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TV WRITER INTERVIEWS

The Showrunner as Mentor

An Interview with Carlton Cuse

by Gregg Sutter

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Creator, writer, producer, and director, Carlton Cuse is one of the most successful and well-regarded showrunners in television.

His television credits include Lost, Bates Motel, The Strain, Colony, Nash Bridges, Martial Law, The Adventures of Brisco County, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, Locke & Key and, Five Days at Memorial.

Carlton has won two Emmys and received ten Emmy Nominations for his work. Among his other honors, he has won a Golden Globe, a Peabody Award, a Producers Guild Award, three AFI Awards, The Jules Verne Award, four Saturn Awards, The Saturn Legacy Award, a Writers Guild Award, the Variety Creative Leadership Award, and the People’s Choice Award, and was once named to Time Magazine’s annual List of the 100 Most Influential People in the World.

In this interview, Carlton expresses his views on showrunning, collaboration, and mentorship.

Did you start out wanting to write for TV?

  No. I think like most creative people who came out to work in Hollywood in the 80s, I wanted to be a film director. I never even thought about television. I just sort of fell into the television world sideways. But I discovered that it was the perfect place for me.

Describe your journey from TV writer to showrunner?   

My writing career began in film, not TV. I had a couple of important writer mentors, starting with a feature writer, Jeffrey Boam. I helped him develop Lethal Weapon II, Lethal Weapon III, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. That was my graduate school of screenwriting . I also worked on a couple of movie projects with John Sacret Young. John was the co-creator and showrunner of a TV show called China Beach on ABC. It was a remarkable show about a field hospital during the Vietnam War. It never got the attention it deserved. While working with John, he was showrunning China Beach, and by osmosis, I learned how to be a showrunner.

What were the most important lessons you learned from Jeffrey and John?  

I learned how to collaborate with other writers and dig deep into characters.   When I got to be more successful it became incredibly important to me to try to establish those types of relationships with other writers. I discovered the more energy I put into collaboration, the better the work became.

How did you gain the confidence to become a successful showrunner?

I’d like to think I had creative talent combined with strong business and managerial skills. When making a network television show you need to create a great script every eight days, which takes a tremendous amount of creative work. You’re also casting, editing, and producing episodes. At the same time, you also have to manage the business side of the show. You are responsible for hundreds of people who are working on the show. You have to execute on schedule and on budget. Most people are good at one side of the business or the other: either the creative side or the business side. Few are good at both. Fortunately, I seemed able to have the right kind of brain to do both.

How has the business of running a show changed during the span of your career?

   The TV business has changed a lot over the last 20 years. Looking back on my earlier experiences in TV I endured some tough work environments. I think the culture of TV shows has improved over the years. That is an incredible and welcome change.

   How did you become a change agent in television?

     Once I got to a place in my career where I was the person setting and driving the culture of my shows, I strived to create kind, inclusive, professional, and respectful environments. For me, that’s how the best work gets done.

You spoke in general about the successful showrunner needing both creative and business skills, would you go into more detail?

  Showrunning is like competing in the decathlon. Decathletes compete in 10 incredibly disparate track and field events over two days: sprinting, pole vaulting, hurdling, long jumping, javelin throwing, and more. It takes many different talents to succeed. The same is true of showrunning. You have to perform a whole array of creative tasks: writing, editing casting, sound mixing, and color timing - and a bunch of other creative stuff. You also have to manage a huge team on a rigorous budget and schedule.

Every day you need to solve creative and business problems. To succeed you don’t have to be the best at any one thing, but you need to be very good at 10 different things.   Most of all, you need to know where and when to spend your time, and when to leave your collaborators alone so they are free to do their best work.

Isn’t another important showrunner skill the ability to find talented writers to stock his or her writer’s room?

   Absolutely. I feel like one of the skills I’m good at is picking writers. When I’m staffing a show I read writing samples carefully, looking for the way a writer evokes emotion, commands structure, and most importantly creates vivid and believable characters who engage me and leap off the page. Only when I’m convinced by what I’ve read on the page do I meet with a writer. At that point, I’m looking to see what qualities they would bring to the writer’s room and whether they are collaborative. Writing on a TV staff is truly a team sport where everyone needs to work really well together.

  Can you learn showrunning in school?

Yes and no. You can learn individual skills, like the craft of writing or editing. But it’s incredibly hard to learn showrunning in an academic environment. You have to be working on a show, under real-life pressures. The application of the individual skills I mentioned, in synchronicity, under the pressures of making a show, can’t be simulated.

How important is collaboration in the writers’ room?

  Extremely. Collaboration among writers means that the sum of the parts—two or more writers working together—is greater than the whole. That’s always been my goal. I do my best work in collaboration with other writers. Working with another writer, instead of facing the blank page by myself, activates my subconscious. It forces me to poke into the corners and push myself further to explore stuff that I might not have thought of on my own. It provides a litmus test for ideas. Best of all, you have the benefits of two people’s original ideas. For me, there’s nothing better than having a like-minded person to work out the details of a story, develop the characters, and bring that story to life.

Do most showrunners share your philosophy?

  For many showrunners, the process of getting a show to the screen is a personal, private, and internal process, not a collaborative one. That’s fine, for them, but it doesn’t necessarily bring along the next generation of showrunning talent.

So, you can succeed as a showrunner without being collaborative?

  Sure. There are showrunner equivalents of auteurs; those who write and direct entire series themselves and do it well. For me, the idea that being a lone genius is the highest form of creativity is a myth. The demands of showrunning are huge and the process of creation works best when done hand-in-hand with other writers.” I’ve learned over time that drawing out the talents and abilities of my co-workers and collaborators made for a far better version of the shows we were working on.

  Do you find yourself working with difficult, but talented, writers?

 There is a long history in Hollywood of tolerating the difficult behavior of creative artists because people think that the work they do is worth it. I’ve had to do that many times across my career. Yes, good work can come out of bad or toxic environments, but I decided a long time ago I don’t want to be a part of working like that anymore. On my last seven series, comprising nineteen seasons of writing, I have had the good fortune to be the person setting and driving the culture of the writing rooms for those shows. I have done my best to make those environments kind, respectful and inclusive places, and I’ve found that the work—and every part of the experience—is better for it.

Is it necessary for the showrunner to also be a mentor to the show’s writers?

 To me it is. But just as not every showrunner is a collaborator, the same holds true for mentorship. Some showrunners in the way they execute need to hold all the reins of a show. Others, myself included, view mentorship as a source of great pleasure that yields positive results in the writers’ room and beyond. I like working with my writers. Helping them prepare to become showrunners themselves gives me incredible satisfaction. I love the teaching side of the job.

What are some examples of how you mentor on your shows?

  I try to involve writers in the decision-making process of the show. Fundamentally being a showrunner is about making a lot of decisions under pressure and time deadlines. You need to learn how to make quality decisions. You need to also learn where to focus your time and where to delegate. Me, I usually focus on creating and writing scripts, casting, and editing. I put less of my energy into the production side, and try to hire really smart people who can do that stuff.

   Has Hollywood always been a mentor-driven industry?

   Yes. Hollywood is old-fashioned in that way. The craftsmanship it takes to make a successful movie or television show takes a long time to learn, and gets passed on in a slow, apprentice, hand-to-hand way. I’m a firm believer that mastery of a craft is the thing that gives you the greatest satisfaction in your work life. There’s no better way to learn an artistic craft than to work with someone who’s really, really good at it.

How does a writer find a mentor in Hollywood?

  If you’re working hard to advance your career hopefully, you’ll find your way into the hands of somebody who will help you move further. You need to be at a place where you can contribute. That’s what happened to me. I got to a place as a writer where I was able to contribute on project, so I got to work with a couple of really talented screenwriters.

Can you realistically have more than one mentor?

  Sure. You should always be trying to learn from all the people working around you. Early in my career, I was always asking a lot of questions. Probably too many questions. I always was trying to understand how people on sets and in writers’ rooms and editing rooms and sound mixing stages did their jobs. When you’re genuinely curious about your collaborators and what they are doing, you have the right preconditions to learn and grow.

As a writer leaves your writer’s room to move on, what would be your best advice?

I would tell them that Hollywood is a relationship-driven town. Don’t try to go it alone. Realize that it doesn’t get easier, but you will gain confidence. You never shed the anxiety that gives you pause: Can I write it? Can I produce it? Can I direct it? Yes, yes, yes. Over time having done it, you will realize: I got there before, and I’ll get there again.   A certain amount of anxiety is healthy and unavoidable. It sparks the creative process. Collaborate with people who will help you overcome your anxieties and solve the seemingly unsolvable. This is one of the great joys of working in television and film.

On the dozen-plus shows where you were the showrunner, how many writers you worked with went on to become showrunners?

Someone who works for me recently added it up. I’m at somewhere over 30 writers. I’m starting a new show soon, so hopefully, I’ll be adding to that total. I’m proud that I mentored many writers, and especially proud that many of them have ascended to the top and become showrunners.

Testimonials of Eight Writers on Carlton Cuse’s Shows Who Became Showrunners

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