“There’s no place in the world where you can starve from all the compliments except Hollywood”

Everyone on this panel had their breakthrough by doing the thing they’d been advised not to do. The conversation started there and stayed there.

Edited for length and clarity.

Nia, My Big Fat Greek Wedding started as a one-woman show.

Nia Vardalos: If any press are here, what I’m about to say is a little rude — but the press got that wrong. And I’ve been chasing the story ever since.

It started as a screenplay, because I’d moved to Los Angeles and couldn’t get a job. My agent told me she didn’t want to represent me anymore. She said, I’m going to send you out for Hispanic roles.

And I said, that’s not kind to the Hispanic community — eight thousand actors are vying for the eight Hispanic roles. It isn’t fair to them that I go in and lie and pretend.

So I said, how about some Greek roles?

She said, there aren’t any. And I can’t represent you anymore.

So I went home and made a list of everything that had ever happened to me — including my Aunt Voula, who had a lump on the back of her neck that she claimed was her twin — and I wrote My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Then I took it over to Paramount, because I thought that’s how it happens. I put my return address on it in case they wanted to send me a cheque.

They sent the screenplay right back.

So I thought: how do I get an agent, how do I get this read, how do I get this movie made so I can play a cousin?

I’m a child of the theatre. Second City in Toronto and Chicago. So I rented a theatre with all my voiceover money and played every role in My Big Fat Greek Wedding myself. It started almost exactly the same way the film does — my dad saying, you’d better get married soon, you’re starting to look old.

And the agents never came.

But Rita Wilson and Tom Hanks came to the show. I gave Rita the screenplay so fast her hair flew back.

Then Tom called. And I didn’t believe it was him, because a friend of mine, Brian, had been calling me every day since that show pretending to be Tom Hanks’ assistant. Please hold for Tom Hanks. And I’d go, oh my God! And he’d go, it’s Brian, do you want to go for lunch?

So when Tom Hanks actually called and said, hi, is this Nia — I said, it is. And he said, this is Tom Hanks. And I thought, I’m so tired.

Then I could hear Forrest Gump on the phone.

He said, we’ve read your screenplay, I’m starting a company with Gary Goetzman, and we want to make My Big Fat Greek Wedding our first movie.

And for some insane reason I wanted to ask if I could play a cousin. And instead I said: I’d like to play the bride.

And he said, of course, we’ve talked about it, you’re going to play the bride.

I remember thinking — I should have said, and I want a pony.

Then they couldn’t get it financed. So we went independent. And it came out in about twenty theatres and expanded all summer, because you all went. Thank you.

Diablo, you came in from completely outside.

Diablo Cody: I could not have been more outside. I didn’t grow up around any artists or filmmakers. I had never been on or near a set until Juno was actually being filmed.

My expectations were so low. I’d never in a million years considered a career as a screenwriter. Greta Gerwig has said something similar — that she just thought movies were real. It never occurred to her that she could write one. She’d go and experience them and think, that was amazing.

So when I started writing it felt like nothing would come of this. I had no belief in myself at all. Which made it astonishing and shocking when it worked out.

That first movie was the easiest thing I’ve ever done. Everything since has been absolute hell.

This industry is so competitive that it attracts a lot of really ambitious, confident people who believe in themselves. And I’m always thinking — what are the odds that someone like me did this? Because I’ve never been that kind of person.

How did Mason Novick find you?

I literally had a blog that was just trash. It wasn’t great literature. And he clicked the email link on it and said, I’m a manager in Hollywood and I think you have an interesting voice — have you ever considered writing screenplays?

I thought he was fake.

The funny thing about Mason is he’s not inherently effusive or encouraging, which was good. If he’d been kissing my ass going you’re so talented, this is great, it wouldn’t have worked. He was more like: this is not going to work out, but we should give it a try.

I sent him the Juno script and he said: it has three acts. It’s fine.

Our vibes were compatible that way.

At one point he read some early scenes and said: you know what, Hollywood is the emperor’s new clothes. You don’t actually have to be good at this. So we’re fine.

Graham, you were told not to write The Imitation Game.

Graham Moore: My then-manager was a great person.

I was a novelist. My first book was coming out and I thought that’s what I’d be. I’d briefly tried to be a screenwriter and failed, and I’d gone back to New York with my tail between my legs thinking — well, so much for that, my Hollywood dreams are over, but I can still be a novelist and have a happy life writing books.

But there was one more thing I wanted to write. Just one more script.

It was the Alan Turing story.

I called my manager and said, I’m going to New York, I’m just going to write this one last script. And he said no. That’s the dumbest idea. Absolutely not. Don’t do that.

I was writing it with first-time producers who’d never made a movie. I didn’t control the rights, because there was a book. Every single thing about it was a red flag.

He said: look, I have a fiduciary duty to tell you as your representative. I am begging you. Please do not write this script.

And I said, thank you so much, I really appreciate your honesty in this moment. I’m going to do it.

And to his credit — there was a long silence. And then he said: okay. How can I help?

That was it from then on, and I give him a world of credit for it.

I think it’s everyone’s story here. It’s always the thing you love. There may be people out there who chased what they thought other people would love and had it work out well. I haven’t heard of one. Everyone I know who does this, it’s always just: this is the thing I love more than anything else.

Cord, you found the book yourself.

Cord Jefferson: We all had a terrible 2020. Besides the global pandemic, a show I was pretty sure was going to be made got killed at the very last minute.

It was so close that they were telling me where to get my apartment in New York, near the production offices. Get ready for the move. And then about two weeks before we wrapped the room, they said — actually, it’s off.

That was the first show I’d ever run. I was pushing forty. And it really took the wind out of my sails.

By then I’d staffed on a lot of great shows and I felt comfortable in rooms. So I assumed I’d be a journeyman TV writer working on other people’s shows and never get a thing of my own made. And I resigned myself to that. It’s a good life — I can still be creative and make a good living. I was disappointed, but it didn’t feel like the end of the world. It just felt like the dream of making something of my own wasn’t going to happen.

So that was October. And in December I was in a bookstore looking for something to read at a cabin in Lake Arrowhead.

I picked up Erasure by Percival Everett. I’d read a review a few weeks earlier of Interior Chinatown that described it as a satire reminiscent of Everett’s Erasure. So I thought, oh, I’ve heard of that.

I’m a slow reader. But every time I picked that book up it felt almost electrically charged. I’d be hanging out with friends at the cabin and then find myself back in the room just reading it.

Within fifty pages I emailed my manager and said, I think I’ve found something I want to adapt, can you see if the rights are available.

Within a hundred pages I was reading it in Jeffrey Wright’s voice.

I reached out to Percival as soon as I could in 2021. I said, I don’t have any money to offer you, I just love this and I think it could be a great movie.

And he gave me the rights for free for six months. He said: go write something. If something comes of it, you can pay me when you sell it.

That was the most success I’ve ever had with anything. And it came at my lowest point, when I was certain it wasn’t going to happen.

I don’t think this industry is a meritocracy. I don’t think the best always succeed. But there’s something nice about it, which is that you can always write yourself out of a corner. You can go back to the drawing board and write a script and see if that works, and if it doesn’t, write something else. You’re not guaranteed to succeed. But you can always write yourself away from the walls a little.

How do you stay in the beginner’s mind?

Graham Moore: Everyone here had early success. The first big thing became a huge thing.

I’ve been grappling with this, and I’m honestly asking the panel for advice. Do you find it hard to get back to that beginner’s-mind place? Now you know too much. I make smart decisions now, and it leads to disaster. Whereas fifteen years ago I didn’t know enough to make smart decisions, and it worked out great.

This is a plea for help, not applause.

Diablo Cody: I won’t give you any advice, because I completely agree and I wish I could.

I produce a lot now, so I’ll be writing and thinking — mm, that’s going to be expensive. You’re carrying practical concerns while you write. Whereas when I was writing Juno I was like: movies aren’t real. It’s snowing.

Danya Jimenez: We’re still doing it a bit. We get hired to write other people’s things and our voice is very distinct, so we have to be careful. You’re writing for remakes, or K-pop, and you have to cater your voice to that — which is difficult if you naturally write in a way that isn’t a big studio movie.

So we’ll do an open writing assignment, and then we’ll do one for us. And the one for us is the dumbest, most expensive, most unrealistic genre mashup that nobody wants to make.

Hannah McMechan: We’ve also written the assignments in our voice and been told: can you guys not do that? Write like a normal person.

We got hired to write a rom-com and they came back with — who talks like this?

Danya Jimenez: Yeah. We talk like this.

Cord Jefferson: I was unintentionally fortunate in that I didn’t try writing a movie until I’d been in TV rooms for about seven years.

Every writers’ room is different, and it forces you to think on your feet about how to be successful in that room. Every showrunner has a different sense of humour, tone, style. So I learned to write in other people’s voices. That became part of my skill set — okay, this guy is totally different from my last boss, how do I write in this style to make this show successful?

That’s what being successful in a room is. Working toward somebody else’s vision instead of your own. And it helped me enormously in the long run.

What happens when everyone tells you how wonderful you are?

Nia Vardalos: Just go home. Go visit your mom in Winnipeg. You can come to my house and my mom will tell you to take the chicken out of the oven.

It’s really wonderful when people tell you how talented you are. But it’s just first-date talk.

Luckily we all have a duality running through us, which is that we absolutely self-loathe and love ourselves. That’s the writer’s journey. As you’re writing you think this is terrible, it won’t sell, it isn’t authentic. And you wake up the next day and write it and go — that’s all right. Okay. Act two.

It’s a weird feeling, that we have to trust and hate and push and love ourselves.

Cord Jefferson: And a lot of the time when people compliment you, it’s bullsh*t.

A friend of mine says there’s no place in the world where you can starve from all the compliments except Hollywood. That’s true.

When I took out American Fiction I was in rooms with people telling me this was one of the best scripts they’d ever read. We shopped it to twelve distributors, all of them effusive in the room. Oh my God, this is amazing.

And when it came time for actual offers, we got two. One of which was three million dollars less than the production budget.

So really we got one offer.

So much of this town is lip service. Somebody says I really love this, and you say — great, can we make it? And they say, no way, we’re not going to make it at all. Good luck out there.

And you think, well, I thought you really loved it.

This town is full of liars.

But the flip side is the good news. The same people who tell you they love it have no idea what they’re talking about. So when somebody tells you this sucks, this isn’t going to work — you realise they don’t actually know that either.

Nobody knows what they’re talking about. Nobody has any idea. So as much as people say you’re great, don’t take their word for it. Maybe you’re not. But when somebody says you’re not great, don’t take their word for that either. Maybe you are.

It’s really up to you.

Nia Vardalos: My Big Fat Greek Wedding was made for five million dollars and made the cost of a small country. So everybody thinks I have a magic wand. They’ll bring me a movie budgeted at twenty-seven million and say — can you make it for five?

No. I cannot.

How do you handle notes?

Graham Moore: That happened to me on Friday. It’s every week, making things.

Some notes are great. Some you think, hm, let me carry that around. And some, if you did them, would make this not the thing you wanted to make in the first place.

It helps to be able to put your foot down and say: if I did that, I can’t spend the next year or two of my life on this every day. Shoot me in the head now. I’ll just leave.

And sometimes you do leave. Sometimes the threat of leaving scares people. But not always — and never threaten to leave unless you’re actually prepared to. I’ve made that mistake.

Also, if you’re working with people whose opinions you trust and something is bugging them, there’s usually a good reason, even if they can’t articulate it, or even if their articulation isn’t the real thing.

It’s not really about compromise. If one person likes salt and one likes pepper, there’s a compromise between salt and pepper — but surely you can find a meal both diners will enjoy.

Diablo Cody: I’m actually incredibly amenable to notes, because I haven’t written a hit in a very long time. At this point I’m coasting on my easygoing personality.

I’ll pretty much always do the note unless I’m pushed somewhere insane. Like the first pilot I ever wrote, for UPN — that’s how long ago this was. It was about lawyers. And they called and said, okay, we love it, but we want them all to be dentists.

I probably did it, though. In fact, I know I did.

There are so many hit shows about dentists.

Nia Vardalos: I’m a Canadian middle child. You’ll get more of a pushover than me.

But I’ve realised that everyone wants to be heard. So often I’ll try their note on one scene and show it to them, and people cave. They’ll say, oh, that doesn’t work. And I say — great, let’s lose it.

The thing I do push back on: because I write comedies, if a character is getting laughs, they want more of her. And I say — you can’t make a soup out of pepper. If she’s a side character getting laughs because I’ve sprinkled her through the play, I can’t make more of her, or you’ve just got pepper soup.

There’s a joke I want to tell you. A writer, a director and a producer go to lunch and all order the potato soup.

The writer takes a sip and says, this soup is perfect, I wouldn’t change a thing.

The director takes a sip and says, well, I might add a few spices. Maybe a little pepper.

And the producer takes a sip and says: nope, I agree with the writer, this soup is perfect. Do you mind if I take a sh*t in it?

That’s what you’ve got to fight every day.

Hannah McMechan: We’re easy-going with notes, mostly because we give each other notes all the time, and probably not in the nicest ways. We’re harsher with each other because we can be.

What we’re figuring out now is that some things are just a taste issue. Is this note about structure, about character, is it actually beneficial to the script — or do you just not like the way we went about it and would prefer it another way?

If it’s the second one, we’re not changing it. Why would we?

Danya Jimenez: Having a writing partner is enormously helpful for learning to take notes. If we both disagree with a note, it’s probably not a good note. If we’re fighting about it, it’s an issue. If one of us agrees with it, we should probably address it.

Cord Jefferson: I put notes in three categories. A good note — you know one when you get it. A bad note — you know one of those too.

The worst note I ever got was on that 2020 show. The lead was Black, and an executive sent word through my manager that he should be blacker.

This was 2020. Not 1965.

I told my manager I’d be willing to indulge that note if whoever gave it would sit across a table from me and tell me what it looks like to be blacker.

The note went away.

The third category is an incorrect note. That’s when somebody notices something is off, and they’re giving you a note because it feels off — but the note isn’t what’s actually wrong.

Maybe they shouldn’t all be dentists. But their profession is off for some reason. Something is wrong there, and it isn’t dentists, but it also isn’t what I put in.

Those I take time with, because usually when somebody finds something wrong, it’s something I was already queasy about myself. I already knew this character wasn’t working, and I was ignoring it so I could plough forward to the next scene.

A lot of notes are good notes if you read them as: this diagnosis is off-base, but your feeling is right.

Nia Vardalos: Their solutions are subjective. They come from their own lives. I always say — circle the area you want me to look at, but don’t offer solutions. Because the solution will be make him a shoe salesman, and it’s because they have a cousin who’s a shoe salesman.

KPop Demon Hunters took years. What was it like to leave and come back?

Danya Jimenez: We started writing it in 2020.

We were on it the first two years, then there was a year away, and then we came back in about the fourth year of development.

When we were first told we weren’t coming back, we were devastated. We cried.

Hannah McMechan: We got really drunk.

Danya Jimenez: We’d spent so long on it — the first couple of drafts and the treatment with the directors. And then they said, it’s going to Netflix now, and there’ll probably be new writers at Netflix. It had been at Sony in the beginning.

They said, but we want you to come back.

And of course, everybody’s a liar. So we thought — sure. Whatever.

A year later, they did. They kept their word. Which was actually very shocking.

Hannah McMechan: And when we came back, most of the changes were things we’d already discussed. The structure was the same. Characters had been added that we’d talked about. Celine was in our early drafts, then they said actually not Celine, and Celine turned into Bobby, and then we pulled them apart into two different people. They’d been one person.

Things we’d taken in, out, in, out were back in.

How do you write a character an actor wants to play?

Cord Jefferson: Make them interesting, no matter what.

There’s Occam’s Razor, and there’s a different one called Hanlon’s Razor: never ascribe to malice what can be more accurately ascribed to ignorance or stupidity.

The vast majority of people in the world do not wake up saying, I want to be a dick today. They wake up saying, I’m going to do right by people. I’m going to make good decisions, treat people kindly, do the work I need to do to make the world better. They think of themselves as good people. Very few people wake up planning to be the villain.

So when I sit down to write I think: what is this person doing that they believe is good, that might actually be bad?

And on putting yourself into characters — what I try to think is not that I’m putting a piece of myself into every character, but that every character is already like me, because they’re human beings. So you don’t have to put yourself in. They’re already like you in a certain way.

A lot of notes are good notes if you read them as: this diagnosis is off-base, but your feeling is right.

Cord Jefferson speaking on stage at State of the Story, Los Angeles