Soo Hugh: Yeah, the rhythm’s a huge thing. So you’re translating not only from script to script, but then there’s also the translation process that happens in the edit process. So it’s re-translated again in edit because actually what’s spoken is different. So we came up with a really complicated system that involved many layers of translators, which is the first round translators who are the fast translators. And you guys are talking about AI that will be replaced by AI. I can tell, right? Then you have the second round, which was done by actual screenwriters and they did the next level, then we did a third round where that was then back translated. And that’s a different skillset. Someone who can translate the original language back into it and you’re just like, oh my god.
Lynn Nottage: Yeah, because you’re reading the back translation.
Soo Hugh: The back translations and then giving notes and then going back. It’s a crazy process and your take, it’s a leap of faith.
Lynn Nottage: But the back translation is always very interesting because you have someone who translates it and then someone who translates it back to you from their translation to make sure that it aligns.
Soo Hugh: And you would think you’re like, why would it not align? You’re like, no.
Lynn Nottage: But it doesn’t, it doesn’t always align. And it’s really important to have that back translation because as they say, a lot is lost in translation.
Speaker 3: Are the actors phonetically doing some of the parts or do they speak Japanese and Korean?
Soo Hugh: Well, so Jin, who plays Solomon, he-
Lynn Nottage: Speaks all three?
Soo Hugh: No.
Lynn Nottage: Oh.
Soo Hugh: We looked for the unicorn. We really tried desperately. The Unicorn is not there, who’s also a brilliant actor, but Jin, you know, he just has one of those language minds, right? So he speaks Korean, does not speak any Japanese, but in addition, he had to learn dialects within the languages and he had the hardest job on set and he really did.
Lynn Nottage: He definitely does.
Speaker 3: So do you have a translator in the writer’s room? How do you?
Soo Hugh: Not in the writer’s room. Yeah, we didn’t, but we had writers from so many different cultures. Like some of them were fluent Korean speakers, some of them were Japanese speakers. So that translation happens after the scripts are written.
Speaker 4: It sounds like you had a very clear picture of the serial nature of your show. In the case, let’s say a different show that you’d be doing, I imagine that you have very, you see character arcs even in an episodic the way possibly you would. As you mentioned, you beat up the seasons backward. How would you approach pitching a show, let’s say in a dramatic comedy category where it could be that, you know, episode of the week, how would you approach pitching something that people maybe want to see as an episodic? And it is an episodic, but when you inside know that this could easily be a serial. So when people say, is it serial or is that episodic? But you see the arcs and you see the season and you can see it in a serial way, but you’re pitching it as in the close and in the nature, it being an episodic. How would you approach that?
Soo Hugh: I think from your question, I’m going to assume you want to tell it one way. So tell it the way you want it, right? Which is, I mean, nowadays, there’s such fluidity that most shows I think are pretty hybrid where they have episodic engines within a serialized arc. I feel like that’s pretty accepted now. So if it’s like a drama, you could have episodic runs, but it sounds like the thing you’re most interested in is that serialized part of it. So that’s the story you should pitch.
Speaker 5: Can you talk a little bit more about how you select people in your writer’s room? I mean, you already gave us an initial explanation.
Soo Hugh: Okay, so I’m going to give you guys the truth, okay. So when I first did my first show, I read 500 scripts and I was so diligent where I said, I’m going to read them. I’m not going to do the terrible thing of reading the first five pages, I really, really did read and I told the agents, don’t filter it, send it to me, that, I don’t think… It didn’t work. So I will say the truth is I only read scripts that are sent to me by, there’s a handful of agents and managers I trust, and also ones that the studio and network have already vetted for me. So there’s already that filtering that’s already been done, which doesn’t feel fair, I’ll be honest, right. And I just don’t know how else to get around it because otherwise the alternative is reading 500 scripts and it doesn’t get you the better room. So I wish there was a way where you had access to new voices that didn’t have the gatekeepers, but you just wade through a lot of not great scripts.
Lynn Nottage: And have you found in both of your rooms that it’s been a really lovely balance of people?
Soo Hugh: Yeah, I mean, well in Pachinko, because I didn’t know, I didn’t want just screenwriters. There’s a poet I’ve always loved. So we went after her, we went after David Mitchell. I’m a huge David Mitchell fan. I was like, there’s no way David Mitchell is ever going to staff on a show. And so we reached out to him and he did. And Chang-Rae also. I was like, there’s no way Chang-Rae will do a show. So like what’s now amazing is because television has become so popular and people fall in love with television, it really does give you access to all these people that you never thought would be good in a room. And they’re great in a room.
Speaker 6: The show looks very authentic. Are you in Korea shooting? Is that a real fish market? I was just curious like what that was like filming fish and the authentic people.
Soo Hugh: That was Vancouver. So we always shoot half in Canada and half in Korea. We do plate shoots in Japan, but I’m glad you bought it, thank you. Our production design team is amazing.
Speaker 7: I loved your work on that show. But you mentioned early in the conversation about the difference between timeline of writers rooms, of the early odds, the nineties of like the half year know timelines versus like mini rooms of staff of going from 20 to eight. In the post-stripe world, do you see it balancing where there’s a… Because I just moved back from LA, no one’s really developing anything. Like I had a friend at Disney, she got laid off that she was like, oh, we’re just doing a bear and that’s really it. And we’re not seeing, is there a world where we get to that middle ground of mid-length rooms, mid-staff writers rooms, or is it going to be, I like seeing clips of the show. I was like, oh, this is like an international co-pro, like that’s going away. Like where do you guys see the industry going in terms of how these types of shows and the stories are constructed and executed?
Soo Hugh: Well, I’d love to hear what you think from your point of view. And there’s good and bad news. The bad news is those numbers will never come back, the number of shows. But we all knew it but didn’t know it. That’s the truth.
Lynn Nottage: Well, I can tell you what my concerns are and the contraction is real. And I do think that the industry, there was this golden moment, and I don’t know that that golden moment can ever return in the way that it did. My biggest concern right now in this post-election world is the way in which streamers are going to begin to respond to certain pressures from outside. And they’re going to begin making choices based on those pressures that are going to further contract the industry, that are going to make the industry less diverse, less adventurous. And so I just worry, and I don’t know.
Soo Hugh: We saw the Disney thing about the transcript.
Lynn Nottage: We’ve seen it already, and I think that we’re just at the very beginning of it. And the term that I’ve been using is invisible curation, is that we won’t even understand that it’s happening because we won’t be in the rooms in which those people are making those decisions. But five years from now, we’ll wonder, it’s like why aren’t these stories there anymore? And I don’t know, and perhaps this is a question for you, Soo. How do we fight that and how do we push back?
Soo Hugh: And that’s such a good question. I think the good news is this for writers starting out, is there’s a return to a certain form of filmmaking and TV making that is good for younger and newer writers. And that is broadcast television and broadcast-like television, what we call blue skies television, right? We may not think it’s the sexiest thing in the world, right? But the shows that do these 13, 16 episodes, those shows will need writers and they’re going to send writers to set those shows. The shows like Pachinko couldn’t send writers to set because the scripts were done a year after the writing room. So the one good thing is these new shows coming out, I think they will train the next level because they need writers on set.
So broadcast television and broadcast type storytelling, like what are these shows that are really big now? You know what I’m talking about? Like procedurals, they call them procedurals, they’re very big now.
Speaker 4: Tracker.
Soo Hugh: Yes. Reacher, Tracker, all of those. One word with men, all of them. Those are going to be great training grounds and you’re going to learn a shitload, right? So they’re not going to take a risk on Pachinko. Pachinko would never get made. Now I think the heartening news is I do hope voices of diversity have now entrenched enough in there that we won’t be diversity hires. I think that is now a given. I do not think they’ll take risk on diverse shows though.
Lynn Nottage: Yeah, they won’t. But so what that means for writers of color is that you’re in a system that’s not supporting your voice, really. You sort of disappear back into the trenches and become a foot soldier as opposed to a general.
Soo Hugh: Do you think that will reignite other forms of arts? Like do you think theater will get better because it needs to pick up where TV failed?
Lynn Nottage: Hopefully it will bring some voices back to theater, because I think one of the unfortunate things is with sort of this golden moment in television that so many of the insurgent voices immediately went west to write for television. And I think now they’re not going to move as quickly out of theater and spend time really nurturing and developing their voices. So perhaps it could be great for theater, but theater is also struggling from the same things that film and television are struggling from. It’s more expensive, more conservative choices are being made, it’s contracting.
Soo Hugh: So it’s going to be a weird… a weird time.
Lynn Nottage: It’s going to be weird times.
Soo Hugh: And yeah.
Speaker 5: How are you thinking about your next projects or what you’re able to share?
Soo Hugh: So I’m doing a show right now that will hopefully I’ll be able to speak about soon. But it’s as far from what Pachinko, not because I’m not, but just because I do think I need a little bit of levity in my life. So it’s, I call it’s a genre mashup told with a subversive grin, but it’s very different from Pachinko. And I think it’s honestly the kind of shows that will get made.
Speaker 8: Because you went and shot in Vancouver and you also said Japan and all that, because basically the trend is that a lot of the productions are going to emerging markets, right? Basically for filmmakers and in co-productions and things like that are necessary. Do you see a market or a way in where also writers can do the same thing, you know, cooperate with other international markets, you know? And if you do, I mean maybe if you have a suggestion on how can they connect with them?
Soo Hugh: International TV is actually booming right now. That is the one that has not collapsed entirely. And what I’ve seen, I’ve seen such interesting models, like different models where some companies will then hire a US writer to do a show and then they’ll have those scripts translated into that language because they want sort of this Americanized storytelling.
Lynn Nottage: So it happened with A Hundred Years of Solitude.
Soo Hugh: Yeah, it was in English, right?
Lynn Nottage: Yeah. Jose Rivera wrote it and then it was translated.
Soo Hugh: So I think it really does show that the cross-lingual boundaries are breaking down. And likewise the other way too, right? Writers who work, right now I’m working with a Korean screenwriter and getting all that translated to English, so it’s going to be more fluid. It’ll be interesting for the WGA. How? Like how do you even, I don’t even, that’s, wow. Yeah.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I was just thinking of that because what would it be kind of like the channels of communication, you know, to put the names out there because I guess it’s the role of the unions or professional institutions, you know, to be able to internationalize, I guess the service, you know, their writing or any other one cinematographers and things like that. Because the trend is that is a lot of the productions are going to all these other markets like Spain or Italy, even Colombia, you know? But just like you said, they don’t want those translations.
Soo Hugh: And I’m curious, like when you look at a hundred years of solitude and Pachinko and the Shoguns of the world, I’m curious, do you think, are the scenes evident? Do you think people can tell that they weren’t written in the native language? That’s…
Lynn Nottage: Right. Yeah.
Speaker 8: I started watching a little bit of it. My wife watched most of it and-
Lynn Nottage: Which? Pachinko?
Speaker 8: The reviews and I’m Spanish.
Lynn Nottage: Oh, you watched A Hundred Years of Solitude.
Speaker 8: Yeah, A Hundred Years of Solitude in Colombia, right? Because Netflix opened a hub over there, but they also built a small city. They feel like it’s quite authentic.
Soo Hugh: Oh, quite authentic. Oh, that’s great.
Speaker 8: The actors. And because they’re a native Colombian or South American actors and all that, they went through an extensive process and it feels authentic. That’s what I hear. I personally, but I trust these guys because I even have friends from Colombia that are very proud of it, that they’re not just actors that have been selected specifically for that.
Soo Hugh: So would you write a project in English knowing that it was going to be told in a different?
Lynn Nottage: Yes, I would.
Soo Hugh: I think that’d be a fun challenge. I mean, obviously with Pachinko I did it, but like in language that I don’t even know, like that’d be interesting.
Lynn Nottage: I recently wrote a script, which I hope will ultimately be in French.
Soo Hugh: And it’s a French movie entirely?
Lynn Nottage: Yeah. I hope that the entire thing will be in French and that will be shot in a francophone African country.
Speaker 3: Yes. You mentioned that very early on, you already knew that you wanted to get together, that cut the time. Just wondering, were there other things you knew right away? And then also what were the things you discovered in the writing room and the production process that were not like how you thought about the project initially?
Soo Hugh: I mean, I always feel like the best thing when you go on set is to realize the script is a fantasy. It is the La La Land because everyone is so respectful to the script and then reality happens and you really face reality in the edit room where you’re like, wow, everyone was in La La Land, in the writers room and in production, what do we do? And that’s what’s amazing about it, is that everything feels like it’s building on each other. I mean, I love television, I love television production because you’re taking something so unwieldy that can sort of spin it so many different ways. I mean, so many times I’ve talked to showrunners who said, I thought my show was this, and then it is this. And that’s the process. And I think no other, I can’t think of any other narrative form that involves this many people that swings like a wave in such drastic forces.
Lynn Nottage: I do mean, I think theater swings.
Soo Hugh: That big?
Lynn Nottage: Yeah, yeah. It’s dynamic. You just don’t know.
Soo Hugh: Yeah. But in theater, the playwright’s word is God, right?
Lynn Nottage: Yes.
Soo Hugh: So nothing changes, right?
Lynn Nottage: Yes.
Soo Hugh: We don’t always have that.
Speaker 2: Can you talk a little bit about your relationship with directors from both writer and showrunner? Just because I feel like that relationship can be complicated.
Soo Hugh: Oh, it’s so complicated, Laura. You know, I think there’s good and bad, right? There’s the good versions and there’s the bad versions. And sometimes the bad version is my fault, right? And sometimes the bad version is a director’s fault. I think the power dynamics in TV is weird, and it’s gotten weird because directors have now become showrunners, right? So everything starts to feel murky. I think the best collaborations I’ve had are the times when I felt I trusted a director to let him or her do what he or she needed to do. And the time the directors also trusted me to step in and say, trust me on this. I think the word trust is so overused and never really acted upon. It’s like, so it’s on all over the gamut, isn’t it?
Lynn Nottage: Can I ask you a question that’s related to that? In shaping the pilot with the director? What is that dialogue like?
Soo Hugh: So it’s just interesting. I’ve worked with amazing pilot directors, like Ed Berger did The Terror and look at him now, right? And what was amazing about the directors who do pilots like Mark Romanek, Kogonada and Ed Berger, the three of them, what’s amazing about the three of them is they know there’s a shit and they know they’re good. So the ego isn’t there. And the directors I’ve had most problems with are the ones that came in with a lot of insecurity, right? Like you feel it, someone like Ed Berger, he knows what he’s doing, right? So it felt just so much more relaxed and I didn’t feel like I had to prove myself. The times where I felt my spidey senses spiking was when I don’t think you know what you’re doing now because you’re being so defensive, right? It just becomes the cycle.
Speaker 3: I’m very curious if you have what you have to say about the working with the different time periods and the cuts and whether you got any notes about that or how you’ve dealt with that or what you learned about it. I mean, this is very general. I’ll preface it this way. I was in a development process and I, over a year and a half, got a lot of very fun sideways notes to the point where I was like, you guys want me to cut that one? I was like, it’s multiple flashbacks and you want me to cut one? And they were like just trying to be kind about how they said it. And then I saw the first season of Pachinko and I was just literally like, why have I been suffering for this for months? This is clearly a thing that’s possible anyway, so I was just curious whether you have, what your journey with that was, or maybe it was very straightforward?
Soo Hugh: I think because it was always pitched from the get-go to be these dual timelines and that was the thematic resonance of the show. I think I got, you know, I don’t think it was any issue. That being said, one of the things that comes up is, it’s interesting the audiences prefer the past storyline, right? We’ve always gotten that. Like we find the past more interesting and then you’re thinking, oh, then maybe I shouldn’t have told it chronologically. And I still think the show would not have worked if it wasn’t. I really don’t think the show would have worked if it was linear. So it’s one of those things where like even though the present day storyline isn’t as gripping as the past, I still think it’s necessary to make the show.
Speaker 9: So there’s a lot of front-loading of the writing process now, where previously writers may in a writer’s room on a broadcast drama procedural would have adjusted character relationships or whatnot. Like as we’re knocking out all of these episodes, do you find that you can’t really do that at all? You get to shooting a show like Pachinko and you are locked in? Or is there still the ability to kind of rejigger things?
Soo Hugh: Yes. I will say though, I always need to write, the Bible, and I always say I need to write the Bible before I start the show. And it’s very, very detailed. And sometimes people will be like, don’t worry about it, just have the room figured out. I just feel like it’s so irresponsible. The one show that fell apart for me, the one show that it kills me that the show fell apart was because I went into the writer’s room with no Bible and no pilot. And guess what? It didn’t work because the room cannot find the show.
Speaker 1: I have one more. It has nothing to do with writing. Is Minho as handsome in person as he is in the show?
Soo Hugh: Yes. He is. He’s dreamy. [inaudible 00:48:23].
Speaker 10: So you’ve said before that everyone should at least experience being in the editing room at that stage. With as much experience as you have, how do you take all that experience and apply it to the first stage of creating something?
Soo Hugh: Yeah, that’s such a good question. And you know what the answer, which is terrible, is you have them say multiple lines, right? Because you know you need an edit room. So it’s sort of like some actors hate it and some actors like it, which is, that’s great. Now can you say this line, why am I saying a different line just in case and the edit room, what’s amazing is you can splice lines together, right? So it’s amazing how much of the dialogue in Pachinko is not what they said, meaning it was performed, it’s what they performed. But with ADR and with splicing takes totally different lines. And I think because you do it because you’re trying to build the best performance.
Speaker 11: I cried through the first 30 minutes of the pilot. Did you know that was there on the page when you’re writing it?
Soo Hugh: No.
Speaker 11: When did you know that that was working? That it was emotional?
Soo Hugh: I remember we were shooting because we shot in Korea first for season one. And it was when we were shooting, when Isak was asking Sunja to marry him. No, it was when their wedding dinner and-
Lynn Nottage: The rice.
Soo Hugh: It was so just emotional shooting that. And they both got so emotional that everyone, the whole set got very emotional. And also with little Sunja in season one when she went out and after her father died, you know that the whole crew was really, they lost it,
Speaker 4: In these weird times to say the least. I’m noticing it’s a little bit of turning into a norm for writers to send their entire pitch stock to not necessarily the studio level, but high end of producing partners where, by the time we even get to the meeting, they’ve read the whole thing. But they read it a month ago because then they had to push it and then they don’t really remember what the pitch doc said. And it’s kind of like driving to each other on two lanes of opposite lanes of a highway. What advice would you give for a writer to advocate for oneself? To tell the agents, basically like, no, it’s counterproductive to send a pitch doc in advance, but the business side says, well, but this is how we get meetings nowadays. It’s like, it’s not…
Soo Hugh: I’m so curious how it’s done in theater. I am so shocked that we still pitch. I don’t get it because-
Lynn Nottage: Why don’t people read?
Soo Hugh: Yeah, I feel like it’s so much safer for execs to determine whether a person can really write is to read it. And I’m sort of like, some people are just great pitchers, they’re going to bullshit you and they’ll sell you the great show and they can’t do the show. Right?
Lynn Nottage: Right. And now AI can read it to them.
Soo Hugh: Right? So in some ways a way to answer your question is it might help you, right? Like if your pitch document is great, but the weird thing is, I don’t know. I don’t know why the producers are sending it to the buyers without you knowing it and then having you come and pitch it anyways.
Speaker 4: I don’t know. I don’t know if they are. It just felt like I recently pitched to three different people and it was just like it was, they read it three months ago and I’m putting myself out there right now. But honestly it felt weird because I don’t know if they did read, it just missed. They missed the people that know what they’re talking about understood what was on the page. But when it came time to like talking about it was like we were talking about something totally unrelated.
Soo Hugh: Well especially because apparently-
Speaker 4: Like fear of immigrants. If it has people that are of color in it that are immigrating from another country, like that kind of thing, the whole conversation where there’s characters who are immigrants, it turns into a whole conversation of how will this play out with Trump presidency? Like that’s not what’s on the page. So it’s just-
Soo Hugh: I think that’s going to change. because now most pitches are Zooms. I just did an in-person pitch and it was amazing. But most pitches are in Zoom, so you’re reading anyways off the screen. So I feel like people will read pitches. The only exception is if you have packaging, right? So if you have a movie star, you’re going to want that in-person pitch.
Lynn Nottage: There’s a question here?
Speaker 2: I’m curious to hear your thoughts on the big IP boom versus original storytelling. I mean, do you think that in these weird times where things are contracting, like more original storytelling would have more of a chance?
Soo Hugh: I’m biased.
Speaker 2: Is it even more…
Soo Hugh: I only like IP. I only do adaptations and I’m in awe of people who can do originals. I don’t know what the last original is though. Like is anything original on TV?
Speaker 2: Well, the Bear.
Soo Hugh: The Treasure.
Speaker 2: Yes, the Bear. Yeah, the Wire was original, kind of.
Lynn Nottage: Sort of, the article.
Soo Hugh: Article, yeah.
Speaker 2: Sopranos was original.
Soo Hugh: But nowadays…
Lynn Nottage: But that’s, we’re going back. 20 years ago.
Speaker 2: I have two originals that are.
Soo Hugh: No, but it’s totally doable.
Speaker 2: But I’m like, is it going to get cut? But I’m just, yeah…
Lynn Nottage: That is such a complicated question because I had my agent say, why don’t you write this as a short story and then we can sell the short story.
Speaker 2: And then IP it.
Lynn Nottage: And then the screenplay is magically already ready.
Soo Hugh: Yeah, but what’s interesting is if you look at the movies from like 50 years ago, they’re all IP, right? So it was interesting looking at the 1939 best picture category. You’re like, they’re all based on books, so it’s not something that’s new. We talk about the death of original ideas and maybe because I think in the eighties we had this, we had Star Wars, we had all those. But I feel like in general, film and TV has always been a little bit, but that is to say you should go with your originals because they are made. Yeah, but maybe write them as a comic book first.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Or a graphic article. Yeah, but not a book.
Soo Hugh: Oh, articles are fine.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Soo Hugh: That’s great.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I feel like during the Pandemic there was kind of this opening where it seemed like because everyone was doing stuff on Zoom, that you could kind of be a writer from anywhere. And since we’re here at WGA East and you’re from the east, do you think there’s still opportunity for people to come up as writers here or that everything is needing to be LA based?
Soo Hugh: I mean, it’s interesting. I would be curious what the statistics are in rooms nowadays, how much has come back on Zoom and how much are in person? I like Zoom rooms. I have to say, as terrible as that is to say, because I think it gets you this breadth of writers from all over the world. And also for me as a mother, it’s my work-life balance.
Lynn Nottage: Yeah, it’s true.
Soo Hugh: I’m more efficient.
Lynn Nottage: And people strangely work more efficiently because you don’t want to stay on Zoom as long.
Soo Hugh: I agree. So I don’t think you have to be in New York or LA.
Speaker 11: Did your second season of the Terror inspire you to go after the IP?
Soo Hugh: I didn’t do the second season. I should give.
Speaker 11: Sorry.
Soo Hugh: No worries.
Speaker 11: I’m going to shut up now.
Soo Hugh: No, no. Which was a great season. I only did the first season.
Speaker 11: Okay.
Speaker 17: Well, to that end. And I was such a huge fan of that first season of The Terror and how you’re able to convince big studios that a big budget is okay.
Soo Hugh: Oh, the Terror was nothing. It was so small. It was 4.2 million an episode. When I think about what we did in the Terror, it was like a miracle. Yeah. Yeah. The terror was nothing.
Speaker 17: Can I ask how that was 4.2 million an episode?
Soo Hugh: So you know how the boat, one side is the terror and the other side is the airbus. We had very smart production designers. It was very sad. It was really, really smart production thinking. Even Pachinko isn’t huge. I feel very defensive about this because I always feel like people would act as if having a big budget is going to guarantee you a great show. And I was like, no. In some ways, this fallout with the economy is I think a great chance for some smart storytellers to show. I think some people needed the fireworks to make their shows shine, and now it’s like, let’s see who really has it.
Speaker 17: If I may follow up, I happen to agree. I think what I have found is studios or producers don’t actually really know from budgets. And I think if you’ve spent a lot of time on set and you’ve produced your own episodes and you’ve looked at budgets and you’ve spent years and years working on that skill, you can kind of gauge what your pilot might cost. And I have come up against a lot of development execs who’ll say, well, can’t afford that. And you’re thinking, yes, of course we can.
Soo Hugh: Oh, you’re saying that’s an impediment to buying your show?
Speaker 17: Correct.
Lynn Nottage: Yeah. I mean that’s what I’ve experienced, certainly. And you explain how it can be done.
Soo Hugh: But we had that problem on the Craft.
Lynn Nottage: Yeah. We had the same problem. Yeah.
Speaker 17: The people you’re speaking with really don’t have the experience of budgets, and I don’t know how to convince them, this is not as expensive as you think it is.
Soo Hugh: I think it just comes down to people. I always say there’s two groups of execs, right? There’s the execs that are going to be brave and like in life, there’s the group that’s going to be brave and the group that’s not. And it’s trying to find your tribe of the people who will be brave.
Lynn Nottage: Yeah. I could feel an executive was about to say no. And I thought, okay, I’m going to give them the speech that I give about bravery, which I can…
Soo Hugh: Give us the speech.
Lynn Nottage: I will give you a speech. And I tell you, and I won’t give you the speech, but I’ll tell you just briefly what it is. And I tell my students, that the world is really divided into two sets of people. You have the set of people who will walk to the edge of the cliff on a windy day and look over. And then you have the people who stand back and say, what do you see? And so you have to decide, are you going to be the person who looks into the valley and sees the view? Are you going to be the person who is always asking what is the view?
Soo Hugh: And then when you said that, you said he bought it?
Lynn Nottage: No.
Soo Hugh: So he said he wasn’t going to look over?
Lynn Nottage: No, he wasn’t going to look over. But that’s what it was just saying, is that you have to decide, are you a risk-taker? Are you always going to be the person who’s going to stand back?
Speaker 6: I wanted to ask about the show The Killing. I haven’t seen that. I watched Pachinko. But what was the thought process for The Killing?
Soo Hugh: I didn’t create the Killing, it was wonderful. Veena Sud created it and she did an adaptation and it’s a great, you watch it. It’s a great show. In fact, so many shows have now copied the Killing. It’s so good.
Lynn Nottage: I think that we have to wrap it up. And I just want to end by just saying how wonderful it is to be sitting next to you and to be in dialogue and to be celebrating the incredible work that you’ve created. And if I can end with one last question. What’s exciting you now?
Soo Hugh: You know what’s funny? A lot is exciting me in the sense that I feel like with Pachinko, I sort of got a lot of my defense mechanisms out of the way. And what I mean by that is I sort of felt like, okay, I’ve done some good shows. I don’t feel like I need to prove myself anymore. Right. And I feel like what I mean by that is I did start off wanting to go for a sense of approval or accolades. Right? And now that I feel like I’ve gotten that out of my system, I feel more fearless in some ways. And I do feel like I’m having more fun now than I did before, if that makes sense.
Lynn Nottage: No, it’s wonderful. Well, thank you.
Soo Hugh: Thank you.
Lynn Nottage: Thank everyone for coming on this rainy evening.
Soo Hugh: Thank you.
Lynn Nottage: OnWriting is a production of The Writers Guild of America East. The series is produced by WGAE staff members, Jason Gordon, Tiana Timmerberg, and Molly Beer. Production Mix and original music by Taylor Bradshaw. To learn more about the Writers Guild of America East, visit us online@wgaeast.org or follow the guild on all social media platforms at WGA East. If you enjoyed the podcast, please subscribe and rate us. Thanks for listening. Until next time, write on.
