¶ Intro / Opening
From Kurt Coe media there's no place like.
Welcome to another special episode of Hollywood unscripted stuck at home. I'm Jenny Curtis and today I'm virtually sitting down with playwright screenwriter and showrunner Mary laws. She's written on AMC is Preacher. HBO succession and created a new anthology series on Hulu called Monster land.
Mary thank you so much for joining me. Hi. I want to start at the beginning. So you grew up
¶ Finding her way to the arts as a young child.
in suburban Texas. Your parents were ministers. How did you find your way to the arts.
Doesn't that answer your question. I grew up in Texas and my parents are suburban Minister.
I grew up in a household where my mother read to me all the time and there was a great love of literature. And so from an early age she took me to a lot of dance tons of ballet when I was a kid. A lot of theater and I just fell in love. I didn't fall in love with movies. I fell in love with the theater I fell in love with the live performance aspect of things
and so started doing theater as a kid. I just watched 10 15 and there's a couple of episodes about middle school theater that just made me absolutely weep because those were my formative years. I couldn't make it in my hometown theater troupe. I never got cast in anything. I think partly because sometimes a lot of kids who got like the lead roles and stuff their parents were like doing a lot of stuff behind the scenes and giving money. My parents were like We're not doing that
for you. You will work your way there which I have growing up with ministers for parents. We grew up without a lot. And so they really kind of taught me work hard at an early age. And so because I couldn't work with the cool like community theater in my hometown I like went to the neighboring town where the community theater was full of all these old hippies who like worked at the Texas Renaissance Festival and they like Smoked blunts backstage on their break and they like
wore face paint just to wear it. I was just like this is my family I'm home.
The rest is history I guess. Then you went to school as an actor didn't you. I went to undergrad and studied performance.
Definitely there are some youtube videos of me like singing dancing that I'm not proud of. I just really was
¶ Receiving some harsh but beneficial advice from a teacher in undergrad.
looking for my way and I think to storytelling and I thought to myself well I can probably do this that or the other I could be a dramaturg or I could make costumes or I could be an actor or something. I never thought I could be a writer which I really wanted to do. I just admired them
so much and I thought they were so smart. It was hard to finally admit to myself well that's the thing that I've always wanted to do and all these other avenues have just been me getting to that place of telling stories my own stories in my own words. I had a teacher when I was an undergrad who pulled me aside one day and was like you would be a half rate actor but you might be a really good writer. But I needed to hear it and really truly from not weave forward. I was like This
is it. This is what I want to do as an actor.
Was it heartbreaking to hear. Or was it like oh no way. You're right. I mean if I was that teacher I wouldn't maybe phrase it exactly like that but no it wasn't.
It was like someone giving me permission to stop trying to fit in with all of my other classmates who wanted to be actors because that's kind of your way into theater right.
You're either like an actor or you're a techie. Those are the two avenues. But being a writer it just
¶ Starting out as a playwright and the first play she wrote, FINGAL'S CAVE.
felt like he was giving me permission to say yes to myself. And so I took a playwriting class and the same teacher helped me get a playwriting Grant and I went to New York and I wrote some terrible plays and had some staged readings of them. I just never stopped after that. So it was really more permission than anything else.
What was the first play you wrote on.
What was the first play I wrote. Oh God. It was called Singles cave which is like a cave off of the shores of Scotland. Great composers have written classical pieces about it. And I wrote a story about three people who I don't fucking remember kayakers and only three people ended up in this cave and they were all grappling with problems in their personal lives. One kid was blind and I don't know it was very sappy and sappy.
It was a short play I hadn't read in a festival for the great playwright Tina Howe who is sort of like the moderate or the judge of a festival. And it was the most nervous I've maybe ever been to date even probably more than having a television show released out into the world at large. I think I
¶ Tina Howe's observation of Mary
was just horrified and she was so warm and so receptive and she told me I'll never forget. She said oh my aren't you a little girl with a great big cathedral inside of you. And I was just like Oh my God. Those formative years when you're just starting out it's so important. It's the most important thing to have someone to say you can do it. I feel for my friends and fellow artists who didn't have that
because I think it makes it harder. I certainly didn't have a ton of people just telling me all the time how wonderful I was. But like those few that you really remember and you hold on to still I'm a 34 year old woman. This was more than 10 years ago.
And then you went to Yale School of Drama.
¶ Going to NY and working at Rattlestick Playwright's Theater
I went to New York for a couple of years after undergrad and I was so starving so poor I worked as an intern at a theater called a battle stick Playwrights Theater which is in the village. It's an amazing place. I went there because I was obsessed with this one play called The Pavilion which Craig Wright who is also a television showrunner. He had written and I was in New York and like the sea of like endless possibilities and I was like What do I do.
And I looked up where that play was originally produced and it was at this bitter battle stick and I was like Hey are you guys hiring interns. And they were like not really. And I was like Well I'll work for free. So I did. I like work for free and I would like work a job at like hedge funds and I would save up a bunch of money and then quit and then go back to the theater and I would like writing plays and trying to
¶ Not giving up on getting into Yale
get into graduate school because it felt like the thing that would open some doors for me helped me find an agent or just get to practice meet other people who are impressive artists were young like me. So yeah that's what I did. How to apply three times before I got in. Which I always love to tell people don't give up. They only take a couple of people a year so if you're looking for a graduate program just keep applying until they get so sick of you that they only let you in.
What was that like the place it was Yale or bust it was Yale or bust.
Yeah I applied deal all three years and only applied to Yale the first two years. My third year I thought about the encouragement of my friends and parents who were like Maybe third time's not always a charm. So I applied a bunch of other places there incredible drama schools. I was really excited about UTI. Orson has an amazing program Mr. center and there are so many. But for me I like to think about the thing that I feel like I could never actually do and then try
to do it. I think that's how I just live my whole life. It's like what is something that seems so impossibly out of reach and for me as like I said my poor kid who grew up in Texas who was again like top of my parents go work your way into whatever you want to have. I was like Well Yale seems like something that I'll never have. So I just was determined and I was so privileged
¶ Studying with Paula Vogel and taking lessons from her to MONSTERLAND.
to go there and I got to study with some amazing people.
Paul a vocal was one of my primary mentors while I was there. He was unbelievable playwright and person who really truly has taught me some stuff about being in an artistic community and being in a rehearsal room that I've gotten to take with me into television about what
it means to be an artist. I was telling someone the other day how we ran out on monster land because I think by and large we had a pretty happy sight set where everyone had a voice which was really important to me was really important to the whole team.
And Paula at Yale I remember seeing the biggest deal in the room should always be the play and I thought that that was really an amazing way to think about like how to bring people together who all have big egos because you kind of have to have an ego if you're like look at me listen to my story.
You have to have a little bit of that if you're going to survive but thinking about that in terms of the play but also in terms of television the episode and the story that we were telling always got to be the loudest and the most needy and the most vocal thing rather than any of us who were creating it. She was just a wonderful wonderful teacher at Yale and so many gems of wisdom I hold on to.
What brought you to L.A. and how did you end up on preacher.
¶ Going from playwriting to writing NEON DEMON with Nicolas Winding Refn.
So when I was at Yale I had a playwriting agent who was like hey have you ever heard of this guy Nick Ruffin. He is a film director and he's looking for someone to write a horror movie with him. And I threw your name in the pot and he liked your play and he wants to meet with you. And I was just like what is a film.
You know I like I'd never ever thought about it. I don't even have final draft which is the program you write a film.
I was like I don't know my ass from my elbow but I met with Nick. I'm not a cinephile at all but he directed this movie that I really loved called Bronson which is so innovative in terms of its production design the whole thing is shot in one house and it looks like you're going all over the country all over the world. It's really fantastic. But it
is also so visceral. It felt like it was jumping out of the screen at me in this way that I had only ever experienced that kind of feeling in theater. I was like Sure I'll talk to him and I talked to him I had a conversation with him for an hour and a half one day and he was like Hey do you want to write this movie with me. And I was like yeah sure you seem really cool. It was such an unusual Hollywood experience. It feels almost unfair because it doesn't happen that easily for a lot
of people. But you know I wanted to be a playwright like it wasn't what I wanted at all. It just felt like a really interesting upper. And so I said yes and came out to L.A. and I worked for like a year with him. It was like one year and we wrote a script together. And then the movie went into production and was released like a year later was very fast and it was really exciting because he was just like I want to make a movie that's not like any other movie and I was like
well that's great. I don't know how to write. I was like aren't movies supposed to have like three acts. I think I heard that one that seems boring hours should have four you know. And he was so game and I think really wanted someone to partner with him on the film that didn't know how to do things right.
Our movie was called the neon demon and it was a wonderful opportunity to like explore the horror genre for the first time. And I just sort of fell in love because the movie is about femininity and the male gaze and about what women then do to each other as a result of being subjected to the male gaze
for so long. It's about models in L.A. who eat themselves alive literally but like I just thought wow what a great opportunity for me who is not a model but who is a woman to talk about what it feels like to be objectified and hurt by men in the world and by the patriarchy and by the way that people talk and look at my body and I sort of just fell in love with the horror genre.
But that's why I came to L.A. and I have such a good experience working on that that I was like Maybe I'll just stay here. I watched it last night actually it's a very upsetting movie. It's not nice.
I think it's a really great marriage of Nick and me like my outlook as a woman and then Nick as a man. It's a movie where two contradictions sort of bump up against each other a lot.
Had you co-written before.
¶ Writing with other people and creating now for a visual medium in film & TV.
No I never had. I never even thought about it but I love it. I love writing with other people. If it's a really good fit I think it's maybe even more magical than writing by yourself sometimes. It was so wonderful working on Preacher and then I worked on succession for a season and now this show my show. You know I love getting to hear other voices sort of bounce up against mine.
It's like laughing What's the thing about marriage where it's like marriage should be like two rocks in a tumbler like shaking around making each other smooth. Which I think is so wonderful and I think it's the same thing about co writing it's just like you put like two people in a jar and shake them around you end up working out the kinks and the bumps in each other. And I don't know you make a baby together.
I don't there's a lot of mixed metaphors.
So when the baby was a TV show for preacher and succession which swept the Emmys. So congratulations on that. Moving from theater to film to TV. What was the experience like. How did it change the way you approach your writing.
Well I think that there was something inside of me that I was more able to tap into in television writing and in cinematic writing which is like a visual kind of storytelling that you can get in the theater world but not with such frequency. Television is a visual medium period film is a visual medium period. The best films you can watch them with the sound off and you still know what's happening. And that allowed me to flex a different kind of muscle. I'm certainly not by
any stretch a visual artist. I can't draw a doodle to save my life but I have something in my head and I think being able to put that down on paper and then have collaborators bring that to life is so exciting to me.
And so I think the switch from playwriting to television because I really rarely write plays anymore and for a while guilt in myself about that and don't anymore I think this is a medium that is much more suited for me. And I think a lot of it was about being able to hone and use the skills of structure and character development and dialogue that I really got
from my theater background. In addition to this visual language that is just so thrilling for Monster land I was really obsessed with the photography of Gregory Crewson and Todd Ito and so a lot of the images that are in the series were inspired by that kind of visual art and that just feels like something that again you can certainly have an interesting visual landscape in theater because
you're dealing with real time space. But I find that it's such an exciting space to play with visual language and in film and television.
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So monster land your first time as a show runner. It's interesting that you say like this is a better landscape for you because it feels to me like an anthology series like this is just a series of one act plays. Kind of yeah. What was the experience creating your first show.
Oh it was stressful. I came to L.A. and sort
¶ The experience of being a first-time showrunner.
of fell in love with the film and television industry and it was again that thing like I'm going to get into Yale no matter what. I was just sort of like I want to run a show that seems really hard and like something that they wouldn't let a young female 30 year old lesbian do. So I was like I want to do this and it's been possibly
the biggest experience of my life. It has stretched me in ways that are unimaginable because as a showrunner you're not just a creative voice You're not just a writer but you're a producer and you're a champion of others you paved roads for other people. You have to be a maternal figure paternal figure at different points you wearing
so many different hats. And I think navigating that and having to make excruciatingly hard decisions that affected other people's performance and experience on the show and income livelihoods especially during a pandemic I never thought I'd run my first show during a pandemic.
It's been the hardest and the most rewarding thing I've possibly ever done.
¶ Adapting from Nathan Ballingrud's book NORTH AMERICAN LAKE MONSTERS.
The series is based off of Nathan Ballon Grubbs North American Lake Monsters which is a series of short stories. It seems that you really were influenced by it but a lot of the stories were very much your own. What was the creative process there.
Nathan's book North American Lake Monsters is absolutely beautiful and apart from this series which I hope everyone will watch I hope they'll read his book too because there are several stories from which episodes are directly adopted and then there are many that we did not adopt that are well worth a read. They're absolutely beautiful. I read the first story in Nathan's book and thought This is what
I have to do. It was a really interesting and different kind of horror that I had seen in a while. And it was again doing some of those things that we talked about like really able to tap into character and real issues while also holding space within the genre. I was really excited about telling stories about complicated people who make terrible or difficult decisions but aren't necessarily monsters.
They're just human. I think that's the way that I have experienced my own choices in my own world and also different traumas in my life. So it was just very inspirational. And there were some of his stories that we felt as a writers room were more relevant and more timely than others.
And so those were the stories that we really felt as a community of five. We had four writers working on the show with me. We felt these feel like stories we really need to put out in the world right now because they're saying something about her current moment or current climate. And so we ended up adopting three from the book and then the rest are as you
say inspired by. But we had these and come into the room with us for the first two weeks the first two weeks were sort of dedicated to deciding what stories we wanted to tell and coming up with new stories or jumping off of stories from Nathan's book to then create as sort of the genesis of an idea for a new story. And Nathan was really instrumental in those two weeks. I remember him bringing forward ideas for some of the stories that did end up in the
season of 8. So it was really about having a diverse array of characters and also finding stories that felt like they were tapping into. I don't want to say issues because I'm not very interested in writing about issues but they were tapping into the current worlds and what people in our lives and in the world were grappling with in the moment that we were writing. We really wanted the series to be reflective of the United States and the turmoil that the US was going through and
the different people that it affected. And as a result how these people were grappling with their own day to day lives.
I mean it is reflective of the United States especially because you have named each episode after the location. What was the thought process behind that.
¶ The choice in naming the episodes after the locations they were set in.
Well what I loved about Ethan's book also many things I love about his book but what I also loved about his book was that his protagonists were not your typical protagonists. They were blue collar workers in the Gulf Coast or single down on their luck moms who don't get written about and those are people like that's what the country is made up of.
You know we're not a country made up of politicians and billionaires we're a country of real people dealing with a lot of day to day stuff that doesn't make the news. And that doesn't make the next episode of
whatever show you're watching. And so I think that naming each episode after a particular city was our way of highlighting sometimes issues and sometimes problems like Eugene Oregon deals with some systemic racism and I think our episode entitled Eugene Oregon deals with some of the same stuff but also just remembering that we are a massive country with pockets of people who are affected deeply by the decisions being made by the 1 percent by the people at
the top by the politicians. We're not just a city of Los Angeles Chicago New York. There are smaller places that I think deserve investigation. So that was what was behind naming each episode after particular city it felt like we were giving a broader outlook on the United States.
The writers room you compiled had some more veterans and some playwrights such as yourself and Emily Kazmierczak. How did you staff your room I mean kind of exactly like that.
¶ Staffing the writers room and creating an open environment.
I. I was like Well I want to have a room that's again like a diverse group of people with different kinds of backgrounds from different age brackets who come from different parts of the world and different experiences and so that's kind of what I did. One of our staff writers Oliver Brown have lived all over the world and came to the book with such a unique perspective.
Emily comes from playwriting as you mentioned and then two of our other writers Scott COSAT and Wesley Strick both had their roots in film writing but had very different backgrounds and growing up experiences. But everyone had a real
grounded ness to them. No one was to quote unquote Hollywood and I thought that that was really important in the creation of the series that again if we're going to tell stories about real people we needed to be able to tell them in real ways and in everyone's interview I was also really open I was like We're gonna talk about stuff in the room I talk about my traumas very openly I talk about my personal experiences growing up in a really conservative area very openly and
my struggle with coming out as a gay person very openly and so I wanted to open the door to people who had experiences and were willing to also talk about them and go to some really like vulnerable and dark places with me because I think as long as you're doing that and really safe and healthy way which you think the writers room it's very important to have a really safe and healthy writers room I think that's where the really good good stories come from.
How do you create an environment where people are being so open that is safe and healthy.
You check in with people you don't offer judgment on other people's stories you listen you make sure everyone has a voice and that if people disagree they're allowed to say that they disagree. And I think it's really important
for the showrunner to do this. I've worked in places with groups of people where the person at the top is not accepting or has a judgment and that they bring to the room or point of view that's sort of toxic that they bring to the room and while I certainly didn't do everything right there's no way I did everything right. I do feel like I used that experience of like that kind of more negative type of environment and said day one like we're not going to
have that. We didn't talk a lot about politics we did from time to time but I feel like politics can be kind of messy in the workplace and I think co-workers should be able to talk about that on their own time. But we didn't start every day like talking about what was in the news what happened the day before. I just think it's important that everyone feels heard and seen. I don't really believe in hierarchy within a room other than the hierarchy that I'm the one
that starts and stops the show. I'm the one that can shut down a conversation and I'm the one that makes the final decisions on things. But as long as that much is clear then I think everyone should be able to have a voice and feel seen and heard and and that their stories are going to be protected. Do you share something vulnerable it's going to stay right there in the room and we're gonna take care of it and we're not going to judge you for it.
We're really grateful that you shared that and that that could become a part of one of our stories. If you allow it to be and it's definitely challenging I think to be in a room not vulnerable but I think as long as you're approaching everything with kindness I don't know.
So day one on set. What was the first scene you shot and what was it like being on set.
Day one like God. Do you remember. I think the
¶ The first day on MONSTERLAND and challenges with wind.
very first thing we shot was a scene with Caitlin. It's sort of on the docks and she's running late to work and she has to drop her care for the baby sitter. Denise the whole series we shot in New York.
We shot all over the place and so we were shooting New York for Louisiana. And so we were out in Timbuktu shooting on these docks and it was so windy and I was incredibly worried about sound that day. I think I was just incredibly anxious in general it was the first pilot I've ever shot and kept running up to the sound booth and being like oh do we get it. What words did we get. What do we need. I think the whole day just sort of went by in a blur. Actually I think other shooting
days feel much clearer in my mind. But it was great we had an amazing production designer Ola Malik who was able to make New York look like a different places. It was truly spectacular.
So Caitlin's character comes back a few times throughout the series. Was that in the book or was that a tool that you implemented to kind of give it a through line.
¶ Creating one world that the anthology series exists in.
Yeah. No that was just us. You know Nathan's book felt very much like one world. And since we wanted to tell a story about our current world we were like Oh what are ways in which we could tie these episodes together. And some of those original ideas sort of fell out the window. But there are definitely some Easter eggs within all of the stories. You know there are a couple of politicians running for office and there's this disastrous oil spill that's covered in a couple of
the episodes. So there are things that pull the series together. Caitlin I think being the largest you know after she disappears in the first episode we get to see her again in the middle of the series. And then again in the finale and kind of catch up with her as an organizing principle but also seeing what happens after her sort of disastrous choice that she has to make in the pilot. Do you have a favorite monster. Oh
¶ The monster Mary is the most proud of and using practical effects.
gosh no I love them all. I think maybe the monster I'm the most proud of is the mermaid. Coming from the theater world I didn't want to use a lot of visual effects. I wanted to use as few as I could because I love practical theatricality and I feel like as a viewer I can tell when something is a visual effect. We're all so used to watching so much that I feel like anyone can tell. And so I was like How can we make a mermaid
that doesn't feel like that. It doesn't. Whenever you see her take you completely out.
So we made her totally practically and Adria who played the mermaid was so game to put on that suit.
We had two wheeler around in a wheelchair and have like 10 men lift her into the water and she was so awesome and would just hang out in this like tank of water while we were shooting other angles because it took so much time to get her in and out so she would just sit there and with her head on the lip of the tank and like
watch the scene that another actor was shooting. But I feel very very proud and I think it turned out really beautifully and we shot that episode in like eight days or something like that.
Talking about the monsters we worked with Greg like a terrorist company can be. Who does the walking dead and they're just unbelievable monster makers and so they came up with some pretty cool constructions for us for our actual
monsters the people are monsters too. But for our actual monsters we shot all of these like it was like lightning speed our pilot we ended up having most days which I think was like 11 but then by the time we got to some of the other ones we were shooting them in six or seven days which for a monster show is not enough to give us more days next time.
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¶ Wrap day on MONSTERLAND and the challenges of doing an anthology series
Because it was your first show running experience. What was the feeling of calling rap on the last day.
Oh my God it was like a blur of emotions. I did this thing which I'm really glad that I did where I had someone take a photo of me on like kind of the first major milestone day.
And on that rap day I was like wow I have changed so much because I think it was like the biggest experience and personally it felt like Wow I had run not just a marathon but like eight marathons. And how much that had taken from me and how much that had given to me. I felt the unbelievable privilege of getting to work with such amazing talent the
production team especially. I mean we had the most amazing actors but I think the production team I thought these people had just pushed a boulder up a mountain with me and like how lucky I was. Everyone said it was one of the hardest shows that they had ever worked on.
I think by nature of the anthology where you're basically doing a total reset every single episode you're not using any of your same sets. Any of your same costumes and none of your same actors even you know everything is new and starting over is really really hard because you have to redesign re scout. I mean there are
like eight many movies basically. And so doing that and the amount of time that we had which was very compressed our shooting schedule was just rapid fire and we had no breaks in between episodes I know like Black Mirror is even able to take some breaks in between there we have no breaks.
So it was a very very very ambitious project and I was just looking around that the sea of faces of people who were willing to ride that ride with me and do it with so much heart and so much positivity. It just it was a very overwhelming day.
It was a very overwhelming time ending production on the series because again it it just felt like we'd all run an ultra marathon together and everyone had had at least sort of like one little break down and we'd gotten up gotten back on the horse and we're all still quite friendly with each other too which I think you know everyone would love to come back and do another season and I think that's really saying something about the kinds of people who worked on the show and
the kind of like grit. Also that you have to have to shoot in New York. We shot in the winter. I mean just everything hard we did it. And I'm just completely blown away by the team and we'll never be able to say thank you enough.
So yeah I guess those are some of the feelings on wrap day.
Also just like where's my martini. Can I sleep now. Those things too.
What have you taken away from this experience is this finding who you are or is this another step along your path.
Well my joke is always like I want to be Shonda Rhimes. I would love to have like multiple shows going on at once but I don't even know if that's true. I'm not sure what's next. To be totally honest this was a huge goal and a huge achievement and a big milestone. And I think that I want to do it again. It again it feels like one of those things that felt impossible and yet I did it.
And our whole team did it. We did it together and whether this show another season or it or another show I want to do it again because I know I can do it better. What's so exciting to me
¶ The exciting opportunities of working in television.
about television is that you're able to tell stories on such a large scale. I mean theater it's like there's nothing like it when you see a really good play
it changes your whole life. It changes your DNA. But what I like about television is that you can do that to such a wide wide audience and that's really exciting to me because as a gay person like I have this opportunity now to put more gay people on the screen and to see characters or women grappling with things on screen that I've grappled with in my own life that I never got to see growing up you know growing up we were Huck Finn you know or we were Peter Pan and we had to be these
male protagonists and it's such a privilege and an opportunity to tell stories about people that don't always make it to screen and also not just people on screen but behind the screens you know like as much as there has been like quote unquote progress in Hollywood. It's just fucking not enough. And if I can do it again and paved roads for other people to then do it again and bring different kinds of people to the forefront of our minds and imaginations. I don't know maybe I'm
really optimistic but I think that's world changing. I really really do because the kinds of things that you see coming out of Hollywood is how you think about the world that is absolutely how you think about the world. I was talking to a friend the other day about rom coms just generally speaking rom coms are always about the straight white girl and the straight white guy and that's not how I experienced my romantic life growing up at all. But that's what we're taught and that's what
we see and that's what comes into our homes. And I think that if you're able to change people's minds on screen and open up people's minds on screen I think that's world changing. I really do. So. To fucking do it again. I want all of my writers to
be able to do it. Then you know like I think part of being a really good leader and a good show writer is passing tools down to the people that you're working with that they have a roadmap and they have the knowledge to know like I can do this too if like this like for preacher's daughter from Texas can do it I can fucking do it too. And here's how. And here are the pitfalls and here's the support that I need. And then I can get
my unique an untold story told. Yeah I'm going to do it again and I'll know what's going on out there but somethin.
So my final question is always what does it mean to you to have a life and storytelling. But I think you just answered.
Think about that. I think that's a I'll say another thing too. This is a more personal reason I guess.
¶ What storytelling has done for Mary on a personal level.
I've had a good and privileged life in these 34 years that I've walked on the earth but I've had some really hard stuff too. I've dealt with my fair
share of trauma. I've dealt with my fair share of not feeling like I am the norm because of my femininity or my sexuality and I think that the thing that has personally saved my life over and over again has been writing about it that anytime I can put pen to paper and walk myself through my own story I'm able to see myself a little bit better more clearly. I'm able to sort of put those ghosts to bed.
I'm able to in a healthy and productive and creative way work through my shit and I truly think that that has kept my heart beating. I think that has given me a positive outlook on the effects and the burdens of trauma or abuse that you can actually turn it into something that helps you saves your life. Even turn it into something good. So I guess personally that is why I will keep writing. I always say it's like the one thing no one can take from me. I can be unemployed and I can still as long
as I have a napkin and a pen. I can write my story down I can write any story down and I just think that thought is like the greatest gift in the world. It makes every other thing I've ever been able to do in my life possible because I've been able to write.
Mary thank you so much for joining me. Monster land is available on Hulu. It is a great show. Very well done.
Thank think. Fan so happy and fun and I have so much anxiety usually when I do these and it's been such a very easy pleasure to talk to you. Thank you ma'am. Hollywood unscripted was created by Kurt Commedia. This special episode of the stuck at home series was hosted and produced by me Jenny Curtis. With guest. Mary laws. Co-produced and edited by Jay Whiting. The executive producer of Hollywood unscripted is Stuart Halperin. The Hollywood unscripted theme song is by Celeste and Eric dick.
Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss any special episodes of Hollywood unscripted stuck at home stay safe and healthy and thanks for listening. Kurt Carr media. Media.
For your mind.