[lounge music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [Narrator] "On Story" is brought to you in part by the Alice Kleberg Reynolds Foundation, a Texas family providing innovative funding since 1979.

"On Story" is also brought to you in part by the Bogle Family Vineyards, six generation farmers and third generation winemakers based in Clarksburg, California.

Makers of sustainably grown wines that are a reflection of the their family values since 1968.

[waves] [kids screaming] [wind] [witch cackling] [sirens wail] [gunshots] [dripping] [suspenseful music] [telegraph beeping, typing] [piano gliss] From Austin Film Festival, this is "On Story," a look inside the creative process from today's leading writers, creators and filmmakers.

This week on "On Story," we're joined by acclaimed writer and showrunner, Noah Hawley, the brilliant mind behind television series, "Fargo" and "Legion."

- When you take these moments from the Coen brothers films that people are so familiar with and you use them in a different way, then the audience is both watching something familiar and something completely new at the same time.

And so, two parts of your brain are active.

You're both remembering and discovering at the same time, which I find is a really fascinating thing to play with.

[paper crumples] [typing] [carriage returns, ding] [Narrator] Hawley discusses his approach to finding and preserving the essence of a beloved film when adapting it for the small screen, while bringing his own point of view to the source material.

[typewriter ding] - Tell me a little bit about the Noah origin story, because your mom was a writer.

- Yes.

- She was an author.

So growing up that way must have given you some discipline, interest, so on, before going to Sarah Lawrence and so on.

- Yeah, I mean, I'm a third generation writer.

My grandmother, who immigrated from Ukraine when she was five years old and had an eighth grade education, she ended up becoming the assistant to Walter Lippmann, who ran the New York World in New York, and she was a playwright and she wrote a column for them.

And then, my mother started out writing...

Her first published book was "A Child's Guide to Freud," which was the Oedipal complex as a children's book.

It came out in 1964 and a New Yorker cartoonist illustrated it, and she ended up moving into nonfiction.

But, she didn't have a college degree, my grandmother had the eighth grade education.

I never saw writing as something that you needed qualifications for, I guess, was part of it.

You just decide that you're a writer and then you have to earn it, right?

And if you're not gonna get an MFA, you learn by doing.

And so, I think there's three or four novels that went in a drawer before I wrote the one that I published.

I was gonna be a rock star but turns out I'm not a night person, so that wasn't a great use of my time.

- But Noah really is like, as far as a screenwriter and the different kinds of projects, it feel like a combination of Gershwin, Dylan, and John Lennon.

Like, you know, you... Everything is original, everything is fresh, and you have such a remarkable confidence going forward.

Is that achieved as you go and develop or is it just part of your psyche?

How do you develop that kind of confidence, going into a room, putting together a staff?

- Yeah.

You know, I hadn't really thought about it, and then when we were doing the fourth year of "Fargo" in Chicago, I had a dinner with Jason Schwartzman and my family, and he asked me a similar question, which is like, "How do you do so much?"

And my wife said, "Well, he has no doubt.

No creative doubt."

And I thought, "Oh, that's interesting," 'cause I really don't.

When I have an idea, that's the idea, you know?

And if a better idea comes along, then I can embrace that.

You have the idea, and... You know, like, Billy Bob's gonna walk into that building and he's gonna shoot it up but we're never gonna go inside, the camera's just gonna track along outside.

That's a idea that came out in the writer's room and I never questioned it again.

Maybe we should be inside.

[Man 1] And then, whisper sweet nothings to the other glass.

[Man 2] Okay.

[Man 1] And in one week-- [Man 2] Just stop, just stop.

[Man 1] But listen, a week later... [door closes] [footsteps] [Woman] Can I help you, sir?

[Man 3] Gun!

[gun firing] [woman screaming] [phone buzzing] [Man 4] Oh my God, are you shot?

[Man 5] Oh my God, oh my God.

[Man] Drop it!

[gun firing] [Noah] And a lot of it has to do with, with comedy as well, right?

The joke, right?

And the joke is funny.

There's something organic about the joke that's funny.

And you can try to refine it, and then at a certain point, it stops working, you know?

And that's always the problem with development, right?

Is that if you write a script that spends a lot of time in development, the jokes stop being funny to the executives.

And then, they go, "Well, we can make this better."

And you're like, "No, no, no, it works.

It worked the first time, it's gonna work when it's a film," but people just want to keep working things.

So that's... That's my secret strategy, which is hard to imbue in other people, which is just like... My motto is "What else can I get away with?"

And play is important to me also in the translation of script to screen.

It's like you-- There's a lot of work that goes into it and a lot of prep, but you really just wanna get on the set with the actors and see what it really is and wants to be.

- Let's jump into "Fargo" and "Legion," specifically that a lot of people go into a writer's room, they'll put together a staff, and you could tell us a little bit about that, and they're going into that room to discover what the show is.

For me, in everything I've seen of your work, you go into the room with the idea baked.

- Well, I didn't just do it for my show, I did it for Hart.

I don't know if you remember.

When I was hired as a story editor or something on "Bones," which was a, it's a procedural, right?

It's a comedic procedural.

And that's not my thing.

But when I met with Hart, he said, "You're gonna learn how to be a producer on the show," which was what I really wanted because I had already been writing pilots and I really wanted to learn how to make something, and he was very true to his word.

And so, yeah, for me, there's a lot of ideas that go into something, and the reasons that I'm telling the story the way that I do, and-- - The "Fargo" thing's remarkable 'cause your show is an original show, even though it was based on that film.

But as seasons went by, I always noticed you'll pull, like, there was a scene from the original movie where it becomes a touchstone for something in episodes.

And I was looking at the season five trailer and I noticed a tiny moment of that, the break-in through the door.

- For her knee surgery, so yeah.

- She's like best dog mom in the world.

I was telling her, I'm like, "Your dogs are gonna be so sad "when you go back to work."

[TV Host] Oh, so sad.

[footsteps] [eerie music] [gasps] [Noah] Right.

[Barry] Yeah, how she deals with is different.

- And season five is the most direct homage to the movie.

She is sitting on the sofa, knitting, watching the morning show when the guy shows up in the mask.

But who she is, and who the guys are, and what happens is very different.

What I found in making "Fargo" that was really fascinating to me is that when you take these moments from the Coen brothers films, that people are so familiar with, and you use them in a different way, then the audience is both watching something familiar and something completely new at the same time.

And so, two parts of your brain are active.

You're both remembering and discovering at the same time, which I find is a really fascinating thing to play with for an audience.

And it's not something we're used to in watching.

It's a more active experience as a viewer.

[typewriter ding] - In "Legion," because the character's quite fractured and mentally ill, you're doing that too.

You're playing him in two different time periods.

And it's interesting tracking those, episodes to episodes.

How did you formulate that from its origin?

- So I started out in-- You know, when FX asked me if there was anything in the "X-Men Universe" that was interesting to me, I didn't start off with a character.

I met with Lauren Shuler Donner, the producer, and Simon Kinberg, who was the writer/producer, and I just started calling Simon and we would talk about some things.

And I had this feeling like, "What if you made "Breaking Bad" where you have a character who you're not sure, is he gonna be a hero or a villain, but instead of a regular villain, it's a supervillain?"

But it has to work as a drama.

It has to work dramatically.

And so, I found this character that the show is based on, who, in the comic books, is Professor Xavier's son.

And he has schizophrenia, basically, and multiple personality disorder.

And I thought, "Well, that's interesting because then if he's this unreliable narrator, and he doesn't know what's real and what's not real, and whether he actually is ill or whether it's just his powers, there's something really that you can play with there."

And then, "If he has this monster inside of him and you take the monster out, now he thinks every decision that I make is good because what made me make the bad decisions is gone."

And so, then, his sense of himself becomes unrealistic.

[classical music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - It is just spit, right?

Human spit?

Maybe he ate yogurt.

- I noticed that you worked with a director I've worked with a bunch, Mike Uppendahl, and I really like Mike.

- Yeah, Mike is great.

Mike is great.

- Can you talk a little bit about toning?

Directors, and tone of your shows?

- Yes.

- Tone of "Fargo," and explaining that to whether it be network, or a director you're working with, yourself, you know?

- Yeah.

It's a tough challenge and a lot of it, a lot of it is the final cut.

I mean, the final tone is going, "All right, well, you shot it this way, but I need it to work a different way," but you hope to avoid that.

Mike is always great, and...

I have a few go-to directors who...

I mean, the biggest thing is you can't play the comedy, you have to play the drama, you know what I mean?

And you have to play the character.

But I do-- A tone meeting, for people who don't know, as you're-- When new directors come on, they need to understand how to make your show.

So it becomes really critical to sit down with the director and that whole team, and explain-- Go through the script.

I start off talking about what are the ideas that are in this season?

What is the show about?

Why are these scenes here?

And then, you get into the characters and the actors, if I've worked with the actors, of yet... Of going through... You know.

"He likes a lot of information."

"All she wants to hear is faster."

And then, go through page by page and just really talk through how it wants to be.

And I write very graphically.

The scripts that I write will say, like, "Angle on this character," or "closeup."

It's written cinematically so that as you read it, you're seeing.

And then, the Coen brothers, of course, they don't do coverage, right?

They'll storyboard and they shoot only what they need.

And so, it becomes very important, with the directors, to say, "Well, if you're coming from being a TV director, you're used to doing wide, medium, close over, over, I don't need all that.

I need you to have a point of view but also to understand that the point of view, character wise, that you're entering a scene with isn't necessarily the person you're leaving a scene with in an ensemble show," right?

So how are you getting into a scene?

How are you getting out of a scene?

I had, in the first season of "Fargo," there's this whole thing about Martin Freeman, and he killed his wife but he concocts this story in which his brother actually was having an affair with his wife, and he's gotta go to the house and plant some unmentionables in the gun locker.

And then, he actually puts a handgun in his nephew's backpack so that he gets caught.

So the cops come to...

There's this whole thing.

And then, Odenkirk and Martin Freeman have this seven page scene where Odenkirk's going like, "Oh, your brother was cheating," you know?

And walks him through the whole thing.

And the director was like, "Well, it's a seven page scene in a room of two people talking, so should we put some security cameras up and then I could be in the other room?"

I was like...

I was like, "No, we're six hours into this thing.

We've earned the right... All the audience wants is this and that."

[Barry] Right, well said.

- You know, keep the simple things simple, so that then you can make time for yourself to do the more complicated things.

- Yeah, and I think you did that brilliantly with Billy Bob's character too in that first season.

It's just so still, and that's what you wanted 'cause he was just-- Was he experienced, from having worked with the Coens, that he understood the coverage you were going for?

- He was.

He made the man who wasn't there with them, where his...

If he even cracked a smile during a take, Joel would be like, "Oh, he's-- You're feeling rambunctious today," you know what I mean?

It was such a still performance.

I don't know, the worst, one of the worst moments with a...

I had a director who was doing the episode where Billy, um, Billy gets arrested and he transforms himself into this pastor from Minnesota, right?

And he does it by he's got his hands cuffed, he's got his hands cuffed behind him, and there's the desk sergeant who puts his glasses down.

And then, when they un-cuff him, he turns around and picks up the glasses and puts them on, he changes his hair.

And then, he opens his mouth and it's this Minnesota accent.

And the director wanted to meet with Billy and talk about this transformation.

I was like, "oh [beep], "I better be there," right?

- Yeah, yeah.

- You're talking a Sling Blade right now, right?

- Yes, exactly, yes.

- Billy just sat there and he is like, "So Minnesota accent, what do you want, like an eight?"

And I was like, "Yeah, an eight sounds good."

- Yeah, there you go.

There's tone, there you go.

- Yeah, it's tone.

It's like, well, it's like I've made two things with Jon Hamm now: The movie, "Lucy in the Sky," and then this season of "Fargo."

And Jon doesn't have a lot of process.

He doesn't want a lot of process.

I wait for him.

If he's like, "What do you think about this?"

You know, I'll say, "Great."

But I don't impose conversations about the meaning of things on him because I can tell he doesn't want that.

Schwartzman is very, like, text you in the middle of the night, you know?

I just think a lot...

There's a lot of-- [Barry] Puzzling.

- There's a lot of creative doubt there, you know?

And it's a very exciting process with him as well because...

It is exciting to talk about this stuff, but you can't impose that on the actors.

- That season was so great for Chris Rock too.

Oh my God.

- It was.

- It was great to see him be an actor.

Sometimes, too, I imagine when you're casting, you're thinking about who's hard, who's soft, who's... And for good reason.

You could say soft and it be something that's a real positive.

I remember seeing from season one, where Billy Bob's in the car, windows rolls down, there's Colin Hanks standing there, and you feel the vulnerability for his character, and I'm hanging on the edge of my seat.

He's going to be killed.

It's gonna be terrible.

- Evening officer.

- Evening.

License and registration, please.

- We could do it that way.

You ask me for my papers, I tell you it's not my car, that I borrowed it, see where things go from there.

We could do that.

Or you could go get in your car and drive away.

- Now, why would I do that?

- 'Cause some roads you shouldn't go down, because maps used to say "there'd be dragons here."

Now they don't.

But that don't mean the dragons aren't there.

[Radio] Dad, come in, Dad, over.

- Step out of the car, please, sir.

- How old's your kid?

- That was when I knew that FX was, that we were gonna make a great show together because you have this 70 minute episode in which you see Billy, and he kills the sheriff that you love, and he does all this horrible stuff.

And then, he's driving away and he gets pulled over by this completely new character, right?

In the last minute of the show.

And because Colin Hanks is so great, I mean-- And we're introducing a major character, but we're doing it in this one moment.

He is on the radio with his daughter.

Vikings are up, whatever.

- So sweet, yeah.

- You know, homework.

And then, he gets out and Billy says what he says about, "There used to be dragons," and you're like, "He's gonna kill him.

"This guy has killed everybody and he's gonna kill this guy."

And so, it does.

We earned, for a guy you just met, we earned a really emotional moment that then plagues him going forward.

So, you know, it's, it's-- You gotta trust your audience, and FX is very good at that and not a lot of places are.

- Look, you work with some brilliant artists as well, production design, wardrobe, so on.

Do you lean on them?

Do you feel like they bring you the answers that you want?

And are you able to assign how a producer can help you?

- 100%.

My goal is not to do everybody's job.

I really don't wanna do everybody's job.

And everything's writing on some level.

When I had the Wrench and Numbers character in season one of "Fargo," it's like, "All right, so those guys, they have to have..." If you're gonna try to make a new myth, you have to make it mythic.

[typewriter ding] - Talk a little bit about conceiving "Alien," which is your current project.

- I've been asked a couple of times, and I did a "Star Trek" project that didn't, we didn't get to make.

But to take something original and turn-- And remake it as something original, you know what I mean?

And so, I always look at, "Well, what did the original make me feel?

And then how can I recreate those feelings in the audience by telling a different story?"

And so, for me, there were a few things about "Alien" that made it interesting, 'cause it's not just a monster movie, right?

I mean, it is the great monster movie, but it's, but there's that moment where you realize that Ian Holm is an android, where you go, "Oh, this is really interesting now because this is humanity trapped between the primordial past and the AI future, and they're both trying to kill us," you know what I mean?

There's nowhere to go.

A two hour movie, you can set it up and then it's just about, "Are they gonna survive?"

But if you're making a series, "Are they gonna survive?"

You can't sustain it.

I mean, even if you have 60% of the best action horror on television, you still have 40% of what are we talking about, you know?

And so, I had this idea about how to explore that moment in earth history, right?

'Cause the show does involve creatures coming to earth, which is like, "Well, what is this moment on earth technology-wise, and where are we?"

And the question that science fiction always tends to ask is, "Does humanity deserve to survive?"

So that seems like a really interesting question to continue to explore.

And there is a glut of AI stuff right now.

And I don't, when I say AI, we're not really, we're playing with some of that, but it's also more about transhumanism, and just the question of "What is the future of the human race or do we not have one?"

But you also have to understand that there is your pure artistry of process, but people have to pay to see it in one form or another.

There is an audience that you have to honor in one way or another.

And sometimes you're honoring them by giving them the credit to be sophisticated.

And you're going, "Well, I'm not gonna spoonfeed you this.

You're gonna watch that first episode of 'Legion' and you're not gonna understand everything, and that's gonna be interesting to you.

And as long as you trust me that as we learn things, you're gonna learn them too, then I'll keep your focus."

But "Legion" was a show that had a smaller audience every season.

'cause it was-- It was not-- You couldn't-- It wasn't a two device show.

- No, it also wasn't lay back and be entertained.

It was lean forward and participate.

you know, you're, You need to be thinking.

And I'll just say to you too, coming off of what Noah said, as a person who finds IP and becomes confident in it, when I meet with a writer, like when I met with Craig Silverstein about "Turn: Washington's Spies," I was very confident in what I thought it could be.

And then two weeks later, Craig came back and then he pitched me with tremendous confidence what it's gonna be, as opposed to what I thought.

But I was, but I also had the confidence to know he knows better, okay?

So the whole industry, I think, that we work in is one where you develop the muscle you're asking about, of just being confident in it, what you created, what you found, and you have to be that way.

Even if somebody's going to completely reinterpret what you're thinking, that's the job of a showrunner.

So you have to have that kind of confidence.

There's no question.

- Yeah, it's a process and you have to be open to the idea that there's a better version, a better, that you can do better.

- Maybe there's a death in the family.

Isn't the better thing, more humane thing, to say that that should be forgiven?

Isn't that who we should be?

[gentle music] [typewriter ding] [Narrator] You have been watching Film to TV Adaptations: A Conversation with Noah Hawley on "On Story."

"On Story" is part of a growing number of programs in Austin Film Festival's On Story Project that also includes the "On Story" radio program, podcast, book series, and the On Story archive accessible through the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University.

To find out more about "On Story" and Austin Film Festival, visit onstory.tv or austinfilmfestival.com.

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