Felix Gillette and John Koblin, IT'S NOT TV: The Spectacular Rise, Revolution, and Future of HBO
[0:02]Hi, I'm Zivi Owens, the creator and host of the award-winning podcast that you're listening to right now
[0:07]Thank you so much. Called moms. Don't have time to read books
[0:10]It is a daily podcast
[0:12]365 days a year and each day we talk to an author about all of the things related to their career
[0:18]Their book their life and more in 30 minutes or less because who has time?
[0:22]I am now an author myself
[0:24]Although I wasn't when I started this podcast and you can get my new memoir book ends
[0:29]A memoir of love loss and literature wherever books are sold starting July 1st and my children's book princess charming
[0:36]You can learn more about me at zimbyones.com
[0:39]But really you're here to learn more about the authors and that is what we're going to do
[0:43]Also, be sure to check out all the other podcasts in the zcast podcast network
[0:49]You can learn more at zcastnetwork.com and definitely check out those shows as well
[0:54]Felix Gillette and John Copeland are co-authors of it's not TV
[1:02]The spectacular rise revolution and future of HBO
[1:06]Felix is the enterprise editor for Bloomberg News media entertainment and telecom team as well as a features writer for Bloomberg
[1:13]Businessweek
[1:13]He has covered the business of media and technology for over a dozen years and has worked as a staff writer at the Washington City
[1:19]Paper the Columbia journalism review the village voice and the New York Observer
[1:24]John Copeland is a media reporter for the New York Times covering the television industry
[1:28]He reports on the companies and personalities behind the scripted TV boom as well as the networks that broadcast the news
[1:35]Prior to joining the times he covered media at the New York Observer
[1:38]Women's were daily and dead spin welcome if he likes and John
[1:42]Thank you so much for coming on mom's don't have time to read books to discuss. It's not TV
[1:46]The spectacular rise revolution and future of HBO
[1:52]Congratulations on your book. I was just saying like I love
[1:56]Business books and profiles like this and I feel like one of my favorite books was Disney war
[2:00]Which you mentioned in this book and I read that years ago on my first honeymoon, and it was just like okay
[2:06]That should have been okay. I won't get it. But anyway, this is a great expose and and really the success of
[2:14]What it means to like have your brand change over time
[2:17]how
[2:18]How you have to like pivot and all the things and deal with different industry forces
[2:24]And it's also just like a
[2:26]Wonderful retrospective of some of the best shows of all time, which also
[2:30]I feel like I got entertained just remembering
[2:33]So many and just marveling at the back that one network had actually produced all these
[2:36]You don't necessarily think about the arc of it all so it was great
[2:40]So why why did you to decide to do this book?
[2:43]Why did this deep dive and what were you looking for and was this what you wanted?
[2:47]This is a lot of questions. Yeah, well, I think part of it was that you know
[2:50]We kind of watched in the late 90s and 2000s this incredible revolution that happened out of HBO and these shows that you mentioned
[2:58]You know the sopranos and sex in the city and six feet under and that this one
[3:04]Network had had such a huge impact in comedy and documentaries and drama and we were kind of like both as people who've written about
[3:12]The media a lot and about entertainment. We're just kind of really curious like how did it happen?
[3:18]Because you know a lot of these revolutionary businesses if you want to
[3:21]Write a book about what happened in online rate retail you can point to Amazon
[3:25]You can point to Jeff Bezos
[3:27]So if you want to know about home computing you can write a point to Apple and Steve Jobs or whatever
[3:33]And HBO there wasn't really one single figure that you know you could say oh that person was really
[3:39]responsible for it is this huge
[3:41]Collective effort and it took place over decades. It was really this is you know
[3:45]HBO's coming up on its 50th anniversary and so part of it
[3:49]I think the part of the appeal was like let's go back
[3:53]Let's figure out who the important characters were
[3:55]Let's figure out what the major decisions that they made that they got right
[4:00]Let's look into the decisions. They got wrong and we thought that would be an incredible narrative in and of itself
[4:05]And that also there would be all these great lessons for other people who are in creative fields
[4:10]That they would be entertain's it would be fun to go back and remember these shows figure out where they came from and also
[4:16]You know would walk away with feeling like oh, I get it. I get the HBO playbook
[4:22]And in a way like HBO was sort of our Trojan horse television has changed a lot
[4:27]Over the last 25 years. There are a lot more shows in there have ever been the in terms of the
[4:34]Elevation of the genre. I mean it is eclipse the film industry now. It is a revered art form
[4:39]In America at this point. So we used HBO to take a look at all of those changes really since the late 1990s
[4:47]And I think the finally the other you know in intriguing aspect to us about HBO is that
[4:52]You know the era that HBO has ruled over and had so much impact on which is the cable and satellite era of home entertainment
[5:00]When we were starting to work on this project and first conceiving that you know
[5:04]Everyone's kind of where will this era is ending and there's this new era with streaming entertainments that everything is shifting towards that
[5:12]And so that was the other appeal is like what's gonna happen to HBO?
[5:15]Is a cheap, you know going to make that be able to make the transition to the streaming world
[5:20]You know, they had this new upstart Netflix that was really you know taking the lead in the new field
[5:26]And that's also one of these great business dynamics that you see time and time again like the innovators dilemma
[5:32]Where the incumbent you know that has ruled over one era of technology
[5:37]The technology changes and they get kind of caught up in their own success and struggle to make that transition
[5:42]And all that really has played out while we were you know writing the book
[5:47]So it's amazing to think of how different the landscape is in 2022 than it was when we started in 2019
[5:53]So it was fun to also
[5:55]Even as we were digging into the history and learning about all the stuff that took place over the past 50 years
[6:01]We were also getting in real time to be able to chronicle how these changes were happening in the industry
[6:08]Wow, did you have any pushback from people inside HBO or was it easy to get all the information you wanted?
[6:16]I think that you know it was such a collective effort over the year
[6:19]And there's so many people that made valuable contributions to HBO that you know
[6:25]There wasn't any one person that you know could say yes or no
[6:28]I'm gonna talk to you and it would make it you know a huge difference and for the most part
[6:32]You know everyone was really cooperative and helpful and wanted to you know tell their role in this broader story
[6:41]So yeah, we had great participation from you know executives inside HBO
[6:46]That you know over the years the show creators got to you know interview some of our you know the creators of some of our favorite shows
[6:54]Which is really exciting to get to talk to David Chase the creator of the sopranos and you know
[7:00]Talk to David Simon the creator of the wire and and so yeah, it was incredibly fun that aspect of the reporting also
[7:06]It's the burden that there wasn't like one make make it or break it like interview that that did help
[7:13]It was so interesting to hear about the inspiration for so many of these shows including David Chase's inspiration
[7:18]For sopranos and even what it was like working with you know Tony soprano
[7:22]How was Tommy soprano originally, which I didn't know and you know even with James Gandalfini
[7:27]what that was like with him on set and
[7:29]How he didn't show up a few times and my husband's actually a producer
[7:32]So I know what all the days mean like how everything is all set up and the fact that like somebody just would not show up
[7:38]Seems like oh my gosh, I can't believe he would do that for days on end. Oh my gosh
[7:44]And yet it rebounded and I loved how you talked about
[7:48]Everyone watching it when it aired that last episode of it and I think I think it was David Chase and his baby
[7:56]Carriage and like having to leave the room and wondering like what everybody thought about it and I don't yeah
[8:01]One of the other writers was actually Terry winter who was a very winter
[8:04]So right and he was visiting in laws in New York
[8:07]Yes, thank you watch the final episode and they were all sitting around and they'd be like tell us what's gonna happen
[8:13]He's like no no like yeah, I can't spoil the surprise
[8:16]But you're gonna love it. You're gonna love it and then when it ended and it cut to black and the resignments ever
[8:22]They were all like what what's going on and freaking out and they're like tell us what happened and yeah
[8:28]I think the baby woke up
[8:31]And people thought their screens weren't working right or they're like it went out or something
[8:36]I mean that's that was
[8:38]tremendously fun sort of getting all that backstory in there
[8:41]I mean David Chase was this frustrated
[8:44]Successful, but very frustrated TV writer for years and years and he wanted a fresh idea and he had a you know
[8:51]Sort of difficult or fraught relationship with his mother
[8:54]He turned it into comedy gold a cocktail parties
[8:57]He would dine out on stories about his mother and David Chase's wife was like
[9:00]You know, you should consider doing something about that and David Chase was also in therapy and it's like well
[9:05]What if I combine these two things
[9:08]Difficult mother or fraught relationship with the mother therapy at a mobster element and then away
[9:13]We go the sopranos
[9:15]Eventually makes its way to HBO
[9:17]crazy
[9:18]It one thing that I loved because I think about this in terms of book publishing a lot and what books end up being
[9:24]successes and what makes an
[9:27]Some artistic creation successful and what you what one of those sort of through-line theories here is that there is no one
[9:35]Formula of course, but HBO seems to be able to
[9:39]Try the things that would sound like maybe they wouldn't succeed like when like succession even when you say oh
[9:45]Yeah, you want to watch a show about billionaires in the office or something
[9:49]Like we'll know
[9:50]No, maybe not but then but then it works and so the ability to see something that everybody
[9:56]Logically might think no, this doesn't make sense. That's because it's
[10:00]not about what makes sense when it, when hits are created.
[10:03]It's something else and you can't quantify it
[10:06]or necessarily identify it using regular metrics and measures.
[10:10]Yeah, well, I think that's one of the fascinating lessons
[10:13]of HBO is that now we're in this world where it's so
[10:16]in vote to say, oh, whoever has the best data on customers,
[10:20]they're going to win everything, right?
[10:23]And what's amazing about HBO is
[10:25]HBO is always really a wholesaler.
[10:27]They didn't deal directly with customers.
[10:29]They sent out their programming to the cable operators
[10:33]around the country and the cable operators
[10:35]managed the relationship with the customers.
[10:38]And as a result of that, HBO never had any idea
[10:41]who their customers were.
[10:42]They had no data whatsoever.
[10:44]And so they had to rely on something else
[10:47]and what they really relied on was trusting these artists
[10:51]and finding artists and listening to their visions.
[10:55]And yeah, Casey Blois, who's the current currently
[10:58]oversees all the programming for HBO and HBO Max.
[11:01]He kind of said there's a great passage in the book
[11:03]where he was talking about that, where it's like, yeah,
[11:05]data is valuable to us in 2022.
[11:08]It's great and broad strokes to know what's happening in market
[11:11]and making marketing issues, it's valuable in all these ways.
[11:15]But it's not, it's going to, you know,
[11:17]you can tell you what customers liked in the past.
[11:20]But it's not going to ever tell you what they like in the future.
[11:23]And these ideas that have connected with people
[11:26]and these stories that have connected people,
[11:28]like you said, a lot of times,
[11:30]they just don't really sound like they would work ahead of time.
[11:34]But you have to be able to take that gamble and that risk
[11:38]and put that trust in the artists that you believe in.
[11:41]And I think that HBO has done that
[11:44]to an incredible degree over the years.
[11:46]And that's really a key part of their success.
[11:48]I mean, Felix and I have been writing and covering,
[11:51]writing about and covering HBO for years.
[11:54]So I remember in the run up to succession in 2018,
[11:58]I saw like billionaires and other just like insider
[12:01]media story and I was rolling my eyes.
[12:04]And I think a lot of people were,
[12:05]I think it premiered in June of 2018.
[12:07]And even HBO executives had sort of measured expectations.
[12:11]Remember at that time there was a person at HBO
[12:13]was like succession utility player.
[12:16]It fits in between a schedule where we have two bigger shows.
[12:19]And yet the reason why it was such a success,
[12:21]Jesse Armstrong, the creator of succession,
[12:24]HBO had, they had cultivated that relationship with him
[12:28]for years and years and years.
[12:29]They just believed in him.
[12:31]They're like, if you want to give this a whirl,
[12:33]let them give it a whirl and let's see what happens.
[12:34]And there you have it.
[12:36]I mean, HBO has one of its most critically praised shows
[12:40]and a show that is one best drama at the Emmys now two times.
[12:44]It's pretty incredible, but there is a playbook.
[12:46]There's a succession is not a mistake
[12:48]because HBO does trust the artists.
[12:51]And I think like another part that was so fascinating
[12:54]when we were digging into the histories,
[12:56]like where did that idea come from at HBO?
[12:59]And we really traced it back to this moment
[13:02]that was really crucial in the mid 90s
[13:05]because in the early years for the first 20 years,
[13:07]HBO, the name itself, HBO stands for the home box office.
[13:12]So initially the idea was like,
[13:14]we're going to show people things
[13:16]that you would need a ticket to see out in the real world.
[13:19]So movies, sporting events, comedy performances,
[13:24]music concerts, TV, not really because TV,
[13:27]you don't need a ticket for anyone can see TV in the home.
[13:30]And you know, the broadcast networks are so powerful
[13:34]and they have such a control over the culture.
[13:35]Like we're not going to go head to head
[13:37]and do what TV is doing.
[13:38]We're going to do it differently.
[13:40]And so they avoided for the most part
[13:42]doing serialized television shows for the first 20 years.
[13:47]And then at some point in the 90s,
[13:48]they started realizing that like, you know,
[13:50]no matter how great one single event is,
[13:53]like seeing Dolly Parton in concert in London
[13:55]or seeing Jerry Seinfeld do a stand up performance
[13:59]on Broadway.
[14:00]That's a one off event.
[14:02]And if we really want to hold onto our customers
[14:05]and keep them coming back week after week, every Sunday,
[14:09]like we need to start doing these serialized shows.
[14:12]And then it became the question of like,
[14:13]well, what can we offer TV creators and TV writers
[14:18]that they can't have at the networks?
[14:20]We can't give them as much money.
[14:22]We can't give them like, you know,
[14:23]you'll get filthy rich when it goes into syndication,
[14:26]you know, in 10 years, like what are we going to give them?
[14:29]And pretty crucial insight that they had was like,
[14:34]you know what, we can give you freedom.
[14:37]We can give you freedom that you couldn't have
[14:39]on the broadcast networks because we don't have advertising.
[14:42]We don't have commercial sponsors.
[14:44]You're not going to have sponsors looking over your shoulders
[14:46]and saying, I don't really want you to touch
[14:49]that controversial subject.
[14:51]I don't want you, you know, can you make the characters
[14:53]a little bit more likable?
[14:55]You're not going to have a standards and, you know,
[14:58]department looking over your shoulder and saying,
[15:00]hey, let's steer away from whatever aids abortion.
[15:04]Like let's keep it, let's keep it in a safe zone.
[15:07]Like you're not going to have that.
[15:08]We're going to give you total freedom
[15:10]to take the story where you want to take it.
[15:12]And that was so appealing to veteran TV writers.
[15:17]And people, and if you look at those first run of shows
[15:20]and who created them, Sex in the City came from Darren Star.
[15:24]Darren Star had already had a lot of success
[15:26]in commercial broadcast television.
[15:28]He created Melrose Place 90210,
[15:31]but he was incredibly frustrated with dealing with networks.
[15:35]And when he came up with Sex in the City
[15:37]and, you know, decided to go and do with HBO,
[15:40]he was thinking of it as almost like an independent film,
[15:42]like Andy from all kind of stuff.
[15:44]He did not expect it to be a huge commercial success,
[15:47]but they allowed him to go to places he couldn't have gone
[15:50]earlier in his career.
[15:51]And it turned into a huge hit.
[15:52]Same with David Chase, the creator of Sopranos.
[15:55]He worked successfully in broadcast television for years
[15:57]and also was very frustrated with the rules.
[16:00]Tom Fontana, who created Oz, you know,
[16:03]he had had a successful run with homicide on NBC
[16:06]and Alan Ball, who created six feet under.
[16:08]He also had worked in commercial television.
[16:11]And they all kind of fit that same mold.
[16:14]And when you give people who have worked in the medium
[16:16]for a long time under very strict rules
[16:20]and you turn them over and say,
[16:21]okay, do what you want to do, like it's just very powerful.
[16:26]And I think that's the lesson that continues to play out
[16:29]and the reason that HBO continues to keep capturing
[16:33]is like, guys, you know, year after year after year,
[16:36]that's a huge part of the lessons
[16:39]that come out of this book.
[16:40]It's kind of like my kids at recess.
[16:42]You know, you're like, you're still in your uniform,
[16:45]but you get to go out and do things a little bit differently.
[16:48]Mm-hmm.
[16:49]How did learning about all of the peaks and valleys
[16:54]of this whole network and all of the events and everything?
[16:57]How did this impact the way you see other companies,
[17:01]what you see entertainment in general?
[17:04]Like, how has it affected your analytical?
[17:08]That was an effect.
[17:09]And yeah, how you see the business in general.
[17:12]I think part of the way it's impacted is,
[17:15]I mean, the HBO brand itself is such a fascinating,
[17:19]you know, it's such a strong brand
[17:21]and thinking about how they've built up the brand over the years.
[17:26]And, you know, made a lot of decisions
[17:28]about doing everything to build up HBO as a notion
[17:32]that says prestige, that says edgy,
[17:36]that says top quality.
[17:38]And, you know, we have, you know,
[17:41]another concept that came out of this book
[17:44]that I thought was really fun to learn about
[17:46]was like, we talk about the HBO shrug.
[17:49]And the HBO shrug was kind of like shorthand for
[17:52]this attitude that HBO had as it got,
[17:57]as in that work matured,
[17:58]where they weren't gonna worry so much about
[18:02]how they spent money on their key products,
[18:05]that they were gonna be pretty loose
[18:07]and be, you know, air on the side of like,
[18:10]you know what, like, is it gonna cost more money
[18:13]to make the show, to make it look really great?
[18:15]Yeah, okay, we'll give it an extra $10 million.
[18:18]We'll figure out how to make it up on the back end.
[18:20]It's gonna look great, it's gonna look better.
[18:22]And again, it'll contribute to the overall halo
[18:26]of HBO brand.
[18:28]And I think that also, that, like, looseness
[18:32]and trust that if you spend the money on the creative
[18:36]product and you give the creators leeway
[18:39]to do what they really need to do.
[18:41]You know, the Sopranos is a great example,
[18:43]that, you know, David Chase was very adamant
[18:45]that, like, when he was pitching at the HBO,
[18:48]he really wanted to shoot in New Jersey
[18:51]and not just do it, you know, in Toronto
[18:54]or Los Angeles and then have someone
[18:56]go take some exteriors out in the Jersey,
[18:58]like, he really wanted the show to soak up the whole atmosphere
[19:05]of New Jersey that he was shooting
[19:07]and I think that was so crucially,
[19:09]cost a lot more money to do it that way.
[19:11]But HBO is very supportive from the beginning,
[19:13]like, yes, get out there, do it.
[19:15]Like, we wanna see that.
[19:16]And when you re-watch the Sopranos,
[19:18]as I did while we were writing this book,
[19:20]it's amazing to me, all the shots and, like,
[19:23]scenes that take place down in these weird,
[19:25]you know, outdoor industrial rivers that are like,
[19:29]you know, just, and you can kind of smell the whole place
[19:33]and feel it.
[19:34]And it just made such a huge difference.
[19:37]And again, if they had been worried upfront, like,
[19:39]oh, you know, let's just do it for the least amount of money
[19:43]we can do it for, it would not have been the same.
[19:45]It would not have come off the same.
[19:46]So that's one of the things I see a lot of times
[19:49]or, you know, is a business doing everything it can
[19:53]to support the artist.
[19:55]And, you know, that, again, kind of cuts against the...
[20:00]earned zeitgeist, which is a lot of times in business now,
[20:03]it's a whole about listen to the customer, listen to the customer.
[20:06]But yeah, getting back to the same idea, like sometimes you really just need
[20:11]to listen to the artist and people don't know and people don't know what they
[20:14]want. And I think it's instructive like over those 50 years,
[20:18]HBO has survived like like near fatal blows. I mean,
[20:23]going back to like the rise of the VCR in the 1980s.
[20:26]Yeah. And so I and then we've moved into streaming and then corporate takeovers.
[20:32]And HBO has weathered every blow. I think the book will be appealing to people
[20:37]for exactly the recent inventions that be the fact that like there are so many HBO shows.
[20:41]It's like, I love that one. I love this one. I love that one. But if you don't watch a lot of TV
[20:45]or not a big HBO fan, the book can provide sort of this blueprint of how a company can survive,
[20:53]how a culture can survive and thrive amid multiple challenges over the decades.
[20:59]You know, it is funny because I'm usually pretty resistant to change.
[21:03]You know, like I like restaurants that look exactly the same now as they did when I was a kid.
[21:07]But HBO, like I remember the swirling logo with the stars. Do you remember that?
[21:12]Oh, yeah. And yeah, I'm still tuning in. Like I don't hold it against them
[21:17]any of the change. So whatever they're doing, they've sort of taken us along, which is great.
[21:23]And even learning about all of the, even some of the like the sexual abuse of executives and
[21:29]like all of the sorted tales of like what was going on behind the screen and all of that.
[21:34]Like it just adds to sort of the mystique of how this brand can withstand so much when other
[21:40]huge brands during the same period of time like Kodak or something have just disappeared.
[21:45]Brands that I thought would be here forever and were like the biggest deal ever controlling entire
[21:49]cities. So I don't know. I'm fascinated with how brands can just either get it or not get it over
[21:54]time. And you know, such a great example of a brand that really gets it. What is your favorite? What
[21:59]is each of your favorite HBO shows? I love the wire still to me. It's like the high water mark in
[22:05]my mind. My favorite show is still, you know, David Simon, the Baltimore, just like the whole
[22:12]Baltimore scene going from like the drug trade to the dealers to the city council members to
[22:19]you know, and all peeling back all these layers and exposing, you know, what went wrong and kind
[22:25]of this post industrial city. Just mesmerizing. Still love it. I mean, I feel like this question
[22:32]should be like what's your favorite HBO show other than the sopranos? I will say to sopranos
[22:38]because even when Felix was discussing, you know, so you could sort of smell New Jersey. You could
[22:43]feel New Jersey. I grew up in that part in New Jersey. The pizzeria and the opening credits of the
[22:48]sopranos. That was around the corner for my grandmother's house where I lived in a high school.
[22:54]So like, I'm deeply invested in that show. But I mean, like, you zippy like those sort of swirl
[23:00]on the stars of like, here's the HBO movie that's coming on. I've been watching it since I was a kid
[23:05]like Saturday nights were my favorite night of the week because that's when HBO would premiere a
[23:11]movie that had just been in theaters six or a month earlier. And me and my dad, we'd gather around
[23:16]the TV and watch it. And then within a few years, HBO started doing a original series. So suddenly,
[23:22]I loved Saturday and Sunday night. So this network has been like part of my life, like for the last
[23:30]three decades in a really like powerful way. And now it's a cover of professionally. So it's like
[23:36]it's a professional story. It's a personal story for me. But it's like, I don't know HBO's got
[23:40]something. There's some like secret sauce. It just like really gets in your head. Like you can
[23:45]think about those things where it's like, oh my God, it's an HBO movie. This is so exciting. Like
[23:51]it's also one of those things that's super fun to debate with your friends. Like, you know,
[23:56]they think talking about HBO has always been really fun. And that was part of the appeal to
[24:01]the book is like talking with people. What's the best HBO comedy? Oh, I think it's Silicon Valley,
[24:06]or I think it's B or, you know, Larry Sanders, like you have to go back and watch Larry Sanders.
[24:11]And just like the fact that, you know, we watched that transformation in our lifetime where,
[24:17]you know, it became something that people wanted to talk about so much. Even, you know, the fact
[24:22]that you can go to college campuses now. And there's, you know, classes and syllabus, you know,
[24:28]without, you know, these shows. And like, you know, where they came from and the implications
[24:32]culturally. It's just kind of amazing, especially when you, you know, as we did in this book,
[24:37]I think back to like, you know, the origins of HBO and how much it was kind of on the fringe
[24:43]of Hollywood when it started. And, you know, we tell the story of, you know, when HBO finally decided
[24:50]after a couple of years. And in the 1980s, they said, you know, we're going to start making
[24:55]our own original movies because, you know, there's not enough product coming out of Hollywood
[25:00]to keep our customers happy all week. And, you know, they're, they're kind of trying to cut us
[25:04]out anyways and come up with their own service where they could, you know, go directly to
[25:08]customers, go around us. So we're going to make our movies. And when HBO first said they were going
[25:12]to make movies, people kind of mock them and laugh at them like, oh, this, yeah, these are going to
[25:17]be terrible. Like, they're not going to be able to figure out like how to make original programming.
[25:21]And like, they don't know how to do that. They're just a distributor of our movies. And so it is
[25:27]kind of incredible to watch that transformation and how they got from there to, you know, creating
[25:33]shows that are talked about and, you know, revolutionize in the medium and, you know,
[25:38]taught in colleges and all of this. So crazy. Makes me feel kind of old to be honest.
[25:45]Zippy, can I turn it around? What are your favorite HBO shows?
[25:49]I have to say sex in the city. I've watched. I mean, I was actually an extra on one episode
[25:54]when I was 20 something. And it was like the highlight of my life.
[25:57]with one, which episode? Samantha was at Lotus meeting Smith Jared during that period of time
[26:04]when she was dating him. And I was in the background. And they were like, show up in your coolest
[26:08]going out clothes. And I am not a cool dresser at all. Anyway, so I showed up in like what I thought
[26:13]was a cool, going out outfit. And they looked at me and they were like, wardrobe.
[26:18]So I had to wear some outfit. I felt completely uncomfortable. And then after this whole day,
[26:23]and I was there forever, when I went to like screen it with all my girlfriends, it was like,
[26:27]wait, if you pause it, you can see there. You know, like, that's my eyebrow in that scene. That's
[26:32]where I was standing. So I was like, I can't go into acting. This is too slow for me.
[26:38]But I've loved so many shows. And I loved your book. And I'm so glad I learned more about it.
[26:42]And the people behind it and being able to look at something that I love. And I'm a brand loyalist
[26:47]too. And hearing so much about, I don't know, I found it absolutely fascinating,
[26:51]even though I'm speaking rather in articulately about it. But I really enjoyed it. So congratulations,
[26:55]it's a great book. And I can't wait to hear what else you profile going forward. Is there another
[27:00]thing on the imminent horizon or no? We have to find the next topic. Okay.
[27:06]On the next topic. We're taking suggestions. All right. I think you should do something in
[27:10]publishing. I would be interested. Okay. But anyway, goodbye. Thank you. Thank you so much.
[27:16]I'm going to take it. Okay. So like, bye.
[27:20]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[27:23]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[27:28]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebiowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots
[27:33]of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan in fact, texture sound for
[27:38]the sound editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro