0:17

That was badman that you came Backman, we

0:19

are recording? Are we actually recording?

0:22

Now? Are recording? Oh

0:25

no, stop with the buttons. This is terrible. Hold

0:27

on, wow,

0:31

this is like shock jock stuff. It is.

0:33

It is. Thank you everyone, Thank you. I'm

0:41

gonna have fun. I'm gonna have fun with that one every

0:44

time, every time everyone in the dive

0:46

track like a network sitcom, like some no

0:48

matter what hysteric. So, Tommy, where

0:51

are you from

0:54

Poughkeepsie? All

0:57

right, Jack, take it away, take it away, take

1:00

away. So we just wrapped table read our

1:03

most recent recording, our sixth, our

1:06

sixth the script record.

1:08

It is our sixth script and we had a script

1:11

by writer Tommy Wallack. That's

1:13

just incredible. Tommy is here with us.

1:15

Hello, I'm here. Erica Schechter is

1:17

here with us from Desert Whale. Hi. And

1:20

we just did a reading of this incredible script.

1:23

Pevian, Franny and Tommy, tell me a little

1:25

bit about you, and tell me a little bit about this script.

1:28

I can do that. Probably. Probably

1:30

what's important about it is it's a script about

1:32

music. I grew up in

1:34

music world. I was a musical theater actor.

1:37

As a kid, I was doing like eight shows a week.

1:39

Oh, don't do it. That's

1:42

great, that's solid, thank you. It is funny.

1:45

And then I kind of switched over to trying to be a singer

1:47

songwriter, sort of Rufus wayIn Wright, ben

1:49

fold Zey, piano based stuff.

1:53

And I was trying to do it when I was a teenager. And

1:55

I got really excited about this idea of a

1:58

couple of teenagers starting a b together

2:00

because that's such a unique and special

2:02

time. And there have been shows and

2:05

movies a lot of them about musicians and bands,

2:07

but very few about that really

2:09

special team time. You want to start a band,

2:12

No, I want to continue a band, but with

2:14

more musicians than I have now. Oh, how

2:16

many musicians do you have? Now? One?

2:18

What do you play? Guitar? Leader, rhythm?

2:21

Yes, what about you? Primarily

2:24

cassio, b alton, monophonic syndecizer and glockenspiel.

2:27

Cool. So what do you want to

2:29

call the band? What's your name again? Franny?

2:32

Hmmm? Probably just a movie called singh

2:34

Street, which is amazing is that that

2:36

does this this kind of area, but

2:39

not a series. So I got really excited about

2:41

that, and that's sort of where it came from And how long ago did

2:43

you write the script? A while? This has

2:45

been around. So I had the script probably four

2:48

years ago, maybe even five, and

2:50

my sort of team, I'm doing air

2:52

quotes. My team at the time was

2:55

just like no, no, we don't get it. No

2:57

no, So it never It wasn't even like sent

2:59

out people. It was just like kind of a thing in a drawer.

3:02

And then I got a new manager, as happens

3:04

sometimes in this business, and she loved

3:07

it. It's Nedda and she

3:09

sent it to everyone on Earth. And

3:11

that's when desert Will came on board.

3:14

Yeah, yeah about that. Were

3:17

you one of the people who did the reading or was it placed

3:19

on your desk for someone else or did you discover

3:21

this? Yeah? So Desert Will, for context

3:24

is Ty Burrell's production company and I

3:26

run it with him. And this Netta

3:29

had reached out. She said she has an amazing script,

3:31

something that we would be crazy not to consider.

3:34

She sent it to us and I read everything

3:37

that comes across my desk and with the help of Crisca,

3:40

and the minute I read it, there was something

3:42

there. You know, you read a lot in this business,

3:45

and it's very easy to tell very quickly. If

3:47

something has something special,

3:49

and this script was undeniable. It's one of the best scripts

3:51

to this day I've ever read. And so

3:54

what was it? You read scripts every day? I mean, listen,

3:56

I love the script. It's incredible. It's so funny. Time he's a

3:58

genius. But break it down. It was special

4:00

about the script. It was so funny and

4:02

so charming, and so it

4:05

occupied its tone from the moment

4:07

you read the first page, you just

4:09

fall into this world. It's

4:11

surreal, it's heightened, but it also

4:14

has air conditioning.

4:16

That's okay,

4:19

but we're just about to take off. We're on the jet. We didn't

4:21

tell the audience. The script is so

4:23

surreal, it's so heightened,

4:25

but it's also so grounded in this relationship

4:28

between these two kids. And everyone's been in

4:30

Franny's shoes and had a crush, and everyone's

4:33

at least I've been in Pv' shoes and they hated

4:36

everyone. You're right, Franny, it must

4:38

have been one of those terrible musicians.

4:41

You've passed your audition. Let's start a band.

4:43

She puts out a hand to shake, but as Franny reach

4:45

us for it, PV pulls back. Does to

4:48

be perfectly clear once we're in a band together,

4:50

there can never be any sort of romantic relationship between

4:52

us. Oh

4:54

why, I mean not that, not

4:57

that it, but why. I just thought

4:59

it was so relatable well, and it was just so in

5:01

itself. There's a lot of scripts that you read

5:03

that like, aren't fully there. They're not they

5:05

don't have everything. They are funny,

5:07

but they're not structured well, or they're

5:10

not about something special

5:12

enough. And this one just checked every box.

5:14

It checked it for us too. The minute that you

5:16

sent it to us, we all read it and

5:19

immediately we thought, well, why

5:21

isn't this something yet? Because it was

5:23

so good and and you know, the aspect

5:25

of the kids and their music, and you

5:28

know, when we saw the songs, you

5:30

know, it's such passion

5:32

and weirdness in

5:34

those songs. It's so freaking beautiful.

5:37

It's interesting. While we were reading

5:40

the first act and I said this to you, and I don't

5:42

know if I said this to you, Tommy, I thought, who

5:44

passed on this? Because I think

5:46

it's so brilliant, And you

5:48

know, once we kind of get it fully formulated

5:51

with music and sound effects and everything, I

5:53

think it's undeniably something that needs

5:55

to be seen as well as being heard.

5:58

I'll tell you who passionate that this the returnity

6:00

of Hollywood. Yes men who are only looking

6:02

for things that are like something else,

6:04

hold on, say that paternity of what I

6:06

said. Well, the problem is it's Hollywood superficial. Yes

6:08

men, thank you, Mark. We

6:10

have to lighten that up because we do want

6:12

this to be smy You know what I mean. I mean the

6:15

networks, you know, that's what they're buying, is

6:17

this kind of sitcom. Yes, you know, it's no different

6:19

than Hollywood when they're they're buying superhero films

6:21

and not romance. They're buying action, not drama.

6:24

Well, I could tell you that everyone

6:26

who read it had amazing feedback.

6:28

And you can tell when people pass on

6:30

something and they didn't like it, you

6:32

get the Hollywood pass, you get the yeah,

6:35

yeah it was really great, but or like it's just

6:37

not for us. With this one, every pass

6:40

was very intentional and thoughtful, and it

6:42

really, I think came down to programming. They're

6:44

slates and if we're being honest,

6:47

scripts in the young adult shows in

6:49

the young adult space just don't attract

6:52

super wide viewership. That drives AD

6:54

revenue, and that drives a ton of eyeballs.

6:56

This script, in my opinion, is a script that

6:58

everyone can relate to in terms of, you

7:00

know, buyers programming their slates. They

7:03

across the board were not looking for YA.

7:05

And there were some buyers who had YA projects

7:08

already on their slates, and I thought, well, what a fantastic companion,

7:10

and they're like, those didn't do great for us. I do

7:12

think also, this is a moment in Hollywood

7:15

where there's some disruption obviously

7:17

even before the strikes, with restructures

7:20

and on the corporate level. So I'm holding out hope. I'm going

7:22

to say they're going to spend this strike summer

7:24

evaluating their slates and saying we need more YA.

7:27

Yeah, and uh

7:31

Ya means young adult. Oh that was

7:33

very nice. Yeah. So I was a young

7:35

adult novelist. So that was how

7:37

I got into screenwriting. Was I wrote books

7:39

first, and I wrote in the young adult space

7:42

a bunch of books. And I've been through this a

7:44

lot, so things that got optioned. I

7:46

adapted a couple of my things, one as a movie,

7:48

one is a series, and in both cases I got the same

7:51

kind of response, which is like, why

7:53

are programming is kind of tough for us? HBO

7:55

was like, we're trying it with this thing called euphoria. We'll let

7:58

you know how it goes. Truly, how did that go? By the way,

8:00

you know what I actually I think you have

8:02

a you have a smirk, like maybe it went terribly? Did it

8:04

go terribly? I watched a couple of episodes that I thought

8:07

it was. I thought it was interesting. It was a very interesting

8:09

take. Yes,

8:11

absolutely huge. Yeah, so very different

8:13

vibe from from this though. The closest

8:16

thing to like an inspiration show to this. And

8:18

I'm showing my age here because

8:20

a lot of people don't know this show. But long ago, there

8:22

was a TV show on Nickelodeon called The

8:25

Adventures of Pete and Pete

8:29

Strange. You

8:32

look your apper Range,

8:36

I can say, well,

8:39

have you been a dog yet?

8:46

I don't know if anyone remembers this show, but

8:49

it was amazing. I'm sure

8:51

nobody watched it. It was I

8:53

did okay, awesome, we both did. I mean I had,

8:55

yes, I had like bootleg DVDs of it. It

8:57

was a show for kids that you know

8:59

in the credits, one of the the thirteen

9:02

year old boy his tattoo was a character

9:04

that was in the credits. This is live actions is not

9:06

animated. Their bus driver who

9:09

took them to school was played by Iggy Pop

9:11

actually Iggy Popow and they cast

9:13

all of these New York performance artists in all

9:15

of the roles. It was the most

9:17

surreal, wonderful thing. I would be terrified

9:20

if Iggy Pop or my school bus driver he was

9:23

kind of terrified. Yeah, that was the energy. By

9:25

the way, Tommy has

9:28

I think you were a little You

9:30

weren't as generous to yourself as you should be. Tommy's a

9:32

New York Times bestseller. His

9:35

book, his novel We All Looked Up is phenomenal

9:37

and everyone should, especially anyone who enjoys

9:40

listening to PV and Franny should read that book. It's

9:42

phenomenal, Absolutely, Tommy, I wanted to touch on that.

9:44

I mean, do you come from an entertainment family?

9:46

How is it that you're playing instruments and writing

9:49

books and no taking of screenplays

9:51

and no. So Franny's story is my

9:54

own. I was raised by a single mom, only child,

9:56

and my mom was an airline pilot. She was the tenth

9:58

female pilot in America. Actually wow, so

10:01

so no, just a lot of time alone. That's

10:04

where it all came from. Yeah, and

10:06

what are you doing now outside of PV and Franny? What are

10:08

you doing? Yes? I do

10:10

a lot of film and TV stuff, though not right now obviously

10:12

we're on strike, go strike. I

10:15

own an escape room, the number

10:17

one escape room in la Oh. We're called

10:19

Hatch. I was gonna say, give me plug. Is there a website you

10:22

remember that Hatch. We're called Hatch Escapes. Our room

10:24

is called Labrat, and we're building our second room,

10:26

which is this epic thing. It actually stars

10:29

an actor named Jordan Belfy who is on Entourage,

10:31

and an actor named Tony Reve Laurie who

10:33

was the bell hop from the Grand Budapest Hotel, which

10:35

is also kind of a touchstone for PV and Franny or

10:37

something I haven't told you. Akatha,

10:40

Okay, we stole a painting. It's very

10:42

valuable, maybe five million cluebacks. In fact,

10:44

I don't know if anyone's even noticed it's missing it, but something

10:47

should happen to me and mister Gustak. You steal

10:49

art one picture.

10:52

Anyway, we need to make a plan for your survival. II.

10:54

This it's in code and you might need a magnifying

10:56

glass to read it, but it tells you exactly where and how to find

10:59

Boy with Apple take less than half the retail

11:01

lasting price. Also, I'm a baker

11:04

filmed. Obviously he's not going to be live in the room. That would

11:06

be insane in his career would have to take a very bad

11:08

turn. And then I also just wrote

11:11

a musical. I spent the past year

11:13

and a half writing a musical that's a retelling

11:15

of Frankenstein said in the nineteen fifties, and

11:17

I'm doing a developmental reading of

11:19

that up in New York in September.

11:21

So those are those are the main things. Yeah,

11:25

just a few things. A couple of things Erica.

11:27

What's on slate for Desert Whale?

11:30

Well, well take this what's on hold

11:32

for Desert to strike out of the equation. We

11:35

have a couple of projects that we sold last

11:38

year or the year before that are still alive, still kicking.

11:40

Hopefully we'll pick them up. We have a sitcom

11:42

at ABC called Forgive

11:44

and Forget, written by this phenomenal writer Eugene

11:47

Garcia Cross about

11:50

basically a father son's story. It's

11:52

a comedy about Alzheimer's but

11:54

it's really based on Eugene's personal experience.

11:57

The most forgettable comedy on this. I

12:00

couldn't push that button. I know,

12:02

no, it sounds crazy, but

12:04

unforgettable, right forgive and forget?

12:07

Okay, all right, close, you would

12:09

have gotten there. It's a father son's story and estranged

12:11

father and son. You know, they haven't their

12:13

polar opposites. The father gets diagnosed

12:15

with early on sat Alzheimer's and has

12:18

to reconnect with the son, and then they have to live together

12:20

under the same roof. And it's it's a project

12:23

that like this, like what we Love is a company

12:25

as stories that can make you laugh, can warm

12:28

your heart, maybe even make you cry. I think the

12:30

best comedies do all of that. Well,

12:32

thanks you guys, Thank you both, Thanks so much

12:34

for making this all happen. Yeah, what did you think of

12:36

the screams?

12:52

Those were the greatest screens. They were really

12:54

impassionateble screams. God. Yeah, because on the demo

12:56

I had to do the screams on the demo and

12:58

they were so lackluss. Well, we're

13:01

going to talk to Kensington and we're going to bring up

13:03

the screams. I don't know if you guys can hear that plane.

13:06

I think it's a plane missed it. We

13:08

missed the plane. Yeah, awkward coming

13:10

to you live from the bourbonk Hollywood Airport, run

13:13

the tarmac. We're about to say off, guys,

13:16

Thank you very much. It was really it was our pleasure bringing

13:18

this script to Live today because we love

13:20

doing this and when we find a script

13:22

that just speaks to us myself,

13:26

Jack and Sean, we really

13:28

want to push hard to make it the best that we can.

13:30

So thanks for writing something so

13:32

brilliant. Thank you Erica

13:34

for trusting us uh with

13:36

this and bringing it to our attention.

13:39

Yeah, and for you know, we thank you guys for putting

13:41

it together. Absolutely phenomenal performers

13:43

today and a plane.

13:49

Thanks you guys. Thank you. Boking chat with Jack

13:55

and Mark back. So, who that's

13:57

pretty good? What are we here with? So this is Liam

13:59

Richardson. Liam is playing Franny

14:03

and Kensington Tallman is playing PV.

14:05

These are our leads in the fabulous

14:08

Tommy Wallack script PV and Franny.

14:10

Hi kids, Hi, how

14:12

was your experience today? Absolutely incredible?

14:15

It was awesome, excellent. Now

14:17

did you enjoy the characters? Did you find them relatable?

14:20

Yes? One hundred percent. I love

14:23

PV. I think she just has so much

14:25

confidence, and I think that's what I love about her the

14:27

most. And I just really connected with

14:29

her in a really unique way. And I think the script

14:31

was so brilliantly written and I just

14:33

had a blast. Everyone was so awesome. Oh yeah, Tommy

14:35

did a great job, and you did a beautiful job

14:38

bringing PV to life. Now, are there

14:40

things that you found relatable about the character that

14:42

you see in yourself? And no,

14:46

no, we got to try that wrong place for the Okay,

14:49

what I want to know is tell me things about the character that you

14:51

found relatable, and tell me things about the character that

14:53

you found enviable. I loved that

14:56

PV had this amazing

14:58

I think the confidence because I think

15:01

I myself am pretty confident, but I

15:03

also would love to have more confidence.

15:05

And I love how she just she doesn't

15:07

say sorry, She just doesn't take no for an

15:09

answer. She just is herself. What about the

15:11

album? I'm torn at the moment. Either

15:14

My Sorrow is stepthless or Where's

15:16

My Pony? They're both

15:19

really good. I know you

15:21

want to hear a song? Sure, Peev stands up

15:23

and shouts at the buristo who's been playing a tranquil

15:25

Nora Jones tune, Hey

15:29

Hey. He turns off the song.

15:31

She sits cross legged, cracks her knuckles. This

15:36

one's called. I think that was a really important

15:39

lesson that I learned from PV, knowing that it's

15:41

enough to be yourself and it's enough to

15:43

just be who you are. Absolutely,

15:46

Liam, tell me a little bit about Franny. Tell me what

15:48

you relate to bet for me. I find Franny

15:50

way more relatable than I probably care to admit.

15:54

He's just like a dufist.

15:56

He's an awkward, like lovable guy,

15:59

and I find a lot of things

16:01

relatable. I don't know if I find anything enviable

16:04

maybe about him. I relate a

16:06

lot to his awkwardness. Sorry

16:08

to interrupt, I just wanted to let you

16:10

know you've been invited to join my band,

16:13

our band, me and peev Heevee

16:15

wants me to join her band. Yes, we

16:18

both do our band, so rehearsals

16:20

aren't Thursdays. I'll tell you he really wants

16:22

to do something right, like

16:24

he really wants to get this thing right.

16:27

Absolutely So. The script

16:29

deals with the you know partly,

16:32

the chase and the retreat

16:35

with you know, Franny, kind of chasing

16:37

after PV and PV kind of going. No,

16:41

he's setting up boundaries very quickly. Great

16:44

platonic bandmates for life. First

16:46

rehearsal tomorrow. Sure, Oh

16:48

wait, I can't. I've got Chinese class.

16:51

We'll have to do Wednesday. Do you find that that's

16:53

kind of a real life scenario

16:56

in your age group at this particular

16:58

point in life. Definitely, That's

17:00

definitely something happens to

17:02

people in day to day life. Yeah, I think

17:04

one hundred percent. I think you know

17:06

people saying like, oh, you know, like if we're in a band

17:09

together, Oh, if we're doing this project together. Oh

17:11

like if we're working together at

17:13

a wherever. I think Yeah, I think, like you

17:15

said, Liam, I think it's very relatable in

17:17

that sense. Yeah. So, Kensington, you

17:19

were fantastic. Tell me a little bit about what you're

17:21

doing now and how it is you ended

17:24

up in Hollywood on screen. Thank

17:26

you so much. Well, I've been doing

17:28

some on screen and

17:30

animation stuff, and I just

17:33

I love acting, and I love

17:35

performing, and I love art so much. I

17:37

want to continue acting, and

17:40

I'd also love to produce one

17:42

day and direct even right, I think,

17:44

just you know, continue to do what I

17:47

love. This was such a fun experience.

17:49

Yeah, I heard you say you've done what voice work before?

17:51

Where else have you done voice work? I am

17:53

doing some animated things for Nick and

17:56

Disney, which is some

17:58

like Disney Junior and Nick Junior's

18:01

stuff, and then I have some upcoming animated projects

18:03

in the future. Yeah, and Liam, tell

18:05

me about you. You're a musician, you're an actor. Tell

18:07

me how you ended up doing this and what you've been up to. Yeah. I've

18:09

always been a part of like the voice

18:12

acting community. My

18:15

mom's a voice actor, so I've always

18:17

loved this line of work. And yeah,

18:20

I play the guitar and I play keyboard

18:23

and ukulelean babe,

18:25

So you are Franny. Yeah,

18:32

anything anything,

18:42

anything except that

18:46

c That's

18:48

why when I saw the script, it spoke so much

18:50

to me. And I'm also going to school

18:53

for animation, so when I read it, I was like, this is totally

18:55

an animated show I would watch. It was

18:58

an awesome experience. I really enjoyed,

19:00

especially working with Tommy. He's such a

19:02

cool guy. I like him. Yeah, yes

19:05

he is, he is. Jack. I

19:07

think we're good. I got the backstory. We're going to

19:09

be good to go, guys.

19:12

You guys were fantastic in about

19:14

six or eight weeks, and I'll keep you in the

19:16

loop so you can hear it, and I look forward to working with you both

19:18

again. Yeah, you guys did great. Thank you so

19:20

much. Thank you for having us today. Enjoy

19:22

the rest of your day. You too, You too,

19:30

You can overlap. I

19:32

just don't don't know why. I love