First Draft Episode #238: Sarah Watson
MARCH 9, 2020
LISTEN TO THE EPISODE
Sarah Watson is a television writer, producer, and novelist. She’s the creator of the Freeform series, The Bold Type, and was a Writer and Executive Producer of the critically acclaimed NBC drama, Parenthood. She has also written for About A Boy, Lipstick Jungle,The Unusuals, and The Middleman, as well as other series. Her debut novel, Most Likely, is out now.
Sarah Enni: Welcome to First Draft with me, Sarah Enni. This week I'm talking to Sarah Watson. She is a television writer, producer, and debut novelist. Sarah is the creator of the Freeform series, The Bold Type, and she was a Writer and Executive Producer on the critically acclaimed NBC drama Parenthood. In this episode, Sarah and I talk about her debut young adult novel, Most Likely, which is about the first woman president, but when she was in high school.
And her recently green-lit TV series about a small town that comes together to do a shot-for-shot remake of The Goonies. I loved what Sarah had to say about just saying yes when opportunities come up, how she balances the role of not only a writer but also a producer, and then an executive producer, and then a showrunner, and her no assholes rule. Everything Sarah and I talked about on today's episode can be found in the show notes.
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Okay, now please sit back, relax, and enjoy my conversation with Sarah Watson.
Sarah Enni: All right Sarah, how are you?
Sarah Watson: I'm great. Excited for this.
Sarah Enni: Yay. I'm so excited to chat with you. Just finished reading Most Likely a couple of weeks ago, I have a lot of questions. But on my podcast I to get some background too. So I'm gonna start with way back at where were you born and raised?
Sarah Watson: I was born and raised up in Northern California, Menlo Park, but I spent my summers in Janesville, Wisconsin. So I was raised very NorCal and also very Midwest.
Sarah Enni: So every summer like clockwork, it was out to Wisconsin.
Sarah Watson: Yes. So my grandparents on my mom's side had a dairy farm, dad's side factory workers, and then we would go up North to go to the lake. So I spent time on a farm and time at a lake.
Sarah Enni: That's amazing. I love that. It's when these political candidates are talking about dairy farmers in Wisconsin and you're, "Is that just a trope?"
Sarah Watson: Yeah, "Those are my people."
Sarah Enni: That's amazing. I would love to hear how reading and writing was a part of growing up for you.
Sarah Watson: Huge part. And I can tell you the day I fell in love with reading, very specifically. My older brother, one of his best friends had a younger sister who was a couple of years older than me. And so anytime my brother and his friend were playing, she would get stuck at our house.
And so we just started to become really close. And then one afternoon, I don't remember how we got our hands on a copy of Lois Dunkin's book Down a Dark Hall. We just sat in my bedroom, and passed the book back and forth every chapter, reading it out loud. Read the whole thing in a day.
Based on this anecdote, it may surprise you, but I was not one of the cool kids. And we just fell in love with reading. And we would get so excited to go to the bookstore for new books. I was big Babysitters Club fan, Sweet Valley Twins. Sweet Valley High later, but I started with Sweet Valley Twins. And I read them in real time so I remember going to Kepler's bookstore on the days they were supposed to launch, and they were always late.
Sarah Enni: Oh my god. That's really funny. That's so special to have fallen in love too with, and I mean, I'm gonna just trace this through your whole career, but with falling in love with reading as a communal activity, and having it read out loud. Which is not the typical reading experience. But you've gone on to write things that are meant to be read out loud. So that makes sense.
From there, did you continue reading? And what about creative writing?
Sarah Watson: Yeah, I always loved creative writing. That was always my favorite thing in school. And it's interesting that you bring up reading out loud because I never even thought about it, but I'm a really slow reader. And I was always pretty self conscious about that growing up cause I was always a really good student and I was like, "If I'm not the fastest reader in the class, who am I?" But I was really slow.
And as I've gotten older I've come to realize, I think that's why I'm a good writer because I read every word. And I pay so much attention to the language, not just the plot. But yeah, creative writing I loved in school and always, always that was my favorite.
Sarah Enni: What form was it taking? Do you remember your earliest ventures?
Sarah Watson: I remember just a lot of prompts from teachers. I remember doing with an accompanying drawing and so that was really fun.
Sarah Enni: Oh my gosh, I love that. And the reason I'm asking in particular is that you went on to study writing for film and TV. And that doesn't always occur to people.
Sarah Watson: Oh, it did not occur to me. So film and TV is not something I even had an awareness of. I was such a huge film watcher. I was such an eighties film kid and I was obsessed with them, but it never even occurred to me that somebody wrote them. I just was aware of the actors and the characters and the stories. And in fact, one of the creative writing things I did as a kid is I basically just summarize the plot of War Games.
Sarah Enni: You just wrote it out?
Sarah Watson: I just wrote it out [laughing]. But I feel I learned plot that way by having to think about all the dramatic turns. Yeah, not exactly creative, but a good lesson. So it never even occurred to me that that was a job. And then I went to UCLA, not for film school at all. I was an English major. I wanted to be an English teacher. I always knew I wanted to write books. And then I took a film class just to fulfill an elective.
Sarah Enni: Wow. And off to the races.
Sarah Watson: Off to the races.
Sarah Enni: That's wild.
Sarah Watson: I was doing a teaching internship at the time and then just started to get so excited about that. And so I never thought I would actually succeed. It just seemed so big. And all the film students seemed so intimidating.
Sarah Enni: You have shared with me in the past, a story about being inspired by someone who didn't believe in you [both laughing]. Do you mind sharing that?
Sarah Watson: So there was this guy who lived in my dorm and totally had a crush on him and he was a film student. And so I started taking film classes, in some respect to be with him. And then I just started talking to him about like, "I think this might be something I want to try."
And he was not supportive at all. He kinda said, "Well, you know, I've known this is what I've wanted to do since I was eight-years-old, like Spielberg." Oh my god I just realized, and now I'm doing a pilot with Spielberg. That's... Oh! We've come full circle!
Sarah Enni: I love it. I live for this story.
Sarah Watson: But yeah, so he just kinda crapped on my dream and this idea and I felt like there was some truth to what he was saying. "Oh, this is sort of this thing that I never knew I wanted to do." How can I possibly say, "Oh, I'm gonna do this when I haven't spent my time studying this. I'm not a film historian." You know, "I don't know all about French new wave cinema."
Sarah Enni: I love that story because of course you went on to prove him wrong. I mean, immediately you were like, "Maybe he's right."
Sarah Watson: Oh yeah, for sure. But at the same time it was bigger life stuff too. Cause I was doing this teaching internship at the same time and what I was realizing was, I had always worked with kids and I loved working with kids, and I was realizing, "Oh, I like working with them one-on-one." The teacher aspect just wasn't quite clicking for me.
And education is something I value so much. My boyfriend is a teacher and I have so much awe for him. But it didn't feel like it was gonna be the right fit for me. So I was also starting to panic a little bit cause, you know, I was twenty-years-old. I had to have my life figured out.
Sarah Enni: Right! Well, I'm interested in, so you take this first film class and you're up in the air, not gonna be an educator. So how's it gonna come down? What was it about writing for that medium that really struck a chord with you?
Sarah Watson: The dialogue. It was just so fun to write dialogue and to be able to tell so much more of a story because you can make it visual. That's what I loved about writing on Parenthood was these small moments that we found in these looks and these nods. And it's something that in novels you capture in a different way. I got really excited about this dialogue.
And also at the same time, TV was really starting to become more of a thing when I was in college. I'm a sitcom watcher, but sitcom writing is not my medium. I like to write funny, but I'm not a setup joke person. So, whereas when I started college, the only TV writing you could do was sitcoms, by the time I was out, these one hour dramas started. I remember when Felicity came on the air and it was like game changer. Oh my god, prior to that, Thirtysomething was the only example of a show like that, and I was too young for that.
Sarah Enni: Right, right, right. Of the type of show that you're interested in writing?
Sarah Watson: Yeah, exactly.
Sarah Enni: Cause I was gonna say you grew up being a film obsessive, I can say that maybe, but you did end up really focusing on television. Or, it looks like that's what you've focused on.
Sarah Watson: Absolutely, yeah.
Sarah Enni: So when you left, and this is something I'm gonna ask for people who may not be familiar with how you can break into movies or TV. But you leave UCLA with a degree. How do you get started?
Sarah Watson: So I started with an internship my junior year of college, and this was right when I was finishing up that teaching internship, and that guy was crapping all over my dreams. I thought, "Okay, you know what?I'm just gonna try an internship." So I was at college at a time when very early stages of the internet. So there wasn't all these resources to even know how to find these internships and these jobs.
However, it was also a time where there were not a lot of intern laws, so you could just call up anywhere and say, "Hey, can I do some free work? And they're gonna say yes." So I remember going to this file cabinet in the career center at UCLA and pulling this huge file cabinet out, writing a couple of phone numbers down and just calling these places and everywhere I called said yes.
And Alan Ladd at Paramount had a production company there at the time, and I was like, "Okay, that's the guy that green-lit Star Wars. I like Star Wars, I'll go to read scripts there." This really truly is the extent of my knowledge of it [laughing]. Also at my internship, I felt lucky in that all the assistants there were really helpful and also really excited about their own futures and their own careers.
And so one assistant, in particular, anytime a big spec feature came out that was great, he'd always say, "Have you read this?" He'd make a copy of it for me. And so I was reading a lot of really great stuff. And weirdly that assistant was Damon Lindeloff who has gone on to do okay for himself. (He went on to create LOST, The Leftovers, and Watchmen).
Sarah Enni: I think I've heard of that guy. Yeah, that's really funny.
Sarah Watson: It was funny. A couple of years ago when I was moving some boxes in the attic, I found this old box of scripts. And I found this spec script he had written when he was like twenty-four-years-old.
Sarah Enni: Oh my gosh, go on eBay.
Sarah Watson: I know, right!
Sarah Enni: I love that you got to have this, it's like a postgraduate degree you gave yourself. How did that move forward? I mean, first of all, I'm interested in, at this point you're reading a lot of spec scripts. Was it for film and TV?
Sarah Watson: Film. Just film.
Sarah Enni: Okay. That was just film. But you still had an interest in pursuing TV?
Sarah Watson: Yeah, I was really interested in both. And at the time there were a lot more opportunities in film, at least it seemed that way. I don't know if that's really true or not, but you know, there weren't as many shows. It's not like it is today. There were very set number of shows, so getting a job on a show was a little harder.
Whereas everybody had a production company. And everybody was making movies. And movies of all levels, not just the huge blockbusters and not the little Indies, all levels. So I definitely was wanting to go down that road. And one of the first things I wrote was a movie with teenagers, young adult. That's definitely my wheelhouse.
But then at the same time I was looking for assistant jobs and taking whatever would come my way. And there was an opportunity to be the assistant to a manager who dealt with film and TV actors, writers, directors. But I just started getting a lot more excited about the TV. Especially, like I mentioned Felicity, Dawson's Creek, all these shows that were doing these things I'd never seen before. Kind of the rise of the WB and then Buffy. Oh my god. I mean Buffy, game changer.
Sarah Enni: Total game changer. And like you were saying, this was such a golden era for really rich teen stories. Not necessarily, I mean, I love a good schlocky Riverdale as much as anyone else, genre stuff. But this was teens being taken seriously. Kind of YA as we know it today, really reflected in television, which was super exciting.
Sarah Watson: Yeah. And it really wasn't happening in books that I was aware of at that time. Cause I was an English major. So I was reading the classics and I was reading mostly highbrow literature and then on TV I was finding the stories that I just devoured.
Sarah Enni: I love that. So when did you break in? How did you actually find your foothold?
Sarah Watson: Well, I definitely was not an overnight success at all. And those stories always annoy me. I was working as an assistant on That's So Raven on the Disney Channel.
Sarah Enni: By the way, I saw that in your credits and I was like, "What a dream!" I love that.
Sarah Watson: It was so much fun. And it's interesting because I had said, you know, sitcoms, that's not really my interest, but That's So Raven, the writers were just wonderful. Because that was when sitcoms were dying and the one hour dramas were taking over everything.
And so all of these amazing A List sitcom writers, the only jobs they could get were on the Disney Channel.
Sarah Enni: I was gonna say that was a Disney Channel show.
Sarah Watson: So I got to work with these huge, huge, important Emmy winner voices, but it was a little lower stakes, if that makes sense. It was not as high pressure an environment. So it was a friendly environment and a warm environment and just got to learn a lot. And then through that I met some producers who were doing a couple things.
And one of the things one of the producers said is, "I have a budget to do these low budget disaster movies for the SyFy Channel. Do you have any ideas?" And when somebody with money says, "Do you have any ideas?" Always say, "Yes." So I said yes on a Friday and I said, "But let me, you know, dust them off, polish them." Went home that weekend, read all these scientific journals, came up with a couple ideas, and then he bought two of them.
Sarah Enni: That is amazing.
Sarah Watson: For very low money, non WGA, but I got to write it. I wrote a SyFy Channel original movie.
Sarah Enni: That is amazing.
Sarah Watson: I paid for my car.
Sarah Enni: Yeah, that's huge. And good for you. The pattern I'm seeing so far is a lot of self-starting. I mean going to that filing cabinet and writing down the numbers and just giving people a call. That's really impressive.
Sarah Watson: It was a lot of self starting and a lot of also just taking what ever opportunities came my way. You know, I think there were a lot of people who would say, "Oh no, I'm not gonna work at the Disney Channel. I'm only gonna work on Emmy caliber shows." And any opportunity that came my way, I just said yes to, and I've learned from everything I've done.
Sarah Enni: Yeah, that's great. I think it was Ransom Riggs, a YA writer, who once told me, he was like,"Say yes until you can afford to say no." [Laughing].
Sarah Watson: Exactly. Now I say no all the time.
Sarah Enni: Right. And I was like, "That's a great operating principle, especially at first. You'll always learn something, right? So I want to work up to how you got to Parenthood basically. So can you lead us there?
Sarah Watson: Yeah. So after the success of Disaster Zone: Volcano in New York on the SyFy Channel [laughing], you'd be shocked to know my career did not just open up and blossom.
Sarah Enni: Shocking.
Sarah Watson: I was able to get a job writing. I wrote on a couple of low budget cable things before cable was cool. But what was great about it is, I was in these really small writers' rooms. And so even though I was only a staff writer, I was having huge contributions and getting to do a ton, having to rewrite quickly, having to rewrite under pressure.:
I went on a Lifetime show that shot in Australia for six months. So while I was there, I got an email from my agent, cause our time zones were so different, that a show on Fox had read me and liked me. He said, "I think it's probably a long shot but I'll have you do a phone interview from Australia. And nobody ever gets jobs off phone interviews." So I did this thing.
And also the phone call, because this was 2000... Oh I don't know, early 2000's, mid- 2000's. And so the phones were not as great. So there was this delay. So me and the showrunner kept talking over each other. I hung up and I was like, "Well that was awful. I'm never gonna get it."
And I had just wrapped this lifetime show in Australia, so I was flying to Thailand the next day to meet friends to travel. So I landed in Bangkok and I had ten text messages from my agent saying, "Where are you? You got the job. You start Monday."
Sarah Enni: Oh my gosh. Wow. So you turned right around.
Sarah Watson: Flew back to Australia, packed up my apartment, moved back to the United States. And so I was on this Fox show called Standoff. Eight high level writer dudes and me. Totally intimidating. And also an FBI hostage negotiator show. Not exactly my wheelhouse [laughing]. But again, being open to every opportunity.
So Standoff ended up being a great experience. I was really, really intimidated walking into that room, especially since all the writers were high level. I was coming in mid-season, I was the only woman, but they were great. And even though the show wasn't my wheelhouse, I realized that with just a lot of research I could write anything. And that was an important lesson.
I don't think it was the best fit for my voice, but I realized I can still write to the voice of the showrunner. So after that, coming off a procedural and being a woman, I was getting meetings on basically every procedural in town. Which was great except that I was like, "Oh my God, I'm gonna get pigeonholed into procedural." Which is not where I wanted to be.
And then I was offered Lipstick Jungle with these amazing women, DeAnn Heline (producer on Murphy Brown and executive producer Ellen) and Eileen Heisler (executive producer of How I Met Your Mother and The Middle), and I just jumped at that opportunity. I wanted to make sure that I had soap on my resume, that I was doing more female driven shows. Cause there really were not a lot at the time.
Sarah Enni: Again, another way that it really looks different than even people who just casually watch TV can see. It's a really different environment now.
Sarah Watson: Yes. Completely.
Sarah Enni: Can you talk really quick, and we don't have to stay on this for too long, but just the difference between writing a procedural versus writing the kinds of shows that you like to do more.
Sarah Watson: For sure. And this is not to harp on procedurals. I think there are some incredible procedurals that are very character-driven, Goodwife being an example. But a lot of them, the crime of the week or the case of the week comes first. So you break that first. And character can be a bit of an afterthought.
And again, not every procedural. But in general, plot drives it more than character. And on the types of shows I like to do, character drives. That's where I get really excited about shows is when you can really delve into these characters and not who murdered this guy, or why he had a heart attack or whatever.
Sarah Enni: And I appreciate that perspective cause some people would love that.
Sarah Watson: Totally. And I know writers who are incredible procedural writers and they love the puzzle, they love the story, they love figuring out the twists and turns. And that's not me. I just care about character and why characters do certain things.
Sarah Enni: And that leads us to Lipstick Jungle and then how did Parenthood come about?
Sarah Watson: So just a couple more steps to get there. Then we went on writer's strike. Then I worked on The Middleman with Javier Grillo-Marxuach, who became an incredible mentor to me. And then this opportunity to write on another procedural came up. But I took it because the writer's room was in New York and I really wanted to live in New York. Again saying yes to all things.
And then it was after that show, The Unusuals, got canceled that I was meeting on tons of shows. I'd always been an admirer of Jason Katims. I just think he makes incredible, incredible television. And so when the opportunity to meet on that came up it was, I mean, I wanted that show so bad.
Sarah Enni: And am I right that he was the Friday Night Lights creator?
Sarah Watson: He did not create it. Pete Berg created it, but he ran it the whole time (based on the book Friday Night Lights written by Pulitzer Prize winner H.G. “Buzz” Bissinger).
Sarah Enni: I mean, and that's like one of the best shows ever to be on TV.
Sarah Watson: And so Friday Night Lights was in its third season when Parenthood was in its first or maybe fourth, I can't remember. So when I met with Jason, he was looking for writers on both and I was like, "Either! Both! I'll do them both!" [Laughing] "Whatever you want! I will get you coffee!" I think I literally said that in the meeting and I was like, "Or, I'll just get you coffee, whatever you need!" I just want to be writing those kinds of shows.
Sarah Enni: Yeah. So these are really granular questions, but I'm interested in, when you get hired on a show like this, he's starting a brand new show. How much is developed and how much do you get to co-create with the room? How does that kind of show get fleshed out?
Sarah Watson: Every show is a little different. Jason is a writer who spends a lot of time in the writer's room, which is tremendous. He has such a vision and I've never seen another writer like this. It's almost like math for him. He knows when the choice is right. You can see it cross over his face when someone pitches something, it's fascinating.
He taught me to be really decisive. He taught me to write from the gut. So Jason, I mean really is the author of Parenthood. That is his show. But he loves the room and so we pitched so much in the room. We were in there for a long time, especially on Season One because we had originally been slated to be a fall show and then we were pushed to mid-season because we had to do some recasting.
So we just had this luxury of time where we got to spend all this rich time on the character's backstories and we got to go down roads that were wrong and then come back. And we had this luxury of time that you don't often get in television, network television.
Sarah Enni: That's amazing. First of all, can you pitch Parenthood really quick before we get into too many more details?
Sarah Watson: Sure. Parenthood, it's based on the 1989 Steve Martin movie written by Lowell Ganz (who also wrote Splash and A League of Their Own, among others) and Bobaloo Mandel (who also wrote City Slickers, A League of Their Own, and Forget Paris) who are also my total writing heroes.
And then Jason did an updated version. It's a show about this large family, the Braverman's, and how the adult siblings interact and their lives together.
Sarah Enni: And it really is, I mean, you're talking about backstory and being character-driven. This is a big cast.
Sarah Watson: Oh, huge.
Sarah Enni: How did you even begin to tackle all of them?
Sarah Watson: Oh my gosh. Well, it's interesting because a lot of times on shows you break stories based on storylines. So an A story, a B story and a Runner. On Parenthood, to make sure all the characters were serviced, we broke by character. We had different colored note cards for every character, which I loved. It's the way I still write to this day.
And so a lot of times we'd break too many stories and we'd end up pairing them back. But we really went character by character, which I also think explains some of the richness of the show and how they all felt so deep and so realized.
Sarah Enni: Yeah. And it really was [inhales] it was one of those shows that reliably you would be crying at the end. It was very emotional, but because it was all coming from these really authentic people who were just crashing against each other all the time.
Sarah Watson: Oh yeah, and we cried in the writer's room all the time. I mean, we had a box of Kleenex in there. We went through so much Kleenex. But we shared so deeply from our own personal lives and that's something that just doesn't happen as much on a procedural show.
And it was a very new experience for me to go into my psyche and all my childhood trauma and exploit it for television.
Sarah Enni: Right, and talk to a room of people about it.
Sarah Watson: Oh yeah. It was like group therapy. I grew so much, not just as a writer, but as a person during that show.
Sarah Enni: You mentioned earlier that when you were getting started you were able to be in some smaller rooms. Can you just give a range? What does a small room and what was Parenthood's room like?
Sarah Watson: So the first show I wrote on Beyond the Break, there were three of us for most of the time, which is tiny. And I've been on a couple of writing staffs that have been that. Parenthood, I think at the most we ever had was eight, and then fewest was six. Six is small that was for our final season. I would say eight to ten is fairly typical for a network show.
Sarah Enni: For an hour long?
Sarah Watson: For an hour long.
Sarah Enni: And that's the other thing, man, it's a network show and an hour long. That is a lot of time. It's a lot of pages, which means a lot of time and a grueling shooting schedule. What's daily life like when you're in the midst of all that?
Sarah Watson: Parenthood was a dream because Jason runs such an efficient show and it's because he knows what he wants. And so I've been on a lot of shows where you break entire stories that you end up throwing out, or entire storylines. And he was really decisive about knowing exactly what he wanted.
And it was also important to him that people had lives. It was a show about parents. Most of the writers in the room were parents. So it was important to him that people went home to have dinner with their families, so we could exploit whatever happened at home.
Sarah Enni: And that's just a smart investment by him.
Sarah Watson: So we kept fairly normal hours, which meant I could have a social life, I could see people, I wasn't always breaking plans. And that was an incredible work/life balance that you don't usually get in TV.
Sarah Enni: I want to ask about moving into a producer and an executive producer role and then we'll talk about being able to be your own showrunner and what you're able to bring to that. But I'm just interested, you are hired for the writing staff and what does it mean when you get to be a producer and then an executive producer?
Sarah Watson: It's really just ranks that you rise. So when I got to be the co-EP level, the other co-EP's who were more experienced than I was, there was one season where all of them either had pilots or one was having a baby. And so that put a lot of the responsibility on me in the best possible way. It meant that I was doing a ton of rewriting. I was helping Jason with a lot. And so that was a huge opportunity for me to take more than I had taken before and, and really grow from that.
Sarah Enni: So, and again, this is just for people like me who don't totally get how inside of the rooms work. But when you're a staff writer and an EP, what does that mean as far as breaking the story and then who breaks off to write and how does it get rewritten?
Sarah Watson: In Jason's rooms, everybody's kind of equal. A good idea is a good idea. So we're all there in the writer's room all day, every day together. Everybody's contributing. Really the only difference when we're in the room breaking story, is that the high level is the co-EP's or the EP's. When Jason comes into the room, if he's been away, they're the ones that pitch back to him, generally. And generally that's when the staff writers are more just waiting and listening for him to weigh in.
And then Jason likes to assign scripts after they've been broken because he likes to assign to the writer's strength. He always felt like I wrote Sarah and Amber really well. So if there was a Sarah/Amber heavy episode, generally he would give that to me. A lot of showrunners assign scripts ahead of time. So it's just wherever you fall in that numeric order.
And a lot of showrunners ask the writer of that particular episode to lead the room, to make the decisions, to be at the board. But with Jason, and this is how I run my shows too because I thought it worked so well. It means nobody takes ownership. Everybody takes ownership. And it also helps you not be so precious about your ideas because it's for the good of the show, not the good of your episode.
I've been on shows where people fight for good ideas in their episode that would be better somewhere else, but they want it. And when you don't know who's gonna write that one, everybody's 1000% invested.
Sarah Enni: I think that's really smart. So you're leading me right to my question, which is I'd love to hear about where you went from Parenthood. Was The Bold Type next?
Sarah Watson: So I was on a deal at Universal at the time, so they did have me consult on a show, a medical show called Heartbeat. Then I'd done a few pilots at that point and then The Bold Type came up. And I had to write a pilot as part of my deal. And I was just making the rounds with the producers who all had Universal deals, and I met with the producers who were doing this show with Joanna Coles and Cosmo Magazine.
And I practically leapt out of my chair and was like, "I am the writer for that!" It's funny because I had an office on the Universal lot at the same time and so did they. And so I had decided, "Oh I'll just ride one of the production bikes to the meeting. And I didn't realize that the Universal lot is huge. It was like a fifteen, twenty minute bike ride up a hill to get to this meeting. And then it was so windy on the way back.
And I just remember calling my agent, from this bicycle, being like sweating, cause it was a thousand degrees that day. I was like [breathless voice], "You gotta get me this show!" [Laughs] This crazy woman riding their bike like, "Get me on this show! I'll fly myself to New York tomorrow to meet with Joanna." Which I did. I flew myself to New York to meet Joanna Coles and to shadow at Cosmo and everything I could to get that show.
Sarah Enni: That's amazing. Okay, well let's talk about that, cause I want to talk about the research you did for the show. You already brought research up once and I really want to hear how that's a part of your process. And then about how you went about setting up the show and being in charge of your own room.
Sarah Watson: So Joanna Coles was incredible. She completely opened the doors to me at Cosmo and I just spent two days there with my little notebook sitting in on meetings, scratching things down and really learning the process of running a magazine. She let me sit in on everything. But also getting to see the human interaction between all the people who were there.
So I came back with notebooks full of stories about not only how things were done, but also just these anecdotes and things. And getting to see who was competitive with each other and who supported each other. And I loved seeing how much support there was.
Sarah Enni: That's great. I love to hear that because I think we've all watched TV shows that don't get things right, or are so far field that it's a little wild, which sometimes it's fun. But I like that you were like, "No, let me get in there and see how it really works."
Sarah Watson: And look, some things we had to truncate for television. And obviously they were getting stories up so much quicker in magazines, they're months in advance. But you just can't do that on television.
Sarah Enni: No, that would be a really tough thing to follow. I want to hear about how after being inspired, getting to be at Cosmo, then how did you go about developing the characters and get to set up the show?
Sarah Watson: So it's really interesting because the show was not originally set up at Freeform. We originally sold it to NBC. And I did not think that was the right place for it. At the time, NBC was not putting things on the air that were female-driven. And so in order to pitch the show to a network audience, it was a very different show. The character of Alex was the lead. It was a male lead.
Sarah Enni: That's wild.
Sarah Watson: And it was a male lead fish-out-of-water story. It was a guy who had been a writer at the Wall Street Journal and this was back when magazines and newspapers were laying off everybody. Doors were closing constantly. And so he was somebody who had been this bright shining star at the Wall Street Journal, was laid off, and then the only job he could get was at a Cosmo type magazine. And so learning his way there.
But in order to sell a female driven world, I had to make it a male lead.
Sarah Enni: That's really nuts.
Sarah Watson: Yeah, isn't that wild.
Sarah Enni: I mean, and I can see that's a compelling story, but knowing how The Bold Type came out.
Sarah Watson: No, absolutely. And also as an aged-up show, I think he was in his thirties. It was more of a West Wing type dynamic. They were all older and more experienced. Because again, network television. So we sold it to NBC. NBC did not put it on the air. And then Freeform had been kind of circling.
And then when I first went and talked to the Freeform executives and we were talking about what changes we could make aging it down, I sorta said like, "Throw it all away and make it what it should be". It's young women, women in their twenties, which I always think of as the junior high of adulthood, trying to figure out their way in New York, and in life, and in this magazine.
And it was so exciting to get to have the opportunity to really tell the story, it felt like it always should have been.
Sarah Enni: Yeah. That's so great. So then how did you set up a show? I mean, this is your first chance to be the big boss. How did that go?
Sarah Watson: It was really hard. It was tough. Trying to hire people on at Freeform versus network is a lot harder. We had a lot of trouble getting a director. It was just obstacle after obstacle and it really was a challenging experience.
Sarah Enni: That's interesting. And I'm interested in this because you're a writer, but what we're talking about is all these other jobs that you've accumulated.
Sarah Watson: And when your showrunning such a small percentage of it is writing. And I love the writing. And the toughest part about The Bold Type was getting wardrobe approved because everybody had an opinion about it. And obviously it needs to be a high fashion show and rich fulfillment, but I was just like, "I do not care. Stop pulling me out of the writer's room so I can look at her shoes that we're gonna see for four seconds." I seriously have PTSD about costumes.
Sarah Enni: That's wild. That's...I would not, [splutters] that is really wild. Interesting. I mean how did you feel? The thumb on the scale is that I'm interested in these parts cause I'm finding myself in charge of, I mean, I run a company now. The podcast is growing so I'm like, "Oh I'm managing people, and having to monitor how people are feeling, and that they feel they're contributing." Did you enjoy that part of the process?
Sarah Watson: Yes and no. I do enjoy it when I have more time for it. The problem when you're showrunning, is you are dealing with so many things, on top of putting out these scripts. And that really has to be the number one priority. And so you talk about you want to make sure people are feeling like they're contributing, and there were just days where I could only have the time to think about the scripts. And only had the time to think about the creative. And it's so hard to think about the other stuff.
Your inbox is just thousands of emails. It's interesting because as I've started to deal with people who are higher up and higher up the food chain, they're so much more terse over email. And I used to think, "Oh, there's a coldness." And no, it's just they're responding so fast. They're not proofreading. I mean, I always love getting emails from network presidents because it's typo-ridden.
Whereas the old me would proofread an email thirty times before I would send it. Like, "Will this tone come across weird? Should I use an exclamation point?" You don't have the time for that.
Sarah Enni: I want to ask about how or when did Most Likely enter?
Sarah Watson: So Most Likely entered after the election, really. After the 2016 election. It's so interesting because we shot the pilot of The Bold Type thinking that we would have a woman president. We shot it during the election. And then it was picked up two days after Trump was elected. I was literally walking into my therapist's office [chuckles] when I got the call that we were picked up.
Sarah Enni: What a roller coaster.
Sarah Watson: It was such a roller coaster. And the pilot had been really difficult. I feel very fortunate that I have not experienced a lot of sexism in my career. Unfortunately, The Bold Type was more of the exception. The pilot was a difficult, difficult experience. So I was still just dealing with all that.
I had very bittersweet feelings about it getting picked up, knowing what I was gonna have to continue dealing with. And especially with who our president was. I felt my entire life and my entire career, everything just kept getting better and better for women. And then all of a sudden, all at once, it was just ripped out from under me.
And I just felt so disillusioned and so confused. I really wanted to put out something hopeful, at a time when it was hard to feel hopeful. And I was able to do that on The Bold Type, but at the same time it was not a pleasant experience. It was a very difficult, very sexist experience.
And so after that I was just feeling disillusioned and I was reading Hillary's book, What Happened, and I did not think I would have the stomach to read it. I had really only purchased the book to piss off Trump because I really wanted her to be on the bestseller list, cause I knew what irritated him. But then I started reading it and devoured it in a couple of days. And I was really struck by the chapter where she talked about going to college. And I didn't realize that she had been a Republican before she went.
And a lot of her beliefs were very different. And then she met this strong group of feminist women who really shaped her and really inspired her. And I got very emotional thinking about how my female friends had had that impact on me, and how we all impact each other in these amazing ways.
And so I just started to think about, "Well we don't have a female president yet. But whoever the first one is, the person she's really gonna need to thank, she's gonna need to thank her friends. Because they're the ones who got her there. They're the ones who got her to that podium."
Sarah Enni: I love that. That's a very hopeful thing to take out of that book, which otherwise is kind of tough.
Sarah Watson: And at the same time my friend Jen had talked me into running one last marathon.
Sarah Enni: Oh boy.
Sarah Watson: Yeah. And then our friend Allison, we were like, "You're running this with us." She's like, "Fine." And so the three of us were running, and we've run together for, oh my God fifteen years, and talked out so many things as we ran. And I just started thinking about them and how much they've influenced my life and made me better, made me run farther. And it's a pretty good metaphor for what our women friends do for us.
Sarah Enni: That's so great. So actually, before we get too much farther into Most Likely, do you want to just pitch it for us and then we can talk in detail?
Sarah Watson: Yeah. So Most Likely is the story of the high school days of a woman president and it's about her four best friends. And so we're following the four best friends and we know something that they don't, which is that one of them is gonna grow up to be the President of the United States.
And we're able to keep her identity a secret because we meet her on her inauguration day, in the prologue, thirty years in the future and she's taken her husband's last name. And we get a big clue that she kissed him for the first time when they were seniors in high school.
So I always think of it as a feminist fairy tale because whichever girl kisses the boy grows up to be the future leader of the free world.
Sarah Enni: That's [chuckles], I love that. That's so cute. Yeah, we don't know throughout the book, the reader is left trying to figure out who it is that finally...
Sarah Watson: Did you figure it out?
Sarah Enni: I didn't, no. I don't want to spoil anything, but yeah, I was like, "What?!" [Both laughing].
So you have this really powerful idea at a time that it sounds like it was really an important... like a life raft for you at that time. At what point did you think of it as not a TV show?
Sarah Watson: Immediately, immediately. I needed a break from television. So I was actively looking for book ideas. Like I said, books have always been my first love. It's always what I thought I wanted to do. I've always loved young adult. And so I thought, "This is my time. This is my chance. I want to write a book. Let me come up with an idea." But I was trying to think of other ideas when this idea popped into my head.
Sarah Enni: Had you tried your hand at writing a book before?
Sarah Watson: Yes. So I had tried, and failed, which is a huge lesson in life. So I wrote a book, because [with] Parenthood, we had pretty long hiatuses. And the first couple of seasons that I was on the show I wasn't allowed to develop. I didn't have a development out. So during that hiatus time, I wrote a book. Got an amazing book agent, Kate Testerman at KT Literary. Amazing. But it just didn't sell.
And so we were talking about making it a middle-grade book, aging it down. Because a lot of the comments we were getting was like, "Love the story, but this feels middle-grade not YA." And so one of the things I was thinking of doing, was doing a rewrite on that. But I just didn't, like I said, I was just feeling so disillusioned and wanted an idea that I could just wholeheartedly believe in. And then this idea popped into my head.
Sarah Enni: Yeah. When it comes to books, I mean, TV shows are the same, especially if it has a chance of being put on the air. But you just gotta be 100% about it. Cause it's taking so much time.
Sarah Watson: Oh yeah. So much time.
Sarah Enni: Yeah. Well that's great. So you had your feet under you about what this was gonna be like. But how did you go about developing it knowing it was gonna be prose?
Sarah Watson: So I sold this off a proposal, which I think is pretty unusual, especially for a first book.
Sarah Enni: Yeah. I mean in your case it's not. People who have a proven track record can do that. But yeah, for a first book that's not super common.
Sarah Watson: So I had emailed my book agent Kate the idea and she flipped out. She was like, "Oh my God, yes!" She was like, "Write the proposal, here's five sample proposals and get me three sample chapters." And so I really dove into it. But because the book was so intricate and had so many twists and turns, and I had to equally weight all four of the girls so it didn't blow the reveal, the proposal took longer to write than the book.
Sarah Enni: Really? Oh my gosh. That's so interesting. Talk me through, well, I think proposals are fascinating. So can you talk me through what was in there and how did you actually cork board? All the details you want to give.
Sarah Watson: So I think for the proposal, weirdly it helped me having done a lot of TV pitches because I knew how to do hooks and I knew how to grab them. So I had a grabby opening before I went into the plot. Because I feel if you just hand somebody twenty pages of plot, it can get very cumbersome. Whereas if you have a little bit of a hook at the opening, then they already know they're gonna love it once they get to the plot.
Because the plot was intricate. And I spent many hours sitting in front of my cork board. That's where that Parenthood training... those multicolored character cards. CJ was yellow, Jordan was purple, you know, Martha was green and Ava was pink and I would just sit up there and write down scenes I was excited about and write down moments I was excited about. And when I started to write the proposal, I did not know which of the four girls it was gonna be.
Sarah Enni: Ooh, that's so interesting.
Sarah Watson: I let the story guide me.
Sarah Enni: It's interesting because what you're talking about is plot, a lot of really thinking through plot wise, but your character is your first love. So how did you balance those two?
Sarah Watson: Well this really is a character book. I mean the plot is fairly, it's not there's one big thing driving it. Each girl has her own goals, her own insecurities and there is the device of wanting to save that park, but it never became so huge that, I would never say that's the plot of the book. I would say the plot of the book is getting through your senior year with your best friends.
It gave me the opportunity to let character lead in the way that I've always loved writing. And also with books you can take twists and turns. TV writing, you have to be really tight. You can't take twists at all. You just don't have the time for it. You have forty-two minutes to tell a story.
Sarah Enni: Yeah, you can't meander or spend a lot of time with these kind of small side characters who just are for some reason fun.
Sarah Watson: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Sarah Enni: Well you just talked about sitting in your room, all the note cards. The only difference is it's just you breaking this story.
Sarah Watson: Yes. It's just me.
Sarah Enni: How did that go?
Sarah Watson: Ugh! I love writer's rooms. I love collaboration. I love the fact that when you write yourself into a corner and you think there's no hope, somebody chimes in from the other side of the room and says, "Oh, we could do this." I did not have that. And I've done pilots before so I have been on my own before. That is not my preference.
So there were good and bads of it. I really missed the room, but I'm lucky that I have amazing writer friends. So I definitely made my own room at times. I had people that I could call and talk through story with. My boyfriend has a great sense of story.
We spent many a walk with the dog working out different plot details. So I think I found a way to make my own room.
Sarah Enni: You took time writing the proposal, cork board all that stuff. Then you have to open your laptop and write full sentences in Times New Roman. What was the process ?
Sarah Watson: Terrifying. I mean, so terrifying. I sold the proposal and I sold it in a multi-house auction. And so part of me was like, "Can't we just sell it under the radar with no pressure and very low expectations?" And so I felt there was such high expectations on it. So it was terrifying.
Sarah Enni: That's interesting. That is also an unusual thing for debut novelist.
Sarah Watson: Yeah. So I just had to do it. And also it was a crazy ride because we submitted it and then Bob and I flew the next morning to Vietnam for vacation for two weeks. And that's when I started getting the initial interest. So it was great that I was on a completely different time zone, so I couldn't be checking my email all day.
I got to know that some people were interested. And then we came back to Los Angeles. We had one day when I was back and then his sister got married the next day, or like two days later, something like that. It was very quick.
And then the day after the wedding I had to fly to Chicago. I was helping a friend who was directing her first short and I was also there for my niece's eighteenth birthday. So it was nuts.
Sarah Enni: A lot going on.
Sarah Watson: A lot going on. So I flew back from Vietnam and the very next day had calls with several editors. And this is how green I was because I hadn't really had a chance to talk to my editor, we'd only been communicating... oh sorry, not my editor, my agent. We'd really only been communicating through emails because of the time difference, all this stuff.
So she's sending these calls in this very narrow window I have. And I think that these calls are for me to convince them that they [laughing]...
Sarah Enni: Do you think you're pitching the book?
Sarah Watson: Yes!
Sarah Enni: That's so funny.
Sarah Watson: I mean, I know they'd read the proposal, but I thought I had to...
Sarah Enni: Well that's, I mean, and that's your background is all these pitch meetings.
Sarah Watson: Yeah totally. There's always TV stuff where they read the script and they like it, but they want to know where it goes and they have a lot of questions and maybe...? So I get on the first call and the editor starts telling me all the reasons I should pick her and her house.
And then I called my book agent after that call and she's like, "Oh no, no, no honey, they all want your book." And I was like, "Wait, what?"
And we got the first offer letter while we were in the car on the way to my boyfriend's sister's rehearsal dinner.
Sarah Enni: Wow. Oh my gosh. So almost on a bike ride on a windy day. You have great stories about these moments.
Sarah Watson: Everything always happens in a dramatic fashion.
Sarah Enni: I love that. And also I read that you are very committed to deadlines.
Sarah Watson: Oh my God. Where did you read that? But yes.
Sarah Enni: I forget. Well, I think it was some interview where you're talking about that you are like Julia Braverman in that way.
Sarah Watson: Oh yes. I will hit a deadline or I will die trying.
Sarah Enni: So that strikes me that that's a very useful thing when there's a lot of pressure. This is a book, but you just have to do it.
Sarah Watson: You just have to do it. And that did free me a little bit. And also I think this is where my early TV jobs really helped me because it taught me to give up perfection as a goal for a first draft. You just have to get through it. And I've always been like that with TV writing where I'm just bullet train to the finish line because oftentimes in TV you'll be told, "Oh, you have this amount of time to write." But then something will come up and you'll get called back to the writer's room. And I always find rewriting a lot easier.
So I'd rather have that ugly draft knowing that things could come up and it'll be easier for me to rewrite. The other thing that happened is we had to do all this unexpected construction on the house, all this termite damage. Oh, it was a total nightmare.
So I had construction people everywhere, so I just freaked out, went and got a WeWwork for the three months that... they gave me three months to write the first draft. And I would just go to my WeWork every day, sit there by myself and just write.
Sarah Enni: That's amazing. Well, good for you. That is trial by fire right there.
Sarah Watson: Well, I also didn't know that deadlines aren't as a stringent in publishing.
Sarah Enni: Yeah. They're like suggestions, honestly.
Sarah Watson: Yeah, I think it was a little different for this book because they wanted it to coincide with the 2020 election. I also didn't know that books had to be done a full year ahead of time.
Sarah Enni: Yeah, it's wild.
Sarah Watson: So I was like, "Why do they need it in three months?" You know, "Spring of 2020 is two years away." And again, my book agent was like, "Oh sweetie."
So I remember a week before my deadline, my editor emailed saying, "Hey, just checking in. No pressure. Just want to see if you're gonna be able to turn it in or if you need more time?" And I was like, "Of course I'm turning it in." Like, "What? Why would you even ask that?"
Sarah Enni: I'm like, "What a dream for that editor." Just being like, "Oh she... It's done!"
Sarah Watson: I mean she's fortunate that I had no knowledge that's how publishing really works.
Sarah Enni: So Most Likely is obviously in the very bones of it, is this very feminist story. It's also a very inclusive story. And in The Bold Type, I mean it seems when you have the chance to develop yourself, you are really putting a focus on feminist inclusive stories.
Sarah Watson: For sure.
Sarah Enni: Was there anything that you were able to explore or jump into a little bit more with a book as opposed to the strictures of TV?
Sarah Watson: I feel like The Bold Type, the network was actually incredibly supportive of the inclusivity and exploring all walks of life. I think that's been a huge change in TV. I wish it was for more benevolent reasons that networks are starting to want to see more diversity, but really it comes down to people want to see themselves.
And so people are clamoring for it and people are watching shows that aren't just all white anymore. And I had to do something that was really reflective of the real world.
Sarah Enni: It struck me that also by putting it in a book first, and knowing that you could potentially develop it for film or TV, that you were flexing as a creator and saying like, "Well, I get to do the IP myself."
Sarah Watson: Exactly. Exactly.
Sarah Enni: So was the idea to develop it on the back of your mind while you were doing all this?
Sarah Watson: I think it's always in the back of my mind just cause TV is my first medium. It's where I know how to express myself. So, even as I was writing the book, I was like, "Oh, this scene would be really cool on TV because I could do it so much more simply because it really would be in just a look. So I think it was always in the back of my mind, but I was trying to take it out of the back of my mind because I really wanted to just focus on writing the book.
Even when the proposal sold, we had some interest from a couple places about optioning it. And I said, no, because I said, "I don't want to be..." The whole point of doing this was to not have multiple voices in my head. I want this to be mine. And if I option it now, then they're gonna start weighing in and it's gonna impact the choices I make.
Sarah Enni: Yeah. That's so smart. I think I read that it was a two book deal.
Sarah Watson: Yeah, two book deal.
Sarah Enni: Okay. Did you have an idea for the next one?
Sarah Watson: No!
Sarah Enni: No? [Both laughing] Amazing.
Sarah Watson: No. If my book agent is listening, I'm working on ideas. Um, no. I mean, I have a million ideas, but I don't have that soul burning one. I keep waiting for the same thing to happen with Most Likely where I'm just walking down the street and I'm like, [Gasps] "I have to write this!" And I have a couple ideas that I'm excited about and then obviously this pilot that I'm doing now came up and has taken some of my creative time.
Sarah Enni: Yes, I would guess. So let's dive into that if you don't mind, I'd love to. You just got to announce this. So we're fresh off the announcement.
Sarah Watson: Oh yeah, this is my first interview since announcement.
Sarah Enni: Yay! Do you want to tell us what it's about?
Sarah Watson: Oh my God, I'm so excited. This is an eighties movie-kids dream come true. I am doing this project about a group of kids and adults from the small blue collar town in Ohio, a bit of a struggling automotive town, who come together to put on the most ambitious remake of The Goonies that the world has ever seen.
It's really a love letter to the power of movies and storytelling and dreams. And just the way that movies inspire us and inspire a town really in desperate need of inspiration.
Sarah Enni: It's such a fun concept. It just got my imagination whirring too. The inherent funniness and sweetness of re-making a movie shot-for-shot.
Sarah Watson: Totally, totally. I mean that's what we did when we were kids. We used to do this with Star Wars figures and our neighbors...Oh! The girl who I talked about who we read to each other. So her older brother is now a director. And we used to, all of us kids, go down to the creek and shoot movies and that's just what you did all summer. And it was amazing.
Sarah Enni: I love that.
Sarah Watson: And so I do feel like that's where I got excited about storytelling. That same older brother, he was also our dungeon master for all our Dungeons and Dragons. Again, I was not one of the cool kids. And he used to do these, we called it Walking Dungeons and Dragons. He'd set up these elaborate mazes through the creek.
Sarah Enni: Cool.
Sarah Watson: Super cool. So fun. So excited about storytelling.
Sarah Enni: What you're describing is, kids are so rich in imagination and that's really how you're play-acting the world and just getting a sense of who you are and how you can be in it. And it's beautiful. Those are some of the most poignant memories.
Sarah Watson: Absolutely. And for us, you know, we didn't have the internet so we didn't know camera tricks, and we didn't have YouTube, we couldn't see what other people were doing. And so there is this difference now in what kids are doing and that they know that it can change their lives.
So there's that hint of a dream. They want to be the next person who's gonna upload something to YouTube and have it change their life.
Sarah Enni: Right, right. So interesting. Yeah. You get to play with the modernity of it. Can you talk about how it came about?
Sarah Watson: Yes, totally. So I had signed a blind script deal with Fox over the summer.
Sarah Enni: And what does that mean?
Sarah Watson: It means basically they make a deal with you saying we will pay you for something. We want to be in business with you, so let's find something. So I had this blind deal with them and we were trying to figure out ideas to do and I kept pitching these small stories. I really wanted to explore the idea of having to start your life over in your thirties. Not making it as a writer, coming back to your small home town.
Like I mentioned at the beginning of this podcast that I spent my summers in Janesville, Wisconsin. And that's just a town that I've watched really change over the years. It used to be a thriving GM town and the GM plant is now closed and how it's really affected the people. And these are stories I don't think we get to see on TV a lot. And they're like, "Okay, well that's not a series. It's like, "Well it would be a book!"
So they sent me to meet with Gail Berman, who is this legendary, amazing producer, former network president. She's just incredible. And her company was really excited about doing something about the idea of kids recreating a movie. And so I took everything I loved about these nebulous characters I had, and put them into this town. It's like, "Your chocolate's in my peanut butter!" Kind of thing.
It's a special magic when you're like, "Ding!" Two ideas can just collide. They collided beautifully. And so we all just got really excited about it. And then because of the movie rights that we had to get a movie on board, we wanted to go to the man who has the best movies... Steven Spielberg.
Sarah Enni: Oh my God. So wild.
Sarah Watson: So I pitched the idea to him, which was, you know, no big deal. It's just like another Tuesday.
Sarah Enni: God, did you sleep at all the night before?
Sarah Watson: No. Well, I drugged myself with Benadryl [laughing].
Sarah Enni: Great. Perfect.
Sarah Watson: I took two Benadryl. I slept. Thank God the pitch was first thing in the morning, so I wasn't insane all day, but it went amazing. And I realized after the pitch, "Oh, of course he loved it. I basically just pitched him his life story."
Sarah Enni: Right!
Sarah Watson: Because he was a lonely kid in Arizona, found this outlet with this eight millimeter camera and it was really his outlet to the world. And I was like, "Oh, I just pitched Spielberg his own story."
Sarah Enni: A warm room.
Sarah Watson: Oh it was a warm room. Oh, he could not have been more lovely. Goonies. We were always really excited about doing Goonies. We had talked about a lot of the things from his film library. Because emotionally what we wanted was a movie about those Spielberg movies of the 80's where it's about kids from a boring place and something exceptional happens to them. Because that's the vibe that you want and that's how I think you tell an updated Spielbergian story in this era.
Goonies was just one of my all time favorite movies as a kid. I remember seeing it in the theater. I mean, Mikie was my first crush. I was just in love. So then I had to go pitch it to Richard Donner as well (the director of The Goonies, Superman, Lethal Weapon, Scrooged, and more).
Sarah Enni: Oh my gosh!
Sarah Watson: And I mean pitching to Steven Spielberg was probably the most intimidating thing I have ever done and will ever do in my life. However, pitching this crazy idea to Richard Donner about his own movie, I was like he could be like, "Get the hell out of here!" Like, "What have you done to my movie?"
But he totally got it. He was so excited about it. And we also pitched it in his office, which has a lot of the Goonies props in it. So One-Eyed Willie's skull was on the table next to me while I was pitching.
Sarah Enni: Oh my gosh. That's just so... What a wild...
Sarah Watson: Yeah, like, "How is this my life?" When I was a kid watching that movie, I never in a million years would have dreamed that this would be my life.
Sarah Enni: Oh, that's so magical. I love that. So again, just from the perspective of not totally knowing how all this works, what's the status of it right now? And what does that mean?
Sarah Watson: Moving quickly.
Sarah Enni: Oh really? Oh my gosh.
Sarah Watson: In fact, I'm flying to Atlanta tomorrow morning to location scout. So we've been officially picked up for a week -and-a-half. We already have a director on board. I'm so excited. We have Greg Motolla directing who did Superbad and Adventureland. Just an amazing director, really good with teens and kids.
So we've been picked up for a very short period of time and it's all just moving really quickly and the script is getting out there. We're starting to send it to cast and just starting to put everything together.
Sarah Enni: What does this mean for you and how is your role? What are you going to step into here?
Sarah Watson: Showrunner. So showrunner/creator. So I mean it's a lot of decisions. We also have a lot of executive producers on board, so a lot of making sure everybody's happy. Taking all of the notes. I'm still addressing some network notes on the script, which I'll hopefully finish today.
And then it's really just the nitty gritty of producing. It's a big show. There's a lot of actors. We have to cast three child actors who are about fourteen, fifteen-years-old. So we'll be looking for unknowns, which is almost harder than getting a star.
Sarah Enni: Right. Right. Oh yeah. I mean casting directors are like magic.
Sarah Watson: Yeah. Oh totally.
Sarah Enni: How are you...
Sarah Watson: Coping? [Laughs]
Sarah Enni: Yeah, I mean you did have this, maybe, a discouraging experience the first time around. How are you addressing that?
Sarah Watson: Thank you for asking. Well, one thing I've done is demand a bathtub on location [both laughing]. And you think I'm joking, I'm not even. I have always been the person like showrunning the first time I was like, "Oh I'm fine, I am super easy going, no big deal." And so they'd given me this apartment that didn't have a bath tub, and I was like, "No problem at all."
And that's like my number one self-care thing. And so four days into shooting and dealing with this very difficult director, I went to the production coordinator, I was like, "I need you to move me. I need a bathtub."
Sarah Enni: That is great. I mean it's great! That's an easily fixable thing.
Sarah Watson: So this time around, the first conversation I had with the travel coordinator was like, "I need a bathtub." So that's my joking thing. But I will say I have incredible producers around me this time. And that's like what you said before, about say yes until you're in a position to say, no.
I don't work with assholes anymore. And so I do my homework. I not only meet with people, but I talk to people who have worked with them. I talk about their experiences and if there's any red flags, it's not worth it. Life's too short.
So I am working with incredible producers. Not only are they incredibly experienced, they are incredibly supportive of talent. I mean that's the Spielberg trickle down. So his team at Amblin, they really empower their creators. They empower their writers, they stand up for them. And so I do feel like I'm going into a very different situation.
Sarah Enni: That's amazing. I'm glad. I'm so interested that you've been a writer your whole life and now you get the chance to hire writers. I'm just so curious about that. What do you think when you're looking at samples? How do you guide writers?
Sarah Watson: It's so interesting because you think that sitting on that side of the table would be so much easier. It's so much harder. Because you're looking for not just amazing writers, you're looking for amazing writers who can write your voice. Some of the writers I admire the most in the world probably wouldn't be right to write on my show. Because they're doing something so different.
So you really need something where you're all on the same team. Where you're all making the same show together. So it's just finding that perfect sample and also asking for references. Finding again, I have a zero asshole policy in the room. And so it's just asking all the right questions, getting recommendations on people.
Sarah Enni: And again, you're a writer. We're adding layers and layers of all these other jobs. I mean, it's really impressive.
Sarah Watson: It's a lot. That's why I demand a bathtub.
Sarah Enni: Yes. Good for you. I mean how do you, and we'll wrap up with this, but you are very uniquely positioned. You are a well respected person in Hollywood. You have years of experience as a writer. You're also a woman writing on these shows, writing feminist stories and inclusive stories, as we said. It's changing rapidly.
How do you feel about TV right now? What are you excited about? What's the environment?
Sarah Watson: It is changing rapidly. It's interesting because I have been sitting on the sidelines since #metoo happened. I have friends who were very directly involved. My pilot director was outted in the #metoo movement. But I have not been in a room since. I was sitting in my WeWork writing my feminist story by myself.
So I have not really been boots-on-the-ground to see the change. And I think there has been tremendous change, but there's also now unfortunately a little bit of the blow back. A little bit of the people who had it their way for a very long time and are not happy to see the change. And those are the people I don't have any interest in working with.
Sarah Enni: In some ways is it clearer to see? I feel in a lot of ways, post 2016, it's just been like [pauses]. What's coming to mind is that I was just talking to co-writers who wrote a book about voting and we were just reminiscing about how pre-2016 you could be like, "Gee, I don't know if that person's a Democrat or Republican." That's not real anymore.
Sarah Watson: Yeah, totally.
Sarah Enni: It's just kind of like, everything's just got more daylight, and so clear when people are just assholes I guess.
Sarah Watson: It is true. And it's interesting because somebody got all up in my grill on Twitter about that, "I would never hire a Republican." And I would never say that, but also, the kinds of shows I am writing tend to have characters who are strong liberal women. So it wouldn't make sense to have somebody who believed that women don't deserve the right to choose, and who believes in old school views of marriage, or that gay marriage is wrong. My characters would never believe that. So if you believe that, how could you write my show?
Sarah Enni: Right. This isn't the West Wing or some... this is what it is. And the fact that you are so clear, like you said earlier, being decisive and just knowing what you want the show to be. That's great as a driving factor. You don't have time. Was there anything else about that show that you want to share? I know you're in the thick of it.
Sarah Watson: Oh my gosh, no, just how exciting it is. It's a movie nerd kid dream. I truly can't believe it's happening, but I also can't believe it's happening at the same time as my book launch.
Sarah Enni: I was gonna say. You really have a way. Everything happens at once.
Sarah Watson: [Laughing] I don't know how that happens.
Sarah Enni: How are you going to carve out time to make sure you appreciate how big of a deal it is to have your debut come out?
Sarah Watson: I don't know. I'll be in my bathtub looking at Twitter [laughing].
Sarah Enni: That's amazing. Well I just want to be clear. It is a big deal. It's very exciting. I'm super glad that you're able to talk today and that you get to have your debut book come out. That's huge!
Sarah Watson: Thank you. I'm so excited. And thanks for all the awesome questions.
Sarah Enni: Yeah, amazing. Thank you Sarah.
Sarah Watson: Thank you.
Sarah Enni: Thank you so much to Sarah. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @SarahWatson42 and follow me on both @SarahEnn (Twitter and Instagram) and the show @FirstDraftPod (Twitter and Instagram).
And don't forget to head over to FirstDraftPod.com to check out the show notes. And you can also find our past episode archive on the site, 200 plus hours of further conversation with tons and tons of writers. The website's a great resource. I encourage you to check it out.
Hayley Hershman produces First Draft and today's episode was produced and sound designed by Callie Wright. The theme music is by Dan Bailey and the logo was designed by Collin Keith. Thanks to production assistant to Tasneem Daud and transcriptionist-at-large Julie Anderson.
And, as ever, thanks to you Walking Dungeons and Dragons masters for listening.
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