LUCKY! Reese's Book Club Pick Marissa Stapley and "Lucky" Showrunner Cassie Pappas
[0:00]So I've had almost every one of my novels optioned.
[0:04]And the first time it happened, I was like, get ready kids.
[0:07]We are going home.
[0:09]It was happening.
[0:10]It was the last resort, which I think has now been
[0:13]optioned three different times and never actually been made.
[0:18]So when this book, and actually this book was
[0:22]optioned by ABC in early days as well,
[0:26]and then, hello, sunshine came in.
[0:29]It became a Reese's pick.
[0:30]And I heard rumblings right at the beginning.
[0:33]Like, there was just something different.
[0:35]And I just kept hearing, you know, they're very interested
[0:36]in turning into a show.
[0:37]They know that they have the right light elsewhere.
[0:41]And then that didn't work out the way I wanted to.
[0:44]And it felt like within moments.
[0:46]Like, you sort of hear of these things dying on the vine.
[0:48]But instead, it just changed hands.
[0:51]And I could just feel the momentum from the beginning.
[0:56]So that's, it just felt different.
[0:59]And to me, I always, like, I definitely
[1:02]do think every most things that get optioned of mine
[1:04]are going to get made.
[1:05]But I really did think this was going to get made.
[1:08]And I would tell people, like, when Lucky is a TV show,
[1:11]et cetera, et cetera.
[1:12]So I'm very relieved that it didn't actually have it,
[1:15]because people don't think that I just talk.
[1:18]You know what?
[1:19]I don't know.
[1:21]But yes, it was, so that, and that, by the way,
[1:23]was five years, I think it was five years ago.
[1:25]Wow.
[1:27]Yeah, that it became a racist pick.
[1:29]And they got the option, it weathered so many different things.
[1:34]And I think Annie was attached quite early as well,
[1:37]which is, we can talk about after.
[1:39]Yeah, but it was just different.
[1:41]It just felt like, even though it took five years,
[1:44]there was this constant hustle.
[1:46]Yeah.
[1:47]And will you talk a little bit about when you first,
[1:50]when Lucky first came to you?
[1:53]Yes, so I was actually working on the lightning bottles,
[1:55]which came out, which was my novel, After Lucky.
[1:59]And normally, characters come to me first,
[2:02]and they talk to me, and they, it's like,
[2:06]I'm doing therapy with people who don't exist.
[2:09]And my mom was diagnosed with a terminal illness.
[2:13]And so I just thought, you know what?
[2:15]I can't be dealing with angsty 90s rock stars right now.
[2:21]I'm not doing anything.
[2:21]And then my mom would say, so how's your novel?
[2:23]Like, how's your career?
[2:24]I'm like, we're not doing career right now.
[2:25]We're doing this.
[2:26]And she just kept saying, you need to think of something else.
[2:29]I won't have your career get derailed.
[2:32]And I was a little bit grumpy about it.
[2:34]Because I was like, well, ideas do not grow on trees.
[2:36]I got on a bus.
[2:38]I swear Lucky sat down beside me.
[2:40]And was like, here I am.
[2:42]My name is Lucky Armstrong.
[2:43]Like, this is, I had a little bit of the plot already.
[2:46]By the time I reached my destination, my mom's house,
[2:49]I had texted my agent, like midday,
[2:51]who was probably in a meeting and said,
[2:53]you know, that book I'm writing, the lightning bottles
[2:55]that I'm halfway through, like I'm going to put it aside.
[2:57]And this is what I'm doing.
[2:58]And she wrote back and said, this is the best idea you've ever
[3:01]had, please do that.
[3:03]Like, just do that and drop everything.
[3:06]And then somehow I managed during a really hard year
[3:09]to create this character.
[3:13]And I don't even really remember doing it.
[3:16]Like, it just happened.
[3:18]And I feel like Lucky, again, like,
[3:20]it always feels so inevitable.
[3:22]And I do think, like, the Elizabeth Gilbert
[3:25]big magic of it all.
[3:26]I've skeptical sometimes, but here,
[3:29]it feels like she was just out there somewhere.
[3:31]And she just poured into my head.
[3:34]And then everyone else felt the exact same way about her.
[3:37]I don't know if you did too, but we can.
[3:39]She didn't sit next to me.
[3:40]Oh, my gosh.
[3:42]But no, because you gift wrapped her to me.
[3:47]And I opened it in an unfurled before me.
[3:49]It was a little different, but yeah.
[3:51]So I'm curious what your first impressions were
[3:54]when this came to you and what kind of format it was in
[3:59]at the time and how it was packaged
[4:00]and what your kind of initial thoughts were.
[4:02]Yeah.
[4:04]So the story sort of to pick up where you left off was,
[4:08]Reese picked the book.
[4:09]Then Reese and Lauren, Nuestatter,
[4:12]brought the book to Anya Taylor-Doy.
[4:14]They said, do you want to start?
[4:15]Do you want to be an executive producer?
[4:17]And she said, yes.
[4:19]And so then they brought that package to Apple TV.
[4:22]And Jonathan Tropper, who was just nominated
[4:26]for your friends and neighbors for Best Drama a couple days
[4:29]ago, I'm just going to name drop that all week.
[4:32]So he had an overall deal at Apple TV.
[4:34]And they brought this book to him because he
[4:36]has sort of a history and he's known for being really
[4:39]good at writing action.
[4:40]And they knew they wanted this to have this like muscular.
[4:42]They kept saying the words muscular storytelling,
[4:44]propulsion, you know, like they wanted this to have
[4:47]like a very propulsive drive to it.
[4:49]So they brought it to Tropper.
[4:50]And then because Tropper was split between lucky
[4:54]and your friends and neighbors, then they brought me on
[4:56]to co-show run executive producer and help write the show.
[5:00]And so that's sort of the origin stories of it.
[5:03]But what Tropper and I loved the most about the book
[5:06]that we felt like would be the heart of the show
[5:08]is this like father-daughter story
[5:11]where your father is a criminal slash con artist
[5:16]and you're born into a life that you don't necessarily choose.
[5:19]Like we all do, we're all born into our family dysfunction
[5:22]and we all inherit baggage from our parents and our family
[5:26]and this whole idea of nature versus nurture.
[5:29]And then we just love the heightened element
[5:31]of what does that look like when your dad's a criminal?
[5:33]What does that look like when you're born into a life of crime?
[5:35]And so if you're trying to outrun that life,
[5:39]what if the thing you're trying to outrun is in your blood?
[5:41]And like what if you can't escape who you are or can you?
[5:44]And so that's where we started to hone in on who is lucky
[5:48]in terms of if she's on a physical run
[5:52]and she has external forces chasing after her,
[5:54]like the FBI and that betting is a mob boss.
[5:57]Then what is her internal sort of conflict
[6:02]and that internal conflict is,
[6:04]what if I become more like him in trying to escape?
[6:07]And can this character get herself to a precipice
[6:10]where is she gonna fall off the cliff
[6:13]or can she save herself kind of thing?
[6:17]So with this being your first adaptation
[6:20]watching it come to life, what was it like for you
[6:23]to kind of creatively collaborate
[6:26]and were there any parts,
[6:29]what part were you most trepidation is about?
[6:31]And what were you most excited about seeing
[6:33]come to life on the screen in this creative process?
[6:36]I think that the part I was most worried about
[6:40]was that relationship.
[6:42]And to me, everything I write,
[6:45]no matter what genre it's called,
[6:47]is always a family drama.
[6:48]I'm always, you know, I'm obsessed with relationships.
[6:52]I just find them so fascinating.
[6:54]And I just thought, and I've heard the word muscular
[6:57]over and over, I'm like, okay.
[6:59]And a couple years ago,
[7:01]it used to be gourmet cheeseburger.
[7:03]There's always like a buzz word in the business.
[7:05]That's my word, yeah.
[7:06]And I was like, what will be lost
[7:09]and will they be able to accurately convey this relationship
[7:14]that's so complex and so absolutely heartbreaking
[7:20]and with great relief and also having early conversations
[7:24]with Chopper, I felt that understanding right away.
[7:29]And so, you know, I was so completely trusting
[7:34]after those conversations because I realized
[7:38]that that's what you had all glommed onto as well.
[7:42]So even, I think I just saw an interview with you
[7:44]where you were saying we didn't have the real estate
[7:47]for those past chapters, but you see,
[7:52]and in my life, I don't think that's true.
[7:53]Okay, yeah, I'm not as this is spoiler,
[7:55]but you do see, you see those moments
[7:59]in these carefully chosen little vignettes
[8:01]and it's so well done.
[8:02]So that was probably my biggest fear
[8:04]that it wouldn't be understood or maybe somebody
[8:08]in the team would say, oh gosh, this is repugnant.
[8:11]Like we don't like this.
[8:13]Like let's put a lighter touch on this.
[8:16]And that's not like that.
[8:17]I think the challenge, but challenge in a good way
[8:19]was Marissa has chapters, chapters and chapters
[8:23]where the entire chapter is, you're in the past
[8:26]with Young Lucky, which by the way,
[8:28]I always made the joke in the writer's room
[8:29]that Young Lucky sounded like a rapper.
[8:31]Yeah.
[8:32]Like, and then we were like,
[8:36]Young Lucky, oh, and then we start to spell it funny anyway.
[8:40]So, but when you're in the past with Young Lucky
[8:43]and her dad, John, you could really live
[8:46]and spend all this time in the book
[8:47]and see how he manipulated her
[8:49]and see the like horrible cons that he would pull.
[8:51]And when, in a television show like this,
[8:54]when you only have seven episodes
[8:55]and they want this real propulsive drive
[8:57]to your present day story, we had to figure out
[9:00]how can we give the audience truncated versions of the past?
[9:04]And so we found a way to do it in these sort of,
[9:06]you'll see it's done in a more impressionistic like flashback
[9:10]where you get a taste, but you don't get to live in it
[9:13]as long as you could live in it in the book.
[9:15]But it does build and there's such a payoff.
[9:18]And even though I knew that was their dynamic,
[9:20]like it breaks your heart.
[9:23]And that's the thing with Lucky, you have to love her.
[9:27]Like we know she's a criminal,
[9:28]but I feel maybe very protective of her,
[9:32]but I feel like you have to love her.
[9:34]And I don't know that there's a viewer who can watch
[9:36]what you chose and not just feel like she had no choice.
[9:40]This is what a difficult upbringing, so.
[9:44]Yeah.
[9:45]Cassie, I know that you have worked with adaptations before.
[9:49]And I'm curious what would you say is the biggest challenge
[9:55]when adapting text?
[9:57]And then also what is the biggest liberty?
[10:00]and freedom that you have when you're deafing.
[10:02]I worked before this.
[10:04]I worked on a show on Apple TV called Silo.
[10:06]That's based on a series.
[10:08]It's a trilogy of books.
[10:11]The books are called The Silo series,
[10:12]but the first book is called Wool.
[10:14]And so when that show got greenlit,
[10:18]we knew we were making four seasons of television
[10:21]because the sets were so expensive to build.
[10:23]You have to build a whole underground world.
[10:25]And so Apple was like, if we're going to spend this much money
[10:27]on these sets, we're making the whole show.
[10:29]And so what was different about that one was season one,
[10:33]we knew we're doing the first half of the first book.
[10:37]And so it was a nice sort of marker
[10:39]of this is as far as we're going in the first season.
[10:42]And because we knew we had four seasons,
[10:43]we could do more of a slow burnt.
[10:46]But the words we were used were not muscular or propulsion.
[10:49]It was slow burn history.
[10:51]But it's because we knew we had four seasons.
[10:53]So in a show like that, you're pulling on a thread
[10:58]and you're unraveling a mystery.
[11:00]And with this one, we knew we had seven episodes only
[11:03]to literally like pedal to the metal, floor it.
[11:07]And that was a huge, just for me mentally, a huge change
[11:12]where how do you take this much story and do it in one season?
[11:17]Wow.
[11:19]Marissa, I know that it's been said that Anya Taylor Joy
[11:23]was kind of always attached.
[11:25]How, what was it like, and I would love to hear a little bit
[11:28]about your set visit too?
[11:29]What was it like watching her bring this character to life
[11:33]and just see, because if this was your first adaptation,
[11:36]seeing these characters humanize, what was that like?
[11:39]So again, like I sometimes I struggle to,
[11:43]I love to be able to picture at least my main character.
[11:46]And I had like a Cartier model was like the inspiration
[11:48]for one of the characters in my debut.
[11:50]Like it's never necessarily an actor.
[11:52]And while I was writing Lucky, I was just imagining
[11:55]someone sort of obscure came out of my office
[11:58]having written it and was texting my friend saying,
[12:02]what are you guys watching right now?
[12:04]I haven't consumed anything in a long time.
[12:06]And they were like, oh, there's this chest drawman.
[12:08]I was like, that sounds great.
[12:11]Chest.
[12:12]And then the moment, and I think maybe my husband was with me,
[12:16]she or my daughter, she came onto the screen.
[12:18]And I knew like I was just like, that is her.
[12:22]And I held that.
[12:24]So it, again, it's so different.
[12:26]And I don't think I'll ever have an experience like this
[12:28]again where it just feels like, yes, there she is.
[12:32]And of course, she said yes, and early.
[12:34]And of course, you know, now I'm hearing that is not what
[12:37]happens usually.
[12:39]And so when I met her on set, I did.
[12:42]I walked up to her and I was like, hi.
[12:44]And she's, you know, you've been around here enough.
[12:46]She's like, a magical creature.
[12:50]She's like, she's like, this match.
[12:51]She smells really nice.
[12:53]She's like, I'm standing there, I'm like looking way up
[12:57]and telling her the story and blauvering on.
[12:59]And she looked down at me and she said,
[13:01]did you manifest me, Marissa?
[13:03]And then through her arms around me in this song,
[13:05]and then through the hug.
[13:06]And I'm glad you myself.
[13:08]Did I, did I?
[13:09]I think I did.
[13:12]So I guess I did.
[13:13]You did.
[13:14]I'm an investor.
[13:15]So it felt like I had managed to do that thing that people
[13:20]can't really do, but think they can.
[13:21]Wow.
[13:22]With your Daniel Taylor Joy.
[13:23]So, and I think having seen her, she is lucky.
[13:28]She's so perfect.
[13:29]And she, you know, sometimes you watch a show
[13:32]and you see the expressions on the actor's face
[13:34]and you're like, that is a weird look.
[13:35]She, every single moment, she is,
[13:37]you can tell what she's thinking
[13:39]and it might be because I wrote the novel
[13:40]and I know what she's thinking, but she really nails it
[13:43]and on her emotion and her, yeah, it's really good.
[13:46]Yeah, sometimes, so the whole time we were writing the show,
[13:50]we knew we were writing for Anya,
[13:52]which by the way, when you mentioned the chess thing.
[13:54]My mom's from Texas and she didn't know who Anya Taylor Joy
[13:57]was by name, but so when I got the job
[13:59]and I said, oh, we have Anya Taylor Joy
[14:01]and she didn't know who she was by name
[14:02]and I said, the queen's game.
[14:03]You got the chess girl?
[14:04]Stop.
[14:05]She's like, y'all got the chess girl.
[14:12]So anyway, but yes, we did get the chess girl
[14:16]and so what was cool for us in the writer's room
[14:19]and from the moment I took the job
[14:20]is usually sometimes you don't have an actor attached.
[14:23]Sometimes you're writing an entire season
[14:25]and then the actor gets attached later
[14:27]and so we were always writing to her.
[14:29]We were always imagining her.
[14:31]We were always talking about doing POV shots
[14:35]cause another privilege, like a book privilege
[14:37]is that you get to hear your character's thoughts
[14:39]and the challenge on the page in terms of screenwriting
[14:42]is like, how do you take the internal thought
[14:46]and show it in a visual way?
[14:47]And so we came up with this idea about Lucky's POV
[14:51]and because she's a con artist
[14:53]and because she reads the room,
[14:55]we would do these POV shots
[14:57]where she walks into a room, she sees.
[15:00]there's a scene in episode two where she's found her way in the middle of the desert
[15:04]nowhere in a ranch house and this woman takes her in and she sees like there's a shotgun
[15:08]above the door, she sees there's laundry, she sees there's like some kids drawings on
[15:12]the fridge and within a few moments she realizes there's no man in this house.
[15:17]This is a woman who's living with a gun above her door to protect her kids and so then
[15:21]she uses that as a way to manipulate them.
[15:25]So that became a motif in the show where in a book you could hear those thoughts and you
[15:29]could be like this is how I'm going to play this lady and and for us it was like boom,
[15:33]boom, boom, boom, she does math and then goes okay I know how to play this person.
[15:37]So to the point of like how does how does Anya look there's something about her eyes that
[15:41]are so striking that we would talk a lot about doing really extreme close-ups on those
[15:46]eyes as she's reading a room and so that was a way that we sort of tried to get inside
[15:52]her head.
[15:53]That's right and you can see it you do you'll see and now that you've heard this you'll
[15:58]have a different experience of those moments yeah yeah that's really cool.
[16:03]In terms of so this is a creative question especially for other writers in the room when
[16:08]you are writing and you can share no spoilers you can share whatever you want about the follow
[16:13]up to Lucky but I'm curious about how how do you let go of things creatively so in terms of when
[16:20]things aren't working when you were writing the book and also Cassie when you guys were writing
[16:23]the script how what what comes up for you when you realize you have to let something go or you
[16:29]have to pivot or you have to transition what is that like?
[16:33]So I've written five novels on my own and I've lost count of how many I've co-written so I and
[16:39]I've taught writing and I always say no writing is ever wasted and I have taught writing and
[16:44]I've said things that I regret as I told you that I realized weren't true as I kept doing them
[16:49]but that one I know to be true so I I have no problem I mean I throw away like half a novel
[16:56]to chase Lucky and I think that too was like an inoculation against you know letting things go
[17:02]with the sequel to Lucky I sold it on a very detailed outline for a novel how many pages is that
[17:12]like 30 oh what kind of thing and then wow and then couldn't write it in my agent would say you
[17:18]know how's that book coming like it's I can't and she finally said maybe you just need to
[17:23]let go of the outline and just start writing and that's when Lucky was like I had her she was
[17:28]in the FBI and she was like I could hear her she's like I am not in the FBI and you know that
[17:35]so I had to throw that entire outline away and just figure it out again and kind of go to my
[17:40]publisher and say I know you bought this and it's you think that it's this but it's really this
[17:45]but luckily because we've done so many books together they just trusted me too
[17:50]but I have no issue letting go of things and I kind of almost enjoy it like it makes me feel
[17:56]tough and muscular and propulsive like a gourmet cheeseburger
[18:05]we had to we have to kill darlings all the time in terms of like if it's something on the page
[18:10]or if it's something in the edit a lot of times you'll just realize that seems great but we
[18:16]have to lose it because you know it's getting in the way of X Y or Z thing but I would say the
[18:22]thing that we lost that I'm still grieving is when we first started writing the show it was we
[18:28]were gonna do eight episodes I don't even know if you know this I did know because there's
[18:31]and chopper told me her schedule or yeah we were gonna do eight episodes but then Anya had a
[18:37]hard out for dune 3 which means she had to go and shoot dune 3 by a certain date on the calendar
[18:43]and we weren't sure if we could shoot eight episodes by that time so and as a way or an attempt
[18:49]to try to salvage that eighth episode we in the room came up with this idea of as a midpoint
[18:55]like it would have been if we're doing eight let's say it would have been episode five we were
[18:59]gonna do an entire episode about Annette Benning's character and her and so then you would have
[19:06]watched how she became the head of the mob right like it was gonna be this and we just couldn't
[19:12]do it even though like you know the main cause Apple's main concern was we don't want to lose
[19:18]any viewer because they tuned in to see Anya Taylor-Droy and she's not in that episode
[19:23]and so we had the you know that's interesting I had to pour one out for Annette's standalone
[19:30]episode has a very large role in the steepest in fact it's more yeah so there there was a lot
[19:37]of that and I was I was very called to do that after watching Annette's interpretation of
[19:42]yes yes Priscilla Priscilla because I have a hard time with Iridimable or characters I see to
[19:49]be Iridimable and the way that Annette Benning what she poured into that role that unhinged
[19:56]maternal energy is well I think there's a
[20:00]It's always a concern when you have a villain.
[20:03]The bad version is like the twisty mustache version of a villain.
[20:07]And the moment we cast a net, we just knew, oh, well, that concern's gone.
[20:13]You're never concerned about anything.
[20:15]Any line that at one point somebody might have been like, is this line a little arch?
[20:19]The moment we got a net, you knew it wouldn't be an issue.
[20:23]Yeah.
[20:24]It made me rethink my entire character.
[20:26]And that I actually have had that note from my editors.
[20:29]This is a mustache, literally.
[20:31]They say that shortly, tying her to the tracks, and I struggle so hard.
[20:35]And so she helped me to understand Priscilla in a way that I, her creator did not, or
[20:41]it didn't give her the grace that a net clearly gave her.
[20:44]Yeah.
[20:45]So that's probably the coolest, one of the coolest parts of it.
[20:48]One of the coolest parts about watching in that work, which is like having front
[20:52]row seats to a masterclass, like every day I'd be like, I can't believe I'm watching this,
[20:57]is that every single take, she does it differently.
[21:00]Wow.
[21:01]So like, some actors come in and they like, I know what the scene is.
[21:04]I know how I'm going to play it and they play it that way.
[21:07]And every single take, and that's like, I'm going to give you every note in the scale
[21:10]and y'all can figure out which one you want to use.
[21:13]You know, like it's really wild to watch.
[21:15]I experienced that with a massive spoiler that I will not say what it is, but we were talking
[21:20]about it.
[21:21]Was it when you were there for the finale?
[21:22]Yeah.
[21:23]And I was like, I can't wait to see you do this massive spoiler.
[21:27]And then she was like, oh, yeah, I mean, should I do it like this?
[21:33]And like, she started.
[21:34]Wow.
[21:35]Or maybe I'll do it like this.
[21:36]And I just stood there like, I had her tell of this alchemy and then she did it right
[21:40]in front of me and then just kind of casually walked away.
[21:44]And it was also this fun day on set where it was the first day we put a gun in her hand.
[21:50]I saw her eyes like light up in this way.
[21:53]And I was like, have you never have been none of your characters in all your movies?
[21:57]I've never shot a gun.
[21:59]And she thought about it.
[22:00]And she goes, no, I've only been shot at.
[22:03]And so that day she had a blast shooting this guy.
[22:08]Yeah.
[22:09]Yeah.
[22:10]She did.
[22:11]It's okay.
[22:12]Yeah.
[22:13]We're writing the sequel.
[22:15]Was that where in the chronology did you start that?
[22:20]Because my question is, are you now?
[22:22]Were you envisioning the actual Apple TV show characters as you wrote the sequel?
[22:26]Yeah.
[22:27]So I actually think I had been thinking about it.
[22:30]I almost feel like Trapper might have given me, when we were talking one day and he's like,
[22:33]you know, what would be a cool idea?
[22:35]I think.
[22:36]And I, it was, oh, I hadn't seen any episodes yet.
[22:41]I think maybe I hadn't even seen any scripts when I first, but when I wrote that other
[22:47]outline too, that it didn't end up being.
[22:50]And then it's now done.
[22:52]Like the first draft is done and I'll probably have to rewrite it three times or four times,
[22:56]which I've having done some development work.
[22:59]I used to think that was hard, but then wrote a pitch document 60 times or something.
[23:04]So yeah, it's just, it's kind of been, there are a few characters that I did not create
[23:11]that I'm hoping to be able to use in the novel, although I haven't heard back from Apple
[23:14]League also.
[23:15]I don't know if I can say if I am or not.
[23:17]But it just, yeah, I've happened that way.
[23:18]But when I started really writing in earnest, there are moments and if there are any writers
[23:24]in the room, or you may know this, where sometimes you do it, I don't believe in writer's
[23:27]block, but I, and I'll switch to a different project, but sometimes you do just come up
[23:31]against something and that never happened once because I'd be sitting in a scene of dialogue
[23:35]and I would just hear Timothy Oley fans voice or a net Benning's voice or a new Taylor
[23:40]Joy's voice.
[23:41]And you can't actually, that was a new experience for me to just be like, I'd like to continue
[23:48]hearing these voices.
[23:49]And so I would just keep writing those scenes, which was cool.
[23:54]I know we are coming up on closing the time for this because I want to give the audience
[23:59]chance to ask questions.
[24:01]One thing that I talk to women a lot about in my work is are you at the place in your
[24:07]life where you envisioned yourself 30 years ago?
[24:11]And I'm curious just the journey that you both have been on that has brought you here.
[24:18]I would love to hear if you have any reflections on like what has been a huge challenge
[24:22]that you've overcome or what has been the most delightful surprise because I think so often
[24:29]we have an idea of how things are going to go and then we have to, you know, like the
[24:34]characters you write.
[24:35]Be ready to like pivot and change.
[24:36]You want me to take that?
[24:37]Sure.
[24:38]I was just doing math.
[24:40]I'm like 30 years ago.
[24:41]I was 16.
[24:42]I was 16.
[24:43]Yeah.
[24:44]And I was playing basketball.
[24:47]I was on, I was on like a very good basketball team in high school and we won state
[24:51]and I was also really in the theater.
[24:54]And like I thought I had to keep these two things of my life separate.
[24:58]Like I was like the character.
[24:59]I was like, I was like the character.
[25:00]Was it?
[25:00]What, oh yeah, what's the character in the lead?
[25:02]That's like, he's in glee, but he's also a jock.
[25:04]Like, I felt like I was like,
[25:06]there's no way these worlds are ever gonna collide ever.
[25:08]I'm just, I just happen to be good at two different things
[25:10]that have nothing to do with each other.
[25:11]And it wasn't until I became a showrunner
[25:13]that I realized, oh my God, I'm on a creative team sport.
[25:17]And it was the first time I felt like everything
[25:19]that I'd learned about being on a team
[25:21]in high school in those formative years,
[25:24]what it's like to be in a writer's room
[25:27]and look around at all the blank white words around you
[25:31]and go, how the fuck are we gonna write 10 episodes?
[25:35]It's like, you know, the blank page, it's so terrifying.
[25:37]You're just like, oh my, it's the exact same feeling
[25:39]I would have at the beginning of a basketball season
[25:41]where you'd go, how the heck are we gonna win 22 games?
[25:44]And then you look around and you look at your teammates
[25:46]where you look at your writers
[25:47]and you go, well, okay, we're not doing it alone.
[25:49]You know, we're gonna figure it out.
[25:50]You're gonna write episode two, you're gonna write three.
[25:52]I'm gonna write four and we're gonna chip away
[25:53]at this giant mountain that we're looking at that.
[25:56]So for me, that was sort of a revelation is like,
[25:59]I also, the way that I like to run the room
[26:01]is some people like to run a writer's room
[26:03]where there's a hierarchy
[26:05]and the upper level people might be encouraged to talk more
[26:08]and like the lower level writers or the staff writers
[26:10]might not be as encouraged to talk as much,
[26:13]which I think creates a culture of fear
[26:15]because now you're the youngest person in the room,
[26:17]you're a staff writer and now you're like,
[26:19]oh gosh, should I say this pitch out loud or not?
[26:21]And so what I do on day one is I say,
[26:24]I hired all you guys, we're all equal, best idea wins.
[26:29]And so, and then I say specifically to the staff writers,
[26:32]if you are sitting on a good idea
[26:34]and you don't pitch it until three o'clock
[26:35]and you could have solved a problem at 10 a.m.,
[26:37]I'm gonna be mad at you.
[26:38]And so, but I think I have that perspective
[26:42]because that's how it felt like, you know,
[26:45]to be on a team and have a coach say,
[26:46]don't be afraid to take the shot if you're open.
[26:48]So anyway, 30 years ago, that's what I was doing
[26:50]and I realized recently that it's finally
[26:53]the hybrid of those two things in my life.
[26:57]I was 17, I'm really not sporty at all.
[27:02]I was this sort of, maybe not quite by 17,
[27:05]but I grew up very, very like,
[27:08]I had these giant glasses very much in my own head,
[27:11]like Anne of Green Gables was my soul mate.
[27:13]I was just very like vivid imagination
[27:17]and a friend actually whose book I can see face out
[27:20]on the shelf, Carrie Claire sent me a text message
[27:22]recently saying I, she was like,
[27:25]we, my family should, we think you're so cool
[27:27]and I was like, ah, cause it's natural,
[27:29]especially Canadian to deflect.
[27:31]So I was like, I had to be very cool.
[27:33]And she said, well, none of us have had a net-bending,
[27:36]playing a figment of our imagination.
[27:38]Okay, fair.
[27:41]But I actually made me think about that imaginative child
[27:45]that I was and how I, my imagination was wild
[27:49]and it still is.
[27:50]So yeah, like I always, like I think that that young me
[27:55]would just say, well, yes, like this is,
[27:58]we were always picturing these things.
[27:59]So it just is natural that this would be happening.
[28:03]But that teamwork element,
[28:04]I find it to be this incredible revelation
[28:07]because writing novels is so solitary.
[28:10]Yeah, I can't remember them.
[28:11]Fight with it alone and then you kind of bring it out
[28:14]and you give it to your editors
[28:15]and then you sit there waiting
[28:17]and then they come back to you
[28:18]and they're like, these are all of the things
[28:20]that you can fix alone.
[28:22]And then you go away again.
[28:24]And I just, I love the teamwork element
[28:28]and even being able to say like so many people are like,
[28:31]were you scared to hand your baby over?
[28:33]I'm like, no, like it was time for her to grow up.
[28:36]So I was like, here, finishing school.
[28:38]And that's how that's how it happens.
[28:41]So it all, it does feel very natural,
[28:42]but I don't think I could have dared to dream
[28:45]that a net-bending would play a figment of my imagination.
[28:48]I feel really good.
[28:49]Oh, yeah.
[28:50]I think I'm with a guy, yeah.
[28:52]Yeah.
[28:53]Are there any questions from the audience?
[28:55]We want to open it up to you guys.
[28:58]Yeah, I have a question.
[28:59]I find it to William.
[29:02]I have a question for you, Cassie.
[29:03]There's something that's really interesting to me
[29:06]as an actor in like there.
[29:08]You don't always hit the luxury of a rehearsal
[29:10]in TV or movies.
[29:12]Yeah.
[29:13]And so getting to see like a net-bending
[29:15]and can be all the fun.
[29:16]And give it to Andy and Taylor to William.
[29:18]Well, it was like, what stood out to you
[29:21]during the rehearsal of the process?
[29:23]And did you rehearse every scene?
[29:25]Or was it just a few things?
[29:28]It's a great question.
[29:29]I'm going to repeat the question.
[29:34]So what stood out to you about working with actors?
[29:36]And did you have rehearsals for everything?
[29:40]Yes.
[29:41]I would say we would rehearse the big scenes,
[29:43]like the really big important scenes,
[29:44]not every single scene,
[29:46]but watching rehearsals were my favorite part.
[29:48]Because that's where sometimes we'd realize
[29:50]something in the script wasn't working
[29:52]or an actor would say this line doesn't feel right
[29:56]coming out of my mouth.
[29:56]And then we'd find a way to make it feel better.
[30:00]And I always feel like the actor knows their character
[30:04]in a way better than I do, because we're
[30:07]thinking about the whole big picture.
[30:09]We're holding all seven episodes in our head.
[30:11]And they've built a whole imaginary backstory
[30:13]that I may not be privy to.
[30:15]And so, but yeah, watching a net in Tim
[30:18]rehearsed for the first day, like Tim was like, even,
[30:21]I could tell, because I went up to him later,
[30:22]I was like, were you like nervous?
[30:24]You're kind of blushing.
[30:25]And he was like, and he was like, I called my wife
[30:27]on the way home and was like, that was incredible.
[30:29]You know, so, but yeah, sometimes like,
[30:33]Anya and Drew Starkey, we rehearsed several scenes
[30:36]with both of them.
[30:38]And they would just find stuff in the moment.
[30:40]Sometimes they'd improvise.
[30:41]And then all of a sudden you'd go, I love that line
[30:43]and then you'd add it.
[30:45]So yeah, so, but yeah, it was like usually the bigger,
[30:47]more important, juicy, meaty scenes we would rehearse.
[30:50]And we would usually rehearse them
[30:51]like a dare or two before shooting,
[30:52]so that I would have time to rewrite them.
[30:55]Yeah.
[30:58]Yeah.
[30:59]I have a question for Marissa.
[31:02]So in your people magazine essay,
[31:05]everybody should read, it is really wonderful.
[31:10]You wrote that the most hopeful thing about humanity
[31:15]or that faith is the most hopeful of the humanity.
[31:18]And for me, it really resonated with me
[31:21]because there's lucky is the story of perception.
[31:25]But at the same time, it's never cynical.
[31:29]It is especially looking at lucky.
[31:30]So did you feel like at the end of the novel
[31:33]even one of readers to feel, to feel that face,
[31:36]that it wasn't corrupted and that they still believed
[31:38]in humanity, you know, all the lucky at all
[31:41]these experiences that, yeah.
[31:43]I'm just gonna repeat the question for the live stream.
[31:45]At the end of the novel, did you want,
[31:48]how did you want your readers to feel about the hope
[31:50]that was imbued throughout the novel?
[31:53]Yeah, I mean, I think, as I said,
[31:54]it was important for me to create a character
[31:57]who people could really, really get behind.
[32:01]And I think somehow we're lucky.
[32:03]You know, she is, she's a criminal.
[32:05]She finds what is most important to a person
[32:09]and she exploits that.
[32:11]But what I learned in researching a con artist is the fact
[32:14]that people are able to be exploited in that way
[32:18]and have that faith in humanity is the reason
[32:20]there can be con artists.
[32:22]So it's awful and it's beautiful.
[32:25]And I guess I somehow hope by creating someone like lucky.
[32:31]As you were saying, the question of like nature
[32:33]versus nurture and can people change,
[32:36]I get very tired of hearing people say
[32:38]that they can't change or you can't change your stripes
[32:40]or you can't emerge from difficult childhood situations
[32:44]or whatever it is and change.
[32:46]And it is hard.
[32:48]But I think that was what I was trying to do with lucky
[32:50]is just say, you know, I believe people can change.
[32:55]I do have great faith in humanity
[32:57]and that is definitely what I want.
[33:00]And I think with the show too,
[33:02]you watch what she wants.
[33:05]It's so basic and it's so simple
[33:06]and it's something that I think we all want, right?
[33:09]That freedom and you watch how hard she works to get it.
[33:13]And it does feel so hopeful.
[33:14]I mean, it's so hopeful.
[33:17]And just thinking about it is just so, yes.
[33:21]I mean, it is important to me.
[33:22]I struggle.
[33:23]It's so hard to have faith sometimes.
[33:25]And so I kind of love that with the show,
[33:28]lucky was also put an even hotter water than I put her in.
[33:32]And that faith in humanity is still there.
[33:36]That was something that I think all of you seem to feel
[33:39]in the story.
[33:41]Yeah, something that we did a lot of research about
[33:44]Con artists and there's this book called The Confidence Game.
[33:47]And we read in the writer's room, we read that
[33:50]and we leaned on that heavily
[33:51]and we watched a movie called The Grifters
[33:53]that Annette ironically is in.
[33:55]And I think it was a Roger Ebert.
[33:59]Am I saying his name right?
[34:01]Thank Roger Ebert.
[34:02]Thank you.
[34:04]I think he wrote a review on The Grifters
[34:05]that had this phrase in it that we honed in on,
[34:07]which was all Con artists are stuck in a cycle
[34:13]of trust and betrayal.
[34:15]And that the character, John Kuzak,
[34:17]in Grifters, his mom is a Con artist and raised him to be one.
[34:20]And so it's said something like,
[34:23]he's stuck in a cycle of trust and betrayal
[34:25]that goes all the way back to childhood
[34:27]and he's just looking for someone who really loves him.
[34:31]And so we talked a lot about that with Lucky
[34:33]where if she stuck in a cycle of trust and betrayal
[34:36]with her father, if she stuck in a cycle of trust
[34:38]and betrayal, because that's actually the mechanics of a con.
[34:41]Is you gain someone's trust and before they know it,
[34:43]you've betrayed them and you're out the door.
[34:44]And so we would riff on that
[34:47]and try to put that in thematically whenever we could.
[34:49]And her wanting to go, how do I get out of this cycle?
[34:52]How do I break this cycle?
[34:54]But when it's what she's really good at,
[34:55]that's the other thing because I love,
[34:58]like that's why I think the Queen's Ganda is so.
[35:00]great because you're watching someone do something they're very, very good at. So with
[35:04]lucky, you get kind of addicted. You know, it's wrong. You want to see her do it again
[35:08]because she's so good at you. You watch her read the room and you're like, oh, God, she spotted
[35:11]the weakness. You really want to watch her do it. I think that there's a guardian piece today
[35:17]that or yesterday that came out where he said something like, you don't have to be good to be great.
[35:22]And I was like, yes, exactly. I was like, she, you know, well, there's our tagline. We should
[35:27]really used mine. So I'm here in the front room. In addition to myself and Jonathan Chopper for
[35:38]other writers. And they were all different levels. And one was a co-executive producer, a
[35:45]supervising producer. It's weird writers rooms like you have these levels and like, you know,
[35:50]with more experience, you graduate to the next level. But their credits are all very cool. Like,
[35:55]you know, one of my writers worked on the Americans. One of my writers worked on beef. One of
[35:59]my writers worked on Pluribus, which is the new Apple TV show that's out. So we had the very
[36:04]diverse in terms of gender age. I was the oldest in the room. That was my first time being like,
[36:10]oh, my gosh, I'm the old lady in the room. First time ever, I'm usually the young girl and it's
[36:16]all older men. Did you know that was going to be the case? What was I like? I guess it didn't
[36:22]dawn on me until we're all in there. And then, you know, and then I'm like, oh, wow, the next
[36:27]youngest person's in their 30s. But yeah, it was a, I mean, and everybody has like a completely
[36:33]different strength. That's another thing that was like building a team is you're like, I can tell
[36:37]that this person's going to be great at this. And this person's going to really bring, you know,
[36:41]this to it. And our writer that worked with Vince Gilligan on Pluribus and on Better Call Saul,
[36:49]her name's R. L. Levine. And she would bring a lot of lingo from their rooms into our room.
[36:54]And she would say that on Better Call Saul, they would talk about how, you know,
[36:58]when you're a criminal, you see the matrix. And so we would, we would use that phrase that
[37:03]lucky sees the matrix. And once you see it, meaning she can read a room and go, that's my mark,
[37:07]that's my exit. I can do X, Y, and Z. And then once you see the world that way, you can't unsee it.
[37:12]And so, but she's desperate to unsee it, you know, and so that was another thing we talked about a
[37:17]a lot is, you know, the part of the, the world that's being hidden from her by her father raising
[37:25]her this way is she sees people as marks, she sees people as transactions. And it's like,
[37:31]I can do this to you and leave with X amount of dollars in my pocket. And where she wants to get to
[37:36]is where I can sit down to next to somebody who's a mark, actually have a real conversation
[37:41]and what she gets on the other side of it is human empathy and connection. And then she realizes,
[37:46]oh my god, that's the world that my dad's been hiding from me. You know, how do I, how do I do
[37:51]that more? You know, it's, yeah, it's really, and it's, I wanted, I'm thinking about the scene,
[38:00]anyways, spoiler alert. I have a whole list of things I'm not allowed to talk about from Apple and
[38:05]they're all in my head, just screaming at me right now. Like to say that, yeah. But we can, we can
[38:11]speak vaguely that there's a turning point where perhaps she may or may not do something like that.
[38:17]And on the other side of that, it's almost like a whole nother character.
[38:20]Yeah. One final question I want to leave the audience with what without spoilers,
[38:27]what scene are you most excited for the readers to see in the series?
[38:31]Well, I think that there are, what I loved so much were those gah, heated conversations between
[38:43]lucky and caring. I just, and I think that there's so much action happening and they are
[38:52]talking about their feelings in and it feels so, and I know like the book and the show
[38:58]feel like such a companion to me. And I feel like I didn't write those lines, but those,
[39:04]it's so true to who I believe them to be and the way they feel about each other.
[39:09]I'm just, I'm very excited for those particular scenes to be shown, but also so that I don't have
[39:14]to hold it back inside anymore. Yeah. Like this is super tiny, but it's a small easter egg that I'm,
[39:22]I'm happy about is there's a storyline in the book that didn't make it into the show that
[39:27]involves a lot of ticket. And we just kept wanting to like pay homage to it in some way. And so it's
[39:33]so subtle, but there's a scene where Lucky's at a bar and she's had a bad day. She might be covered
[39:41]in blood. It's just been a bad day and she looks up and on the screen, there's a guy that just
[39:46]won the loto and it's, and he's, and it's like so and so just won hundreds of millions of dollars
[39:51]and, and she gets to sort of talk shit on that guy for a second. It's so small, but I didn't want to
[39:56]not touch the, you know, I remember you being like, I saw that.
[40:00]I saw that.
[40:01]I saw that.
[40:02]I saw it.
[40:03]I saw it.
[40:04]I saw it.
[40:05]I saw it.
[40:06]I saw it.
[40:07]I saw it.
[40:08]I saw it.
[40:09]I saw it.
[40:10]I saw it.
[40:11]I saw it.
[40:12]I understood the moment.
[40:13]I think it was Tropper or maybe it was Lauren who called and said, we're letting go of this
[40:17]part of the plot.
[40:18]We're not upset.
[40:19]And I think I do understand, I think a great adaptation is not.
[40:21]It can't be words for words and seeing for seeing.
[40:22]I don't find that very rewarding as a reader or a viewer.
[40:25]So I wasn't worried.
[40:26]And also I think at that point I had such faith that the most important part of the novel
[40:29]was being distilled into this.
[40:31]And books need different kinds of hooks than shows need.
[40:35]The lottery ticket was needed for me to sell the book.
[40:38]It was kind of a bit of a con and publishing.
[40:41]And then it wasn't necessarily needed for the show.
[40:44]But that moment, it did feel like a little like, hey, Marissa, we see you.
[40:49]Yeah.
[40:50]Yeah.
[40:51]Is there anything else you guys want to share?
[40:54]No, I did see someone who had their hand.
[40:56]I don't know.
[40:57]Yeah.
[40:58]Hi.
[40:59]Thank you guys for your time today.
[41:00]It's a very exciting week.
[41:02]And my question actually goes really perfectly with what yours is talking about.
[41:05]It's a lot of ticket.
[41:06]Because whenever books do kind of get adopted, this book-loving community that want this book
[41:12]that they love so much really be given justice on the screen.
[41:15]And so if that's it, we feel like you can't even imagine how you feel
[41:18]it's watching your favorite, like, so it's a new hand that don't have this sense of ownership
[41:23]in it at all.
[41:24]I'm sorry.
[41:25]I'm sorry.
[41:26]I'm sorry.
[41:27]But I just kind of wanted to hear from you if there's anything that was so important to you
[41:32]that it did say on the screen hearing a lot of together.
[41:34]Oh my gosh.
[41:35]It's a little bit of a fair report on the show.
[41:36]It's going to be amazing.
[41:37]But was there something that you just couldn't let go that you knew needed to be on the screen
[41:42]to give justice to that baby of marriage?
[41:44]Yeah.
[41:45]And I will say, I feel lucky that I'm...
[41:47]I have romance novels that I've co-written or written under a pseudonym.
[41:51]And romance readers are you, if you, they are different.
[41:56]And they're amazing.
[41:58]Like, it's actually so great to meet people who are so, so invested in your world
[42:03]and your characters that they would probably riot.
[42:06]Like, if things were changed.
[42:08]And I think I wouldn't...
[42:09]It would probably be a very challenging writers room to be in.
[42:12]And to kind of, like, have to go into witness protection in some cases.
[42:18]So I think, you know, I feel...
[42:22]Okay, so lucky I know her.
[42:25]And I think that Cassie and Jonathan, everyone really knows her.
[42:29]And that was probably the most important part.
[42:31]And I know I felt such familiarity sitting down and watching those episodes.
[42:36]I was...
[42:37]I was scared.
[42:38]Like, I think it was the most intense viewing experience of my life.
[42:41]And I felt like, oh my God, like, there she is.
[42:46]There they are.
[42:47]Like, there was nothing that felt untrue or not authentic to these characters I had created.
[42:54]And then, yes, they're thrown into, like, boiling hot water.
[42:58]But what's rendered out...
[43:00]Like, this is a gross metaphor, but like, the fat.
[43:03]It's...
[43:04]It's just...
[43:05]It's so true.
[43:06]It feels...
[43:07]And I think that would have been the most important thing to me.
[43:10]I feel like it was a real moment in the book where I was like, if I don't see that,
[43:13]I'm going to be really, really upset.
[43:15]It was just more that sense of authenticity that is...
[43:19]It is there.
[43:20]And I...
[43:21]Like, just breathe such a huge sigh of relief.
[43:24]And I'm very grateful to all of you for that.
[43:27]The text that you would send me after she would finish watching an episode.
[43:31]I'd get these texts that was like, oh my God!
[43:34]I'm on the edge of my seat!
[43:35]I can't believe you're that.
[43:36]Like, I was like, I need a smoke.
[43:38]I need a cigarette.
[43:39]Like, a fit.
[43:40]Yeah.
[43:41]There is, I would say, yeah.
[43:42]But that was a thing we, like, in terms of, like, television dropping in the hot water,
[43:45]needing a hook in the first five minutes.
[43:47]Like, the writer that was in my room, his name's Kevin Rosen, and he wrote on beef.
[43:52]And I don't know if you guys saw beef on Netflix, but you would never know this,
[43:56]but he said the first draft of beef, the road rage incident, happened at the end of the pilot.
[44:01]And it was through network notes that Netflix was like, we need that to happen in the first
[44:06]five minutes so that we are hooking the audience.
[44:08]So they had to remove the road rage all the way up where he used to have it as the climax
[44:12]at the end.
[44:13]So there is a lot of pressure to when you live in streaming land where there's literally
[44:18]a thousand million shows that you can click on at any moment that we always made sure at the
[44:23]very end of every episode that we left you hanging so that you had to come back.
[44:27]And same thing at the top.
[44:29]We've that we hooked you at the top.
[44:30]And I don't think, you know, books don't have to do that.
[44:33]No.
[44:34]I don't have to hook you.
[44:35]The thing is you need to hook people on the back cover.
[44:38]You know.
[44:39]And I even see sometimes like people I'm always looking for what people are saying about
[44:44]the show.
[44:45]And so I think I read something that was like, well, this is this, you know, how many other
[44:49]stories are there that are like?
[44:50]It's like, I don't know.
[44:51]I mean, I don't think that's true, but everyone's always looking for that hook.
[44:55]And it's like the interpretation is always so different.
[44:58]But you can do that.
[45:00]and shows. And in books, if I tried to sell something that anybody had even a with had
[45:05]already been done before, it would have been like, we're not interested. This has already
[45:10]been, you know, this has been done. And I think the plausibility like is also when you're
[45:16]seeing something is so much more important than when you're kind of like using your imagination,
[45:21]you can suspend your disbelief a little bit more. So I completely understood. I completely
[45:28]understood why. And I think you don't miss it. You can't miss it. You don't have any
[45:34]time to miss it. You're just like, yeah, I think it would be too much.
[45:40]That's also a great warning about romance readers in their passion and for the adaptation.
[45:44]Very, I mean, I think so. Carly Fortune is a fellow Canadian and a friend. And I think some of her
[45:51]readers are, you know, they had to make changes. There are changes that have to be made. And you see
[45:58]the way that they're reacting on online is just, it's very vicious. I mean, there is one thing
[46:03]where they're like, it's cottage country and Ontario, which is a whole entire thing. And they set
[46:07]it in British Columbia, which is not cottage country. So I can see being met about that. But everything
[46:14]else is just, yeah. Well, we are so excited. This everyone, it's out on Wednesday. And it's a
[46:24]Gourmet cheeseburger. It's muscular. It's propulsive. A lot of, a lot of thank you guys so much.
[46:33]Thank you. Thank you.
[46:54]you