[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.

[Narrator] This week on "On Story," we're joined by Joe Lawson and Alison Flierl, two writers from the beloved adult animated comedy, "BoJack Horseman."

Lawson and Flierl discuss their work writing for seasons two and three and the techniques behind exploring the human condition through an anthropomorphic horse.

- BoJack's trying to escape.

He's trying to escape his parents.

He's trying to escape his childhood.

He's trying to escape mediocrity in Hollywood.

He's trying to escape mostly himself because he hates himself.

What we realize and what he realizes, is that this is a cliché, but no matter where you go, you're still there.

[paper crumples] [typing] [carriage returns, ding] [typewriter ding] - Do you remember like what it was about the show specifically?

Were there themes or specific like things that clearly were getting Raphael excited that spoke to you?

- Loneliness and depression, and alcoholism.

[Alison laughs] And those are the three things we could talk about because it was animation.

Like, I think it would've been such a downer show, which I mean at times it was anyway, but such a downer show if it were live action.

So, I liked the freedom that animation gave us to like, to get weird and dark.

- So, from the beginning, the darkness and the loneliness was core to everyone?

- Definitely.

- For me.

- Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it was edgy comedy, which is very fun.

I think any comedy writer has definitely had at least one bout of depression.

So, it's-- - Depressed right now.

- That's exciting.

[group laughs] - Day one was, I mean all we had was this mysterious 10-minute presentation.

- Yeah.

- At which wasn't a lot of stories.

Just like this is the character designs, this is sort of, these are the voices, but there's no story.

- And they already had Will Arnett and Aaron Paul attached.

But one funny thing I remember Raphael telling me was that when he first pitched this show, they had said, "Does it have to be in Hollywood?"

And he was like, "Yeah, it does."

And that also, it almost went to CW, which would've been weird.

- It would've been a different show.

- It's such a huge get to get Aaron Paul and Will Arnett.

Like, that's I think how it got to Netflix.

So, they basically saved the show and then once I heard that they were the cast, I was like, "Oh my God."

- And that was during the height of "Breaking Bad" too, right?

When Aaron Paul took on everyone's mind.

- Yeah, it was peak Aaron Paul.

[group laughs] - Those were the days.

- Yeah.

- And so, I remember walking in day one, it was just me and Peter Knight and he... - And his guitar.

- Yeah, and his guitar.

And we had no, there was no stories at all.

So, Raphael was in his office just trying to generate, you know, season one arcs and like, what can we talk about?

What's the show about?

And I remember Peter's first pitch was a rock opera.

[Alison laughs] And I was like, I'm not sure I should be on this show.

[group laughs] But we figured it out eventually once the other writers came on board.

- Yeah, and you put a rock opera into it.

- He eventually, he kept pushing that thing and he finally got it through.

[Harrison laughs] - Good for him.

[double doors thud open] [moose bellows] - Gentlemen, dazzle me.

- What you're about to see is rough.

Very rough.

It's a vomit pass at what might become a rock opera.

Right now it's set mostly in space, but we're not married to that.

Todd is neither a singer nor a trained musician.

In fact, he never even graduated high school.

He told me in confidence.

Keep all that in mind as you give it up for Todd.

[crowd applauds and cheers] - Okay, so we start in 1887 with a young Emma Goldman.

[pensive music] ♪ No they couldn't ♪ ♪ Make us ♪ ♪ Slaves ♪ - It needs a third act showstopper.

- I had the same note.

- He wanted that to be like the first episode.

And I think Raphael's like, "I don't think we can start out on that foot."

- So, were you able to see the actual, like the animations or see what these characters looked like before you started?

- Lisa who designed everything was like there in the office.

So, like a lot of the images and everything would come in through the writer's room, be approved by Raphael or the writer of the episode, but more Raphael.

So, you definitely quickly saw like what an amazing world they were creating.

- It's also really fun when you got to come up with an animal for your characters when it's your script.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, my favorite was the octopus in the control room.

I was excited to see that.

[typewriter ding] - Going back to this clip, it does remind me of how many incredible celebrity cameos are on here.

Some are playing characters like Lisa Kudrow, which we'll watch later.

But some just playing versions of themselves and making fun of themselves.

But can you talk about how you brought those people on?

How many people like actually said yes?

- If someone said no, it was more just about schedule.

For the table reads and the main cast, most of them were there, but we had a couple people who would call in from New York or London.

So, a lot of people said yes.

- Like Paul McCartney for example.

- He actually was on the show.

- He was on the show.

- Surprise!

Hello?

Anybody?

Oh, this is Paul McCartney.

I came all this way to jump out of a cake?

Honestly.

Put a new suit on, ugh.

- Were you writing these just like with the optimism that they're gonna join this one?

Or did you leave space to be like, X celebrity we'll end up finding is gonna stand here.

- Well this episode we had sort of like, okay, we'll see who's available.

So it was a little bit of like, let's see.

- The one person that I can remember that said absolutely no, was for the episode, "Say Anything."

We wanted Cameron Crowe to play a crow, obviously.

[Alison and audience laugh] And he would not do it.

So we had to go with somebody else.

- But there still was a Cameron Crowe character, just not voiced by Cameron Crowe?

- Not voiced by Cameron Crowe, right.

[typewriter ding] - I want to do one more clip from this episode to talk a little bit more about your experience and also kind of go into the animation of it.

- We're live in five minutes, folks.

- Coming through, make way.

- Someone find out the average rainfall in Bora Bora.

- Thank you so much for doing this.

- Hey, there are a lot of advantages to being the girlfriend of a big celebrity.

It's more than just being an elbow they couldn't crop out of a red carpet shot in "Us Weekly."

- I've been that elbow.

- Hello, what have we here?

- So, you know how the game's played, right?

- I'm sure I'll pick it up.

How hard could it be?

- You didn't read the treatment?

I faxed it to you.

- My bad, our fax machine isn't plugged in.

- BoJack, this is our first show and it is very important that things run smoothly tonight.

I mean, do you even care about this at all?

- Sweetie, no, I think this is stupid and a waste of everybody's time.

But you're my girlfriend and I care about you, so I'm here.

- Okay, break a leg.

- Me-me-me-me-me.

My-my-my-my.

Bow-wow-wow-wow-wow.

Good boy, good boy.

- Okay, this is it everybody.

Moment of truth, now it's in the hands of God.

And for the next 30 minutes, I am that God.

- It's just so impressive.

Like for an animated show to be this involved and to have like that kind of "Birdman," "West Wing," like that is probably harder and like ambitious than I've ever seen other like animated shows really do.

So, first of all, can you talk about, do you remember like this part of writing this episode?

- It was really fun, and Raphael had told us like he had referenced "West Wing" and wants to be like walking, talking shot.

Like a lot's happening.

Because I had worked at Conan, there's a lot that happens like behind the scenes.

I don't know if that's why he assigned us, but definitely like drew from that and just like how many people are working behind the scenes?

And I know for the animators when they got the script were like, "Ugh."

Like it was a really hard one to animate because of so much movement and so much happening.

But they did obviously an awesome job.

- I do wanna talk about your relationship with the animators.

Like what are those conversations like?

- I'll talk about your episode.

- Yeah.

- Now, they love scenes like that.

I mean they're, you know they're very difficult but it gives them so many opportunities to insert visual jokes.

Which, we loved.

Like they would, it was like very collaborative.

Like they would obviously do our jokes that were written in there, but we loved like the surprising stuff that they would come back with.

And most of it's sort of in the background, which just adds to like the density of a scene.

- Like the monkey who's in the background, like swinging.

Like that was something they added.

- It makes it more re watchable, I think.

- We saw the octopus there.

We were talking a little bit about the Cameron Crowes.

I kinda just wanna talk about the world building because it's so silly and ridiculous and yet consistent.

Like you really do build something that is structurally sound that continues to evolve but never like contradict itself.

- Anytime we got to leave Los Angeles, I got really excited.

So when we got to go to Tesuque, which you'll see, when everyone, where we went to Wesleyan University, because then you got to see whole new backgrounds.

So that for me, animation-wise is always exciting.

Like I'm tired of BoJack's house.

- Yeah.

- But it's also fun to like what if we come back to BoJack's house and it's trashed.

- Yeah.

- Because you know, Diane's been living there.

So-- - Yeah.

- And the Ocean episode was really fun to see.

The animation-- - The fish underwater is amazing.

- Yeah.

So what are those conversations like when you're like, okay we're in a brand new place, we're now in this whole new state?

- But there are, what are the rules?

Especially for fish out of the water.

Like when you go into those new scenes or settings, you gotta figure out like what is possible and what's not possible.

Like how is this world different than Los Angeles or BoJack's house, or a set?

One of the reasons I think the show works is he, like you say, he has such a strong vision.

He knows what the show, the whole time, he knows what the show is and what the show isn't.

And what I've realized, I'm sure you have too, is that that's what makes good shows.

Like when the showrunner knows exactly, has a strong vision.

The shows that suck are when the showrunner is indecisive.

- Mm.

- And doesn't have any idea what is possible or not possible.

- I wanna play the deer collision clip and then kind of talk about world building there.

[BoJack pants tiredly] - BoJack to the rescue.

We should definitely go back.

Nothing more we can do here.

- If you don't wanna do this with me, you can wait in the car.

- What is your plan here exactly?

[Wanda gasps] - Oh.

- What, what is it?

- Footprints, 400 yards ahead.

- How can you see that far in the dark?

- I'm an owl.

- Oh, right.

[Wanda flutters her arms] - Okay, now you're just showing off.

- Are you okay?

- Ha!

- Ow!

- Stay back!

There's more pine cones where that came from!

- Let us take you to the hospital.

- I can't go back to no hospital.

This is the fourth time I've been hit this year.

- Well maybe you shouldn't wear camouflage tracksuits.

- I don't have healthcare.

I didn't pay my bills, so I'm in arrears.

- A deer in arrears.

[Wanda laughs] What's that?

She can't hear you, she's got a deer in arrears.

[Wanda laughs] - Look pal, I'll pay the bill.

Just let us get you to a damn hospital.

- I don't know.

- Hey, I know you've been hurt and I know you're afraid.

We're all afraid, but you have to trust us.

It's gonna be okay.

- Not standing in the middle of the road will also help in the future.

- You're not gonna hurt me again?

- I am not going to hurt you.

- Okay.

[BoJack grunts against the deer's weight] - Ow, ah!

- Starting now.

- In a world where everyone's sentient and everyone is whatever the word is, conscious, and people like deers still like get hit in the middle of the road.

But what would it look like if they're worried about health insurance?

- BoJack had just told Wanda that he thinks they're going too fast and then they hit a deer.

But he's talking about the relationship.

- Yeah.

- And then the deer runs off and that, mainly that clip shows, what I like about that clip is that, first of all, it's sort of thematically on point where BoJack's constantly saying like, "I won't hurt you," and then ends up hurting people.

- Yeah.

- Which he does throughout the series.

And I also like, certainly the goofy joke that Lisa Kudrow pulls off with the English accent.

I think that shows how goofy we would get.

And then, but then it's sort of, there's a tiny poignant moment that I'm proud of because it's not overwritten.

Where she just says, you know, "Trust us, you know, we're not gonna hurt you.

It's gonna be okay."

So I like zigzagging between the goofiness and the sort of the sentiment.

I was so thrilled when I heard Wanda was being played by Lisa Kudrow.

And then she came to the table read and she's such a delight because she would not stop laughing.

Like she couldn't get through-- - She's so supportive.

- She couldn't get through the script even, I mean, it's not that funny.

But she just made, it brought such a great energy to the whole cast and to the room and it made everybody excited.

And she did that every time she showed up.

And now, she's just such a great voice talent as well.

[typewriter ding] - I think it's time, just like a good episode of BoJack to kind of stop talking about jokes and start getting into our feelings.

It is the sad horse show after all, so let's talk about the sad part of it.

What were the main questions that Raphael was trying to get at that you found interesting about who we are as people on this earth?

- We talked a lot about, over the course of the entire show, about what it means to be a good person.

And like there's lots of people who say they want to be good people, but it doesn't matter what you say and it doesn't matter if you ask someone if you're a good person and they say yes.

What matters is your actions.

That's what determines if you're a good person or not.

So ultimately BoJack is not a good person.

At least, that's what I think.

And there's all, but that was a lot of discussion in the room is like, is he good or bad and does he really want to be good or does he just want validation and he wants somebody to let him off the hook.

- He kind of has everything in terms of, I mean like financial security, a nice home, and he's just never going to be happy.

And there are definitely some of those people in Hollywood and they're kind of fascinating to me.

And it taught me that, well, you know, it's good to strive for creative goals and success.

Like success is not the thing that's gonna make you happy.

So therapy might help.

And, so yeah, I loved exploring this person, but also it made me, yeah, just very aware of some of the people around me who can be like that and to not let them suck your energy.

- How do you change the subject that drastically to start talking about the human condition?

- A lot of mornings we would come in and just talk about like what's going on in the world.

And that's probably, somehow that indirectly led to what if we, he steals the D and it turns into Hollywoo for the rest of the series?

But I think it started with something that, I don't even remember what the genesis of, but it normally comes out of a day-to-day event.

And then next thing you know, you're talking about what if Cameron Crowe was a crow.

Or, you know, so it's, it's really, it's not organic.

It's like, it's very, very random, which I think the show reflects.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- We definitely had often conversations about this is too sad or this is too dark and finding that level.

And then a lot of times you just gotta see where the story takes you.

I mean, there's certain times where Rafael would be like, "This is super dark, but it's the right thing to do."

And it's, more importantly, it's what BoJack would do, even though it's something reprehensible.

But you're like, that's what he, you know, you gotta be true to the character.

- Let's go into one of these moments.

I wanna play "The Escape from LA" Clip.

- BoJack is staying with Charlotte.

Charlotte was his former girlfriend when he lived in LA.

Charlotte has moved to Tesuque, New Mexico and now has a husband and children and is living a happy life because she hated Hollywood and got out.

So BoJack went to visit her under the guise of he's going to a boat show in the middle of New Mexico.

And he's staying with, he's staying at Charlotte's house.

She's nice enough to put him up.

And oddly enough, this whole scene, this whole story was brought about because BoJack hit a deer.

And when he hit that deer, that's what made him, inspired him to go visit, made him think of Wanda.

I'm sorry, Charlotte, who's a deer.

And that's what led for him to go to Tesuque.

- Go to bed, Penny.

[door creaks open] [light switch clicks on] [BoJack thuds onto his bed] [tense music] [Charlotte sighs] - Wait, what?

[suspenseful music] [clattering of objects] [Penny] Wait, wait, wait.

[suspenseful music] [suspenseful music intensifies] [Penny gasps] - No.

- Mom.

- Charlotte.

- Penny, go to your room!

- We didn't even do anything.

- Now, Penny!

[Penny cries] - Charlotte, I am so sorry.

- Don't, don't you dare.

If you are not out of my driveway in 30 minutes, I will call the police.

And if you ever try to contact me or my family again, I will [bleep] kill you.

[door slams shut] - You put BoJack in maybe the most despicable place he's ever been.

You talked earlier about how far you can push it.

With this scene specifically, what was that discussion like?

- We probably spent a week just discussing that one scene between BoJack and Penny.

Prior to that, she had already said to BoJack, "The age of sexual consent in New Mexico is 17."

And he is like, "Go to your room."

So we talked about how far can we, how, what, where, what's the point where BoJack, where we hate him?

And we like the complication or the duplicity of the fact that technically it's legal, but BoJack's still a [bleep] person if he were to sleep with her.

And then there was a lot of talk about degrees.

Like should they, should she walk in and they're, you know, having sex or are they just talking?

But, you know, Charlotte thinks they've done something and I guess ultimately we just decided that this, where the line is, they're kissing.

But we, I think we all know that BoJack would've gone the whole way.

And that's just what makes you, that's what makes him gross, you know?

Yeah that's, there was a lot of discussion.

- Well, and you also show it, or you reveal it from the perspective of Charlotte, not from BoJack.

You do make that shift in POV.

Why was that decision made?

- I think we thought it was creepier if she were to hear whispering first, just because she's chasing down, you know, a balloon with a light stick in it, which we'd set up earlier with the kids.

So it's kinda like, it seemed dark to have something that was so light and fun and BoJack hanging with the kids and doing light sticks and balloons and it leads her to something so dark and terrible.

- I'm sure you love the characters you're writing.

What does it feel like to start, to keep on putting these characters you love into these horrible situations?

- Well, it's a love/hate.

You're like, you want, it's exciting because you get to explore sort of the darkness and, or, you know, it's definitely about humanity.

but you do always wanna protect the characters, especially BoJack.

And he's, this isn't the only bad thing that he's, you know, there are people dead because of BoJack.

So it's just another thing where as we know we're you know, coming to the end of the series, you gotta remind the audience because they'll give him slack.

I mean, they'll give him, they'll let him off the hook.

You kind of got to double down on the fact that like, hey, remember this is a show about a bad guy, a narcissist.

- We would not be friends with him in real life probably.

- No.

- So what's an example of a time that you were thinking about making BoJack go too far and decided against it?

- Well, he was definitely gonna sleep with Charlotte and, I'm sorry, Penny.

And, a lot of names and-- - And he would've slept with both of them.

[Harrison laughs] - We wanted to try to make you think that he was gonna sleep with Charlotte and he ends up wanting to sleep with Penny.

But that was, when we first broke it, it was like, and she walks in and like I said, and they're in the act.

And I think we all agree that that's just not cool.

Like-- - I mean.

- It's gonna turn off a lot of people.

- Yeah.

He's still a predator in a sense, but at least it was a little less, yeah, maybe.

- I think he had an awful mother?

- Yeah, yeah.

- And I think he really would hope to have a healthy relationship with a female and just is not wired to do it.

- Yeah.

- Even with Princess Carolyn, that failed as well.

- He's always gonna sabotage himself and also never think he's like worthy of true love.

I forgot about his mom because it's been 10 years.

And I'm like, oh yeah, that's why he's that way.

That's why we're all the way we are, no, our parents.

- As dirty or inappropriate sometimes as a show like this is, there were very F-words, and there's one used here.

- Raphael had a rule that he thought in just TV and especially in streaming, and especially on Netflix, that the F word was overused and therefore made it less meaningful and impactful.

So he kind of had this unwritten rule where we could only say the F word one time a season.

And if you got to use the F word, you got so excited.

[Harrison and audience laugh] So when he's like, I think given the stakes here that Charlotte should probably say, you know, "I'll [beep] kill you."

And I was like, "Yes!"

I was like, "I get to say the F word!"

But I think it, I mean, I think it is, it does have impact.

- And it is what a mom would say.

- Oh, for sure.

- I know you said that this last moment with Diane is important.

What about that interaction at the very end when BoJack sees Diane for the first time after his trip to New Mexico?

[upbeat jazz music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [door squeaks] [door slams shut] [aluminum can crunches underfoot] - Ugh.

[door slides open] [Diane] Hey.

- Hey, you're still here?

- Yep, still here.

- I love that ending because the whole point of this episode, and you can almost say that perhaps the series, is that BoJack's trying to escape.

He's trying to escape his parents, he's trying to escape his childhood.

He's trying to escape mediocrity in Hollywood.

He's trying to escape mostly himself because he hates himself.

And so I think he thought that by going to Tesuque and rekindling a relationship with Charlotte would make him someone else.

And, what we realize and what he realizes is that, and we talked about this a lot on BoJack, is, and this is a cliché, but no matter where you go, you're still there.

And BoJack is constantly trying to escape, but he can't escape himself.

And so that's why I thought thematically, first of all, it's nice that the boat is called Escape from LA and it's going back to LA.

And also, I love when it gets there and Diane and they just say, "You're still here?"

"Yep, still here."

Because she's going through the same exact crisis.

No one can escape themselves.

[typewriter ding] - What did you learn about what you could get away with animation?

And were there opposites?

Were there things that you were like, well because it's animated we can't include this?

Like what were the bounds that you kinda had to feel out and learn about that medium?

- The hard part about animation, well, and the good part is that anything's possible.

So there's a lot more decisions to be made versus live action.

Live action is very limiting, mainly because of a budget standpoint.

Not that we don't have budgets in animation but you gotta think like, all these jokes or what's animated, it's gotta serve the character and serve the story.

Otherwise it's just, you're just animating stuff for the hell of it.

Which is a waste of everyone's time.

- Yeah I think the, having so many possibilities and then making decisions on those possibilities is, yeah.

[typewriter ding] - What are you trying to tell the audience about the world with having a character that can be so good and so bad?

- Don't move to Hollywood.

[audience laughs] - Yeah, don't go to Hollywood is a good one.

That every single person is flawed and sometimes people are able to redeem themselves and sometimes they deserve second chances, but then sometimes they are irredeemable and don't deserve a second chance.

And that's just people.

[typewriter ding] [Narrator] You've been watching "Script to Screen: BoJack Horseman" 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 Wittcliff Collections at Texas State University.

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

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [projector clicking] [typing] [typewriter ding] [projector dies]