was and wasn't working. It just was, it didn't seem like something I could do. It just didn't seem like, well, no one just goes and changes half a, like, not half a movie, but a quarter of a movie. But they do, you know, Pixar does, you know, Kubrick did, and Woody Allen famously did like, the difference was that we were an independent film.

So, fortunately, I was given the opportunity to do it. But it was sort of, I had no other choice just to say, if it doesn't work, it's gotta go. And I was also excited about the new material with Ken, and that was sort of fueling it, which is to say, ‘oh, I have it,’ you know, it's finally, I can sort of see the light at the end of the tunnel here. And it's, I was going, I was in a, it's a different tunnel than I thought I was in, but you know, I gotta go in this direction.

Meg: That's a really good point that once you have an answer, you're gonna have to be ruthless, because now you're fighting for that answer. When you're ruthless, kind of in a vacuum, that's really psychologically challenging. But once you've just put it aside and get an answer, you, it's easier, I think it's a really good point to start being ruthless because you're going towards something.

Charlie: That's right. I wasn't ruthless till I had the answer. I mean, I could sit and overanalyze and be like, ‘what's not working? What's wrong? Is it this, is it that,’ thus trying the different sort of band-aids. And then once I had the answer, then it becomes apparently clear what can and cannot stay. And like I thought a lot about like, can this be a longer movie where I'm keeping part of the storyline that I'm taking out?

But the answer was no. And I had Leslie to bounce things off of where I said, ‘Leslie, what do you think? Do you think I could keep a little bit?’ And she's like, ‘I don't think we can.’ I'm like, ‘no, I know you're right.’ You know it when you hear it. 

Do you guys find this when you're writing that, where suddenly it comes alive when you have a solution? And you just know, it's very obvious. I don't know. I don't really think it's even, this is gonna sound a little hoity-toity, but I think it's outside of us. I think, it comes from outside of you and

And that's how, you know, you, there's something that you tap into that you say, ‘well, it's gotta be this. Who knew. But there it is.’

Meg: And it's funny, I agree that it feels outside of yourself, especially when it, you're like, ‘I don't even know how I came up with that, or where that came from, other than desperation.’ 

But I also think it goes back to want. You know, like as much as you learned about your character needing to want something. Once you as a creator want something, 'cause you see it, you've got it, it's easier to do those hard things. That it all, it does come back to want, for the creator and the character, I think. And Jeff, you had a really interesting question about Sunny that I wanna make sure we have time to ask.

Jeff: I'm a big fan of your show–

Charlie: –thank you–

Jeff: And you all talk about, and you know, press has talked about the fact that famously the characters are kind of quote ‘unlikable,’ right? Like, they’re sort of these like famously narcissistic monsters and like, that's why we tune in. Like it was, especially at the time, it was just like, what is this? These people are off their rocker. 

But I feel like that conversation around likable characters is so frequent in our business, and I'd kinda like to hear you speak on that. Like, did you ever get that note, and do you have any ideas or do you wanna weigh in on the conversation of likability?

Charlie: I mean, I've gotten that note on network shows that I've either sold or tried to sell. And and you know, I never got it on this movie and we never got it on Sunny. I think FX very astutely knew that was the opposite of what we were trying to do. 

It is the worst note anyone could ever give. I mean, what does that mean? What is a ‘likable,’ or what makes them ‘un-likable,’ and likable to who, you know? Like what is the definition of likability? And it's a total trap. It's the worst thing you can do. Like the best performances, your favorite performers, the best movies, they're usually about horrible people, unlikable people. It's a miracle when you can make, a likable, a movie about a sweet, likable person, and it's interesting. It happens, but–

Meg: –It's true, it’s the hardest character to write. Just a normal, regular guy. 

Charlie: Look at Jaws, taking Jaws, for example. Who do you like? You like the captain, you like the guy who takes them out to sea and almost gets them killed. You know, and–

Lorien: – and you don't wanna have him over for dinner 

Charlie: No! 

Lorien: Or babysit your kids. 

Charlie: Yeah, he's, because he is unpredictable. It's exciting. And when something's unpredictable, then you have our attention. You know, you're engaged. But maybe that's just me. I'm a fan, obviously, of movies from the seventies, so I like the anti-heroes.

Meg: How do you think that, is there any, and maybe this isn't something you think about, but is there any technique to writing those characters? To make an audience wanna stay with them, wanna come back week after week with them? Is it just fascination? Is it like, is there a balancing act they’re doing?

Charlie: There is a trick. There is a trick. You can't, the opposite side of it is you can't go out of your way to make someone unlikable for the sake of being un, well, you can, you can do whatever you want. But I think it doesn't work to try to make someone unlikable for the sake of being unlikable. 

I think with Sunny, what we always did was, we knew our characters were going to do some unlikeable or idiotic things, and we would always say, we have to make the audience know why they want this, and believe that they want it. We don't have to make the audience want it. We just have to make them believe that these characters really want whatever this thing is that they're doing or saying.

So going back to your want that you were talking about. Yeah, it was essential. Boy, that's easy. I forget that a lot. And that is a sort of–

Meg: –oh my God, we all forget it. It's incredible. It's the most basic thing. And we write our first draft and there's no want.

Charlie: And there's no want. And it's a magic bullet of writing.

Meg: It is, it is. 

Charlie: Oh man, I kind of can't wait to get back into something I'm working on and just go back and be like, is the, are the wants clear? 

Meg: I literally was talking to my son who's in film school. He was talking about this relationship he wants to do and going on and on, and I'm like, ‘wait, what do they want?’ And he was like, ‘what?’ And I'm like, well, the want also creates the relationship.

Charlie: Yeah.

Meg: Because you either want opposite things or you want the same thing, but you don't like each other. Or like, what's the want in the middle of this? And he was like, ‘ah, geez.’

Charlie: Yeah. But you're right. You're right. That is the secret sauce. And it certainly was from my movie, right. Where I have a character who doesn't want anything. And honestly, part of the problem, my first draft was he like, sort of semi wanted something in another storyline. And I was like, no it's either all or nothing.

Meg: Yeah.That's even harder when it's a semi want. That's harder.

Charlie: Yeah. It was just inconsistent writing. And then, but then beefing up the character who did want something. So then I had the man who doesn't want, and the man who wants, and then there's a story. 

But yeah, as the case was Sunny, they all. Are very passionate people about what they want. And what they want is usually absurd or ridiculous. But you buy that they want it. And and then the unlikeability is, it's what they're wanting and how much they want it. But then that's what makes it funny.

Lorien: Totally.

Jeff: Michael Arndt came on the show who wrote Little Miss Sunshine, and he–

Charlie: Oh, wow, yeah.

Jeff: –is sort of writing big studio movies now. But I think the word he used was root-able. Which I think is such a smart word for our characters, because, even the characters in a Little Miss Sunshine. They're kind of, you know, crazy and maybe not likable, it's a Grandpa on cocaine, but they're all very root-able. 

And I think that has to do with knowing what they want. We can at least get on their team and want it with them, I think.

Charlie: Yeah. Like, Tony Soprano is a bad man who does bad things. But he wants a better life for his wife or his daughter, you know? He wants to be happy. So, he's in therapy, and we can all identify with wanting that. So I think the more identifiable the want, the more the character works.

Meg: Well, the other line, I do think you walk so beautifully in everything you do. And I find this with young writers, there's a very big difference between somebody being root-able or likable, quote unquote, because you pity them versus because you're connecting with them.

And movies or TV shows that set up a pitying, I don't think it works. And I think you oddly don't connect. It's just a, not to make too final a point on it, but it's a, it's another layer that I think you walk really well, especially in this movie. You know, I don't pity either of them. 

Charlie: Yeah. 

Meg: Like the man who wants nothing at all. That's not what you're setting up. You're not saying this poor guy, you know, you might feel that for a moment, but I'm more engaged in what he wants and what he's doing to get it. And like, I mean, one of my favorite scenes, and it's so small, but when he pays the guy, which is early in the movie so I'm not giving anything, when he pays the guy to get on the lot, it's just this tiny little moment. But I'm like, right, $5. 

He's like $5. And you're like, and then the guard takes it, which is hysterical. I, but I just love that's such of the Willy Loman moment. He's active, he's doing something. He's active. Yeah. I'm not pitting him because poor him. Nobody likes him. Nobody will give him a break. No. He's like, that's what I love about him, whether I agree with him or not, I love how active he is towards his wand.

Charlie: Yeah. And you would pity him if he wasn't also, in some ways a bit of a son of a bitch, right? So like he, he's, you know, he wants something so bad, but he's also, you know, you can tell he is a liar and a manipulator. And so you don't feel sorry for him in that please ‘pity him’ way. I'm not saying, there's no Jesus complex here where–

Meg: –he's not like put upon and we can be like, oh, poor him. That is not what's happening. He's. He's creating his own, so much of it is him creating his own problem. Which is also delightful.

Charlie: Yes, he's creating his own misery. Now, my character on the other hand is probably more like you're watching it being like, ‘oh boy.’ But same with this guy, well then ‘go do, go get active, do something.’ And it takes him the whole movie to figure out how to do it.

But yeah, that's, you're right. That's a fine line. Not something I actively think about, but maybe having watched so many movies, you instinctually do it. That's, look, I'm a big believer in watch the best movies. Watch the best films, people, things that people sort of collectively agree this is the highest art form there is. And steal everything you can from it.

Meg: Absolutely. 

Charlie: Yeah. Because they stole it from someone else.

Meg: They did. Right. I have a question and I know we're getting to the end here, but, I have two different young women who are both graduating from college and they both are sketch comedians. One has experienced it by doing it with a college group on campus, creating a sketch for campus, and the other one is doing it on TikTok. And there’s a question of, in today's age, and when we all came into the business, it's so different. If you were gonna be hiring someone in your room, what are you looking for from comedy writers?

What do they need to have is? I would assume just sketches are not enough. Are you looking for them to have written original comedy pilots, or how does this part of the business work? 

Lorien: And we're not saying, ‘Hey, everybody send stuff to Charlie.’ 

Meg: No, God, that's not what we're saying. And if that's implied, if that's implied, we can accept it. But not. 

Charlie: You're not gonna get a job because I don't wanna look at anything anymore. But I, you know, I think we ready to do it again. We're ready to staff up. I would wanna read writing samples. So first I would wanna have a meeting with the person.

I don't think I would oppose, be opposed, to watching someone's sketch comedy if they, if it was on TikTok or any other platform. I think that's fine. I think that's a good place to do it. I'd be careful about how much of your content you give away for free on social media. But if you're building a big audience and some awareness that's currency in today's culture, so I understand why people are doing it. 

But if you were just looking for a staff writing job, I would want you to have interesting life ideas. So you, let's say it was Sunny, I'd say, okay pitch me a Sunny episode. You have to sign some sort of a, contract that you won't sue in case you pitch me an idea we already have and it pops up in a season.

But say, pitch me a Sunny idea. And so I get a sense of what they think the show is and what their tone is. And then I would wanna just sort of chat with them. Do they have interesting stories about their lives? And then I would wanna see how they execute those stories on the page. And that would be the most, those three things would be the most important for me. 

Meg: And in terms of what those samples are in terms of because this is what they're asking me. 'Cause there's like, well, do you write it? And this isn't just for you, I'm not talking to you specifically, but in the world of comedy, do you write a spec an original pilot? Are you writing a– 

Charlie: –Yeah. Both. Both probably. I think, you know, if you wrote it, let's say an episode of What We Do in the Shadows on spec, and I read that and I thought, ‘oh, that's really funny, I know those characters, and this is good writing for that show or our show not for us, but for some other show.’ 

You usually don't wanna read a spec of your own show, for whatever reason. And then an original piece too, I think is always a good idea. 'Cause if you write a really good one, you might get that made, you might not have to go around and get that staff job anyway. You might as well write that. 

Lorien: That's the dream. Right? That's everyone's dream. Right. 

Charlie: Yeah, it can be done. And then, you know, if you're in a sketch group, yeah, go make sketches and shoot them yourself. And you could put them on TikTok or you could not and try to, you know, get a show somewhere. Although I don't know if that exists so much anymore, but Key and Peelee did it and people do it, you know?

Meg: Yeah. Thank you so much for letting me ask you that question. It's not, comedy and sketch is not my realm, so I really appreciate you answering that question.

Charlie: Oh, sure. Yeah. I mean, I didn't, I never, I didn't come from sketch either. It's a different sort of animal. I don't know how you write a sketch. It's so hard because they all always just seem to sort of fizzle out. But oh, Tim Robinson has a great sketch show out now.

Lorien: I adore that show. Yeah. I Think You Should Leave.

Charlie: I Think You Should Leave and he's great at it. 

Meg: So there's, how did you come up? How did you, if you weren't doing Sketch, how did you come up?

Charlie: Oh, I, well, I started in theater. I was at the Williamstown Theatre Festival and then yeah, my friends and I were just making funny, probably what would be considered sketch, yeah, making funny movies just in our apartments. But really just to learn how to act, like, to learn to be in front of the camera. 

To learn how the camera worked a little bit, but we didn't care that much. It was more about, ‘Hey, can we be funny?’ And ‘how big can I be and how little can I be, and how much can I get away with it?’ And then we were, you know, getting whatever guest star role you can get, you know, read a 911 or Law and Order whatever popped up, taking it. 

Drama, comedy didn't matter. I got cast as a lead character on a Fox sitcom that got canceled after 13 episodes. But then Rob had the idea to start trying to do some of those sketch-ish shows that I was doing with Jimmi Simpson to do one with Glenn and I about a guy who wants some sugar. 

He goes over to his buddy's house to borrow some sugar and his friend says ‘oh, here's his sugar. By the way, I have cancer.’ And, and the friend, oh, he doesn't say, he walks over, sorry. He says, he goes over to his house, he says, ‘Hey, I'd like to borrow some sugar.’ ‘Yeah, come on in.’ And then he says, by the way, I have cancer,’ and the guy has to console his friend, but he still wants the sugar. 

Meg: Then we're back to want. 

Charlie: Yeah. And yeah. And how to transition back into asking for the sugar. It's back to want. You're totally right. And that's why it's funny. And there are the two opposing wants, right? One friend wants to connect about this cancer diagnosis and the other wants to, just wants to get his sugar and get outta there but not seem like a jerk. 

And so, then we started, kept developing that. We shot an episode of the show in our apartments and it stunk. And so we re re-wrote it and re-shot it and then, then we shot a third episode and that was the one that we sold.

Lorien: Love that. I love it. Awesome.

Charlie: Yeah.

Lorien: Yeah. Want? Yeah. 

Charlie: Gosh.  

Meg: That’s today's theme.

Charlie: I'm gonna write it down.

Lorien: Want, I think what's, so what, you know, I was complaining about earlier in the, what is my week? I feel like I lost the want a little bit. 'Cause I got distracted by so many of the other things I'm doing, I'm like reading scripts for people, I'm going to a retreat.,I'm doing all the things, and I got distracted from my want of, I want to write a script. I don't have to. 

Meg, you brought this up a couple weeks ago. Like, I want to write a script. I want to write about this, and not I have to. I let it get diffused a little bit because I'm so busy. So busy doing so many things, and then that means that I'm not making time because I want this thing. So I have to just remember, I want to write this feature.

Meg: To remember, you want to, ‘I want to write this feature.’

Lorien: It's hard to remember. 

Charlie: That's right. It's hard. There's so much distraction. And then there's all these things outside of the actual doing of what we do, right? There’s, what's the business side of it? What are the executives gonna think? What's the audience gonna think? Is this gonna be a hit?

Is this gonna be a flop? Am I gonna be considered a success? Am I gonna be considered a failure? Am I gonna get an award? All these things that don't have anything to do with the work itself. 

Lorien: Am I gonna get paid?

Charlie: Am I gonna get paid? That's a big one. But again, it's not the thing. The thing is the work. 

And it's really hard to clear that all away. I really had a nice moment with Rebecca Edwards, my co-producer and assistant, and been working with on Sunny for years and years, who really has been with me from the beginning on this film, where we were watching the final sound and color in a screening room in Burbank yesterday.

And I had this really peaceful moment of, well, there it is. I just wanted to make something that was funny, but something that was beautiful to look at and with beautiful music and great actors, I just wanted to make a thing. And I did it. Pencils down. Done. But the journey. 

But the journey, the journey to that, the amount of distraction and noise around it was really difficult. And you know, it's funny, now I go back and I'm like, I just, now I wanna do it again. I just wanna write, I just wanna write the next thing and get it, you know, get it down. But I keep finding ways to not do it.

Meg: Well, we hope you do because we would like to see it and experience it. Thank you so much for being on the show today. We always end with the same three questions. So we're gonna ask you our questions here. The first one is, what brings you the most joy in your creative life? That could be directing, it could be acting–

Charlie: –Collaboration. Collaboration. And it doesn't mean just on writing, but you know, I had some moments where we were recording that score with Jon Brion and you know, a full orchestra at the Sony, I think it's called the Barbra Streisand sound stage, where they record, they recorded the Wizard of Oz in there and just.

That collaboration, Leslie, the editor, was there. Some moments that I've had with Rob and Glenn and David Hornsey and Megan Ganz and Rob Rosell, just in the writer's room, laughing, coming up with something, that, or even just sitting in the edit room with Tim Roche or Josh Drisko on an episode of Sunny, that collaboration with another person, it's probably why the tone of the movie is about just connecting with other people. That fills my cup.

Lorien: That's awesome. So what pisses you off about your creative life?

Charlie: That is a better question. I get pissed off when I think, I really desperately want to make something good, and I feel like it's not good, that pisses me off. Like there's some muck in my brain I have to get through, and I'm, I just get mad. I'm like, ‘why can't I figure this out?’ And ‘why don't I know the path?’ You know, that bothers me. 

And then when people who aren't on the creative side of the business, I think, you know, I had a moment where an agent was slowing down the process of me just getting a poster approved on this movie, that's something I had an artist draw. It was a beautiful drawing, and saying that a performer wasn't happy with their image. I know this performer, and I was like, I don't think there's this person would care at all. And I found out that it was just the agent and I said, listen I'm, I can have the artist make an adjustment, but it's a slow process.

This movie's coming out soon. And the agent said, ‘well, I'm sorry, you're just gonna have to do that. This is what I do.’ And then I had to write a super long email about this, and this has been 10 years of my life, and this performer worked a single day. You know, I'm asking you, please don't make this more expensive and difficult for me.

And they finally relented. They said, ‘okay.’ But that drives me nuts. I think because, the amount of work and effort that so many people put into making something for the audience, that any sort of person can be dismissive about that, it makes me furious.

Lorien: Agree. 

Jeff: Very well said. Yeah. The last question we have for you, Charlie, is if you could go back and have, like, a coffee with your younger self, kind of right on the precipice of their creative career, what would you tell that Charlie?

Charlie: Wow. I probably wouldn't tell him anything, so that he could have the path that he's been on. I'm like, I've, I'm really happy. 

Jeff: Don't screw it up.

Charlie: Yeah. With how it's gone. But in fairness to this question, boy, I've been so lucky in terms of getting to do so many different things. I probably, this is a hard one for me because I really. Not that I don't think that I've made mistakes. I just think that the mistakes are a big part of how you get to where you are. So I'm comfortable with them, so I'd hate to be right. 

Meg: I, it's a beautiful answer. That's great. I think it's a very beautiful answer.

Charlie: Yeah. Yeah.

Lorien: I aspire to have the same answer one day.

Charlie: Well, you have to try, you have to work on self-talk then, you know, like.

Lorien: The overthinking, remember I said that at the beginning? The over overthinking, the self-talk, the overthinking. Yeah. 

Charlie: Yeah. I probably would say, you know, just take, just continue to take big risks because who, who cares? It's just making movies, you know? Just trust it.

Lorien: That's great. Beautiful.

Meg: Thank you. Yeah. Thank you so much for being with us.

Charlie: Oh yeah. It was my thank you. My absolute pleasure. This, in fact, is my favorite conversation I have had in this entire press process so far, because I think it's, you know, sitting and getting to actually talk about like, the way it's done is, that's, I, that's why I like doing it. That's what I like to do.

Lorien: Exactly. Thank you. 

Jeff: Now give us three hashtags before notes.

Charlie: Exactly. Yeah. I'm gonna start sending you my scripts for notes. Thanks guys. 

Lorien: Mac's first question will be what do they want? 

Charlie: Yeah, what do they want? I wrote it down. I wrote it down in my notepad. Alright, thank you. We'll see you. Brilliant.

Lorien: Bye-bye. Thanks so much to Charlie Day for joining us on today's show, Fool's Paradise will be released theatrically on May 11th.

Meg: If you haven't yet, join us over on the Facebook page. There's a wonderful community over there ready to help and support your creative journey. And we're having some good debates over there too. The whole likable character thing came up and we've been talking about it. So, come on over and join the discussion. 

Lorien: Thank you so much to Jeff and Savannah for producing our show. And remember, you are not alone and keep writing.