Hi David,

Technikart, a french offbeat/edgy magazine made its cover a year ago with a « is there a life after Sopranos ? » headline…, implying it would be hard for HBO, but also for TV at large, to come up with something as strong and compelling as your show. So let’s ask you, David: any TV shows that you liked lately ? anything that impressed you ?

Well, we have to start off with the fact that I don’t really watch that much television. I mean I watch news and I watch old movies and movie channels, but I don’t really watch dramatic series, much at all. But one show that I do like quite a bit is Mad Men. Matthew Weiner, who is creator and producer of that, is a friend of mine; he usesd to work for me. And that’s the reason I originally turned into it. I think, even all that aside, I think it’s a good show. Even if we weren’t friend, I think I’d like it.

And what’s make you like it more than anything else? Since you’re not watching much TV, why do you stay tuned to Mad Men ?

Mad Men seems to me to be kind of a show for grown ups. In a sense, it’s about the real problems that regular everyday adult face. That is money, marriage, bringing up children, power struggles in the office, career. To me, it’s very much about American adulthood. Even though if it sets in the early 1960′s. It’s really about American adulthood. The rest of the American series television to me, I don’t think it’s really about that. I mean, I’m not a cop. I don’t really know any cops. I also don’t know any psychotic killers. And that’s what most of television is about. Policemen, judges, doctors, newspaper reporters, mayors,… that, to me, is not really what life on the planet is about.

About Mad Men, even if the title is about men, I believe that this is an amazing show for the way it portrays women…. That might be one of the great interest of the show.

I guess, I would agree with you. When I catch my memory back to those days I was only a teenager, I don’t remember being as sexist as it appears on that show. But as is said, I was not in a work place, I was not in an office in New York City.

You said you were not watching that many shows, but as a major player within the industry, where do you think it is heading ? Creativity, at least from our french standpoint, still seems to be there…?

And I don’t really live in Los Angeles, although I still have my career’s roots there and my business roots there. And I don’t really know what is being said in Los Angeles so much. But what a lot of people seem to be saying, and a lot of people in television are saying, is that the best screenwriting in America is found on author drama on television, not in the movie theater anymore. That’s what some people are saying.

Roughly to put, it seems there are two different ways to captivate an audience. On the one hand some « slower » shows, working the psychology of their characters in the long run (such as Sopranos, The wire, Madmen), on the oteh hand other shows that try to create addiction trough faster and faster pace, surprises, cliffhangers…As a viewer, do you enjoy the two kind of shows ?

I would enjoy anything that entertains me, in any way. Whether it is slow or fast, it doesn’t really concern me too much. If the show is entertaining that’s all I need. But I don’t find the majority of the television shows entertaining. I feel like I’ve seen it all a hundred times. I’ve seen these cops, these doctors, theses lawyers, these people in the court room, pretending to talk about important issues. It bores me. You know, people talking about the crime procedural, to me it’s completely easy snacking.

Have you watched any episodes of Damages ?

I am not seeing Damages. Perhaps that’s my fault. Because, as I said, once I hear a show is about lawyers, I just go the over way.

Some topics are being carried on on and on, bu from time to time appear some real original shows, such as United state of tara. You used to work with Terence Winter (co-writer of 23 episodes of Sopranos with David Chase. ed) . His project « Boardwalk empire » seems to be some true original story. Have you heard anything about that ?

Yeah, I heard about it, I read the script. I think it’s very, very good. You know, it takes place in the 1920′s. I think it’s a look at the 1920′s prohibition that American have not seen before. Like everything that Terry does, it’s very intelligent (who was a certain kind of modern humour as well). You know as Terry, Math (Matthew Weiner) and myself all work together, so I guess our tastes are similar, so I guess I would currently like most of what Terry does and also most of what Mat does.

Did you see the Louis Malle movie called Atlantic City ?

I did. Quite a while ago…

As the general quality of Tv shows is increasing, it’s making me more demanding as far as the quality I expect from a feature film is concerned. For instance, I find it sometimes hard to fall for mafia or cops films as easily as I did before watching shows such as Sopranos, The Wire or The Shield. Once again, I guess it can be explained by the indentification to the characters in the long run.You are working on a feature film, do you see this shorter frame to build up your character/story as a challenge ? Or maybe it is a relief to know that you have only 1.30 minutes to tell your story…?

Well that’s a complicated question. I probably see it as both. I know how to do a television show that lasts over 6 years. I think the storytelling in a motion picture, as to be more concise and, hopefully, more visual. I thing watching a movie and watching a television series, I think although they seem to be very related, they’re two different experiences. In a motion picture, one has to find a way to tell a story with not just what people are saying, but also with what’s going on in background, the colour of the room people are staying in, what kind of cars are driving by, music, all of that, which is the proper of motion pictures, more than it has to be for a television show.
We tried to do that on the Sopranos, and some people said we had succeeded, and I’m glad to hear that. Before there was TV series, there were motion pictures. We were all very happy with motion pictures. There were indelible characters. And you can go back obviously over the recent history of motion pictures and sometimes find characters that are startling and completely engaging and completely complicated. But what’s going on with movies is that: they’ve given up stories completely. Especially mainstream Hollywood movies. The ability to tell a story and the desire to tell a story and to do narrative has kind of disappeared. It has less to do with characters.

For instance, and it’s just my opinion, I’ve watched the last episode of the Batman franchise, Darkknight. A good episode of 24 (at the height of it), Damages or Lost brings me more pleasure thanks to a dramatic tension that i assess to be greater.

I think the reason for that is because in those big Hollywood movies, the characters can’t be too complex because they’ve been written for children. So how can you identify with a six year old child ? So if a six years old child is completely engaged by a character, why would you be engaged by it. You don’t read story like Eric the friendly worm anymore…

Yeah but Batman is suppose to be a complex super hero in a way.

But we all know the batman’s history. That’s a cartoon. The story is not believable. He’s a rich guy, who wants to fight crime and he puts on his bat suit and he goes out and fights criminals. Well, that’s a story for children. I mean, they’re not gonna show you his alcoholic problem. They’re not gonna show you his failed marriage. They’re not gonna show you the fact that he wants a child but he can’t find a woman to have a child. Anything that you’re gonna find interesting he’s not gonna be there.

But French critics, even very demanding the ones, acclaim the movie Dark Night.

I haven’t seen that movie so it’s hard for me to talk about it. My guess is… have you seen Iron Man by the way.

Yeah, and I think Iron Man was in a way fun and entertaining. Because the movie didn’t try to bring you into something too serious, as Batman was trying hard to do. Tthere was lots of irony and second degree with in Iron Man.

I think a lot of what an intelligent adult respond to is irony and especially at this point of our history. So if you’re making a movie for children you cant’ put too much irony in it, because children don’t understand irony. They don’t understand that the character doesn’t mean what he said. They also don’t understand that the character is just kidding when he said something outrageous. They also don’t understand a lot of reference levels, they don’t understand when the character refers to something in recent history or current society, they don’t get that reference, so all matter strips away. Here is something you probably responds to and kids can’t have, is contradiction within the character. That’s what really missing. You know, you and I and people who graduated in high school and like to read once in a while, are interesting by contradiction. Characters are interesting when they contradict themselves. When they behave differently than what they say. Or they say one thing and two month later they say something else. We understand that as being true life, but children don’t. And so things are built for children you can not have contradiction within characters. And actually this goes to a lot of what I really hate about network television. Even those characters which are supposed made for adults don’t have any contradictions. And you’ll be surprised when you make a television show, some of the networks would say (tiny voice) « why is he doing that, he just said that he loves that girl. Now it seems that he doesn’t love her ». Well exactly, obviously he is wondering about it. « Yeah, but isn’t it gonna be confusing? »

So we briefly mentioned this feature film project.
What can you tell us on this project, if not top secret ?

Well first of all. I’m in the first stages of it. And it appears to be more difficult than I thought. You know, writing is always difficult. Because the story has his roots in my life as a young man, I’m having a hard time dealing with the fact that there are elements of my life in it. I find it kind of … hum, what’s the word… kind of embarrassing.

So it’s a movie about music and probably about rock’n roll.

Yes

Because you a rock’n roll fan yourself ?

I still like it yes. Maybe I’ll be sick of it by the time I’ll be done with this film, but at the moment I’m still a rock’n roll fan.

I heard were also working on another project ?

It’s top secret for now. (laugh)
At this stage of the creative process, are you working alone ? Can you depict a regular work day for you now ? alone in a room with your typewriter, forcing yourself to think about your project x hours a day, or is it more « unstructured » ?

Theoretically, I’m supposed to be a guy who works alone in a room with his laptop computer writing. But, you know, that’s the all problem with writing, staying in a chair and doing it. So, I need excuses not to do it. Going to get the mail, see if I’m hungry, maybe I should go see the new exhibit at the MET, because even though it’s about tale in renaissance erotic art, maybe it has something to do with my movie. So you tell yourself all excuses.
There will be time during Sopranos, I would have to go out and write the script. But even that was hard. But I knew those characters. You know, I created them, worked for a long time, I knew them very well, so I could write the script more easily.
But most of my days were spent in the office talking to other writers, talking to producers, talking to directors, talking to the actors, talking to the production people. So I had a lot of distraction around. So being alone and writing is something I haven’t done for a while.

Can you tell us more about the « collective writing » approach that seems to be one of the key success factor of the american TV shows…How did you handle this collection of « egos »…? How does it work on a daily basis ?

Well, when you turn into a collective process, the voice of one writer has to be very the final voice. At least the way I ran that show. And I think this is the way most of the shows are done. I would do the majority of the conceptual work on the season. On the story and even on the episodes. But that’s not just me, that’s anybody who runs a show. That’s sort of what your job is, it’s to determine the voice and the direction of the show. What it’s gonna be about. And you do that on a macro level and on a micro level. Once you’re able to explain what is it you’re looking for, you get other writers to execute those scripts, to write them. And some bring quite a bit into it. Like Matthew Weiner, like Terrence Winter. Some don’t bring anything and their script have to be completely rewritten. But even with the ones that do bring a lot into it, since it’s my show, since The Sopranos are my creation, in the end I will usually do a little polishing on the scripts. So when you say it’s a collective effort, it’s not totally the case.
With Mat and Terry, it’s collaboration. Michael Imperioli who also wrote scripts, would say, David is like Duke Ellington and we play in the orchestra. And that’s the way it works with all TV series, really.

I read that in some shows, one writer work on one character or on one storyline and try to make it better. According to Bryan Fuller (showrunner of Pushing Daisies who worked with Tim Kring on the first season of Heroes).

I guess there’s many ways to do it. I never heard of that. I don’t see how that could work, but you know, we don’t do a show like Heroes. Heroes is basically something of a cartoon, and maybe that could be done for a show like that. When you’re doing a comic book, you can concentrate on one character. You know, somebody draws Batman, somebody draws the Joker….

I think it has more to do with digging into the psychology of one character.

To me that makes no sense at all. Either you’re writer and you understand the psychology of characters or you don’t. I don’t know why would you understand the psychology of one character better than another. All the characters in a piece are one version or another of a writer. So the writer is all those characters. That’s my theory. We could never have done the Sopranos that way. Even though I think people who worked on the Soprano tried to make that case, try to say « oh yeah, I did the woman character », but it’s simply not true. That’s why they were fined.

How did the relationship with HBO worked ? I tend to think that writers in the US are more or less very much willing to cooperate with the studio or the marketing department.

There are two things. There’s network show that I worked on and then there’s HBO. When I came to HBO I knew very little about marketing. I was surprised to find out how good they were at promoting the show. And no matter how collaborative they were, marketing the show was never my main focus. I’m a writer. They drew me in that process. So we had a very good relationship. And they always marketed the show very well.
For example, I worked on a show for NBC, called « I’ll fly away ». This show took place in, the south during the civil right struggles in America. When black people were struggling to vote in the south and, you know, sit in the front of a bus and drink a water fountain and all that. That was what it was about. And there’s clashes. It was a pretty tough show. There were blacks being attacked by dogs and firing house down south and every moment you saw the effect of second class citizenship on this character. When NBC went to market the show, they marketed the show with the song of Louis Armstrong called « What a wonderful world » (David starts singing). Well it wasn’t about a wonderful world. It was a brutal one, where half of that world was completely beaten down as citizens. So it was a complete lie. The marketing was a complete lie.

In every « audience » oriented industry, everyone is crazy about « audience segmentation »: i.e. the fact that you need to design a feature, a game or a show based on a specific group (be it of age, sex, interest, etc). For instance, shows such as Gossip Girl target youngsters more than adults, and build from this core audience to appeal to a greater one.
And yet, the true iconic piece of work is one that manages to strike chords for everyone…Sopranos did just that. My 18 years old nephew is a fan of horror movies and video games, an yet he is a big fan of your work…Looking back, did you have any core audience in mind when you conceived the show or was some sort of a miracle ?

Normally, in my work I don’t think too much about that. I don’t think about what audience is this for, because I just try to be creative. I could be interest in making a movie for children. If I do one, I would actually try to make it for children. But other than that, I don’t really concern myself about that. I just made The Sopranos because I thought that was fun and I like the characters and that was it. As it turned out, The Sopranos worked very well pretty wide all across demographics. I’m glad that happened. But that was not my intention. We didn’t make things consciously. We didn’t make anything to make kids love the show. It was a surprise to see that the show was a hit with kids.
If YOU say that the show was groundbreaking. I’m glad to hear you say that. Then I guess we must have doing something right.
It was just the best writing we could, and the best acting we could, and the best directing we could…and at the end of the day I guess we created something that everybody wants to see. I’m glad about that, but I guess yeah, it’s very, very difficult.

There is a strong buzz about webseries, such as the one created by Josh Whedon (Dr Horrible Sing along blog), anything that you watched or payed attention to ?
I have not. Frankly, I just recently got wireless. Like just last year. So once you have wireless everything moves a lot faster and it opens a lot of things to you. I had a dial-up connexion, I didn’t even know about wireless ! And I was working on The Sopranos anyway, so I didn’t really use the internet that much.
It’s not that I don’t like internet series. But, you know, internet is just a vehicle for carrying a signal, just like television is, and just like movie theatre is. They are concrete vehicle for diffusing motion pictures content. So I have nothing against the internet. The one I react negatively to is cell phone. The idea of getting narrative entertainment on cell phones. You know there is so much distraction around. This is another reason why Hollywood has decided to dumb down their movies, because people don’t pay attention anymore. Television is at the start of it. It used to be different in movie theatres in the old days. A hundred people would sit there quietly and watch the movie as it played out, if someone talks they SCHHH. Then, you saw that happening less and less. Because people use to be in their home and watching a series and talking to each other about it, or giving the dog a bath.. So people ability to concentrate becomes compromised because of all these distractions. And it continues up till this day. And now in movie theatres, people are talking all the time. And watching a movie on your cell phone while waiting at an airport… first the image is so bad, the sound is bad, plus the amount of distraction around. I just find it almost offending. David Lynch said « if you watch a movie on your cell phone, you think you’ve seen it but you haven’t seen it. You’ve never seen that movie ». And I agree with that.

What about building up two minutes long programms specifically designed for the cell phone’s constraint ?

You said you were a man who likes contradiction, irony, that’s what you find entertaining. I don’t think you can build that in two minutes on a cell phone.
The « fan culture » is nothing new but the Internet allows the fan to find their audience, which goes public itself to write or direct. At the same time, the networks start considering the public reaction in real time and sometimes integrate their wishes. Is it something you’d be comfortable with ?
I’d be extremely disturbed, I’d rather leave this show. (silence) I think, this all fan culture, and this all new thing about the internet could be an all different stage in human development or in the development of narrative. Because, not anyone has the skills or the temperament to seat down and write a novel. But perhaps, the mechanism in images comes easily, maybe more easily. If anybody can make entertainment, that’s gonna change everything.
They might not need guys like me anymore. Although I think it has potential to be great, it just changes the way we work.

Nothing new, after all, there have always been huge of Star Wars. But today, there are plenty of blogs where fans are making short films, sometimes even new episodes. It is interesting, but it can also destroy the efforts made to certain series. This is what happened with Heroes season 2. The youngster part of his audience was expecting more action, while the writers were trying to build up a long, slow plot… and the writers got crucified, nearly having to apologize while the show was on air.

It’s just like Sovietic Union. It’ like China, they have to go to a session to have their brain fixed, to get rid of their reactionary ideas.
But they should have said « go F yourself ».

Back to your future film, when should it be released ?

We’ll see. I just discussed with Paramount about the idea to finish the script around may. If they say go ahead, we’ll start prepare it over the summer and we shoot it in the autumn or winter of 2009. And then we’ll see. Considering a year of postproduction… I don’t know, maybe winter 2010. No, no wait. (counting ). Maybe summer or fall 2010.
David, thanks for your time.