I am all in. Let's you. I Am all In with Scott Patterson, an iHeartRadio podcast. Let's get a little business out of the way. I'm going to be appearing at the Motor City Comic Con taking place in Detroit, Michigan, the week end of November ten through twelve, twenty twenty three. I think it's a little bit outside the city, but come and see me there. MotorCity Comic Con November ten through twelve, twenty twenty three. Also Galaxy Con Columbus December two and three, twenty twenty three.
Hope to see everybody there.
Let's have some fun. One on one interview with Alex Akerman. Here's this bio. Alexander Akaman is an editor for wirecutter Discovery team from the New York Times. He has worked as a journalist and on documentary film projects. One on one interview with Alex Ackerman. Here's his bio. Alexander Akaman as an editor for Wirecutter's Discovery team from the New York Times. He has worked as a journalist and on documentary film projects, and he has also worked as a
screenwriter for Amazon and lions Gate. When he's not working, can you can probably find him bird watching, running or making pasta. We found the ultra pricey ice cream maker larel I Gilmore got as a wedding gift. She should have kept it. That's according to Alex's article. Even twenty years after the episode's original air date, fans and chronic rewatchers of Gilmore Girls, we'll probably ask themselves the same question at some point, who gave laurel I the ice
cream maker. In the show's second season, win A Lello forty eight Musso Lucino, a long time wirecutter pick arrives at Larele's home just weeks after she's called off her weddings. Suki, Ry and Lorelei all stand staring at the gleaming spaceship like appliance shown in the scene above. I'm sure exactly who sent it. There is no note, no card, no return address. Lorelei is dead set on finding out who sent it, but the gift giver's identity remains a mystery,
and Lorelei ultimately gives the appliance away. But we think she should have kept it. And this young gentleman, this young talented gentleman who is making his way through Hollywood screenwriting projects, which he cannot discuss yet, but he will if he comes back. Wrote an article about this ice creammaker here he is, let's bring him in. Alex Ackerman, Alex, Hey, Hey, how's it going. First of all, welcome to the show. Great to have you. And what made you want to
write an article about an ice cream maker? Laurel I was gifted in season two.
It's one of those things. So I work at Wirecutter, and it's the New York Times product review service, and it's one of the great thing about working there. It's sort of this like effervescent collective process. And at some point we were one of the writers was testing ice cream makers and I jokingly asked if we tested the one from Gilmore Girls, And as it turns out, they had and it was really really good, and it just
sort of went from there. And I think that my editor and I both knew that this was a show that had this kind of like endurant love from its fan base and like people coming to it every year new because of you know, it's because of streaming, and so I thought it would be fun. So it just sort of just sort of came about.
Who do you think gave Laurel I the ice cream Maker.
I think it was Emily. I think her mom gave it to her. I think that it's like extravagant enough, and it's almost like a repudiation of the way that they eat while also being like an endorsement of it in her own Emily way. That's my theory. That's what I think.
Have you written any other articles about Gilmore Girls or just this one?
Not about Gilmore Girls. I did a sort of similar thing earlier this summer, right before The Bear season two came out, where we just went through all the different wirecutter picks in the first season of The Bear. So no, I haven't, but hopefully soon, you know, I'd love to write more about Gilmore Girls.
And why do you think it is so well received by ever new generations of people, younger audiences. What is it about this show? That's a really good question, because it really is a phenomenon, isn't it. I mean, it is a cultural phenomenon. Really, is there any other show like it in the history of television that has continued to gain a fan base? I mean, it's really not a fair question, because you know, streaming didn't exist back in the day, so it's a whole new landscape now.
But why do you think the show endures?
I think there are I think there are a very select handful of other shows, like I think The Office and The Sopranos have been able to like. But you know, we're talking about like the crrndules of TV shows, you know what we're talking about, those three. But I think it's I mean, I'm someone who came to it new, So I only really started watching it in maybe twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen because my fiance is a big fan of
it and I'd never seen it. So we started watching it, and then I was living in LA for a little bit and she'd sent me like a list of all her favorite episodes and I sort of was working my way through them while I was there alone, and I fell in love with it. I think it's very similar to I mean, it's sort of the same reason that people love like it's a wonderful life or like you know,
old Frank Capra movies. It's because there's something ethereal and timeless about like the exchange between like this world that is like really really warm and serene and tender, but also that is like populated with people that are experiencing their own turmoil in search of connection. Like that feels like a very timeless story. And when it's written and executed as I think as so expertly as Gilmore Girls is, I think you have that kind of like magic winning combination.
That's that's my theory.
I don't recall a show ever having the lead character Lorela Gilmour basically be a stand up comedian through the entire seven seasons. She just did joke after joke after joke, and we still took her seriously as a character, and she was doing fairly sophisticated humor that was going off for everybody's head.
Was it that way on set? Were you like, wow, I'm just amazed by Like was that the experience of filming the show?
Well, the thing about the show was always the dialogue. So it was dialogue, the dialogue, the dialogue that was the focus. Are we going to be able to execute and serve this dialogue at the speed and with the intention with which it was written? So that was the challenge every day. So it was really more about the technical, mechanical aspects of what we do as actors, as opposed to over analyzing everything and trying to, you know, get
the deeper meaning of it. It was just such a from from the start of the first episode, the first senior shooting of that season, and then nine months later you're you feel like a train ran over you and backed up and did it again, because it is just such the pace and the hours and the volume. We did eighty pages and it was all black inks. So it was fifty percent more dialogue or one hundred percent more dialogue than anybody was doing, or two hundred percent more dialogue.
I mean, that's sort of thing that blows me, is I know that, like you know, those fifteen hour days that just I can't imagine like what any of you, like, the amount of energy. But also just like especially like someone like Lauren Graham who was in every single scene like and then being able to like show up and then do that sort of like Ernst Lubitch, like excellent, perfect timing, delivery, amazing rerippart that like I don't know how, I don't know how you did it. It's it's amazing.
Okay, So here's now I think I answered my own question. I think there are two reasons that the show endors I think it's because it's so fast, and it's so filled with pop culture references in clever, little funny anecdotes and stories and jokes, jokey jokes that people miss half of it or they get it and they react after the fact, but they want to experience it again and again and again and again. There's so much. It's so compact.
You just keep discovering new things everything.
Yes, it's far more interesting to watch it than it was ever to make it. It's not okay. So when you're on a writing jack, Let's say you get into a writing jack, you're writing a screenplay, you're writing something, and you know, I don't know what your process is, but you know a lot of writers talk about their process like they'll sit with their characters for a long time until the characters start talking to them and demanding that they'd be written and that you follow those characters.
You don't impose anything on those characters, but they're real, living things inside your head, inside your being. And you get on a three four day writing jag and you blast out a first draft and it's like you didn't sleep, and it just goes by. And that's kind of what like filming the show was. Every week you're just occupied, you're taken over.
You can do that with one like I just don't know how like even I mean even just as like a writer, like I like, writing a sixty page script is hard enough, and then doing four of them in a year is like, I don't know how it gets done. It's it's either it's the old I mean there, but there is so much like one of the I mean, one of the things that I feel like i've and I'd be curious to hear like sort of like how
it came about. Like one of the things that you sort of notice as you rewatch this show is that you in particular sort of like I don't know, like you move very very gracefully. It's almost like a ballroom dance. It's like it seems like the more stuff that they're
putting in your hands, the more graceful movements become. And then there's also this like moving master that the that the show is shot in, and those two things just really seem to like have this like wonderful symbiotic inter like it they like it just seems to suit everything, like it just works together so well. And like that was one of the things that I noticed, like when I rewatched it recently, I was like, that's kind of an amazing touch that that manages to come out.
That's really interesting that you point that out, because I just remember my best memories of doing that show were rehearsals, and you know, you rehearse and you rehearse and you figure out the dance steps right, and it was always and you're always with Lauren, You're with you know who am I with? In the dynam with Lauren most of the time, you know, and we speak pretty much the same language and our approach to the work, and it's really about making sure that we can justify every single
line of dialogue, every single movement that we make. It has to be supported by something that is real. It's like, we can't do it unless we have to do it.
So we we would spend a painstaking amount of time in rehearsal getting it right before we shot it, and everybody had to be And the thing that I miss most about working with her is is having a partner that knows how to construct a scene, choreograph a scene with another person, you know, because it's because you know what it's like if you've tried to co write with somebody,
it's a it's a lot of back and forth. And when you've got two people as stubborn and uh and Lourene and myself, and I think that's that's why it was so electric between us, because we were acting out choices that we both fought for in the rehearsal process, not each other. We didn't fight each other, it's just we we had to state our case as to why I listen, I can't move over there because of X, and I think I need to go around the diner.
And you know, it was all very, very very It was technical based on the impetus of an emotional life. It had to be real. It's gotta be real. You gotta you can't move until you till you feel it. And if I didn't feel it and she didn't feel it, we weren't. We were going to continue to rehearse until we found something. And then you have these wonderful directors come in. They have all kinds of ideas, and they they know well enough to stay away when we're sort
of getting into it and creating it. But if we hit a glitch, then they'll, you know, they could say the magic words and we go ah. So I love that collaboration, and I love that kind of collaboration with with really gifted artists like you know, Lauren and and all the other actors. I mean, it's Kelly Bishop. I mean, imagine, you know, crafting scenes with these people. I miss that so very much. But I'm getting to do it now. I'm doing a new series up in Canada, and I'm
getting to do it now. So I it's what I miss about acting the most is the rehearsal process. So thank you for noticing that. And we took great care in crafting those the movement as well.
We've we because.
We saw it from you know, ten thousand feet Yeah, and we wanted it to look a certain way too.
Yeah. So that's cool. That's very cool.
So so look, gil more questions. We have big fans who write in. They want to know how many times you've seen this series. This is Jane from Walla, Walla, Washington. Jane from Walla, Walla.
There's no good answer to that. Like, there's some episodes that I've seen once, and then some episodes that I've seen like nine times. It's sort of the math. I don't know, I like, maybe collectively, like maybe four three, four times. Truly, it's like disproportionate.
Right, Amanda from Amarillo, Texas. Who is your favorite character from the show? Uh?
I think I think Laurel is probably my favorite character. I think that sort of as as I said, the show has a sort of like you know, his Girl Friday, like Earn Slubitch style like component to it, like this really old Hollywood feel, and I feel like Laurel I really really brings that sort of high. It's the tragic com like even when something is going dismally or something really tragic is happening, like there's this she finds this
vein of irony and finds a way. And also you know that irony I think, especially from old movies, comes from characters deflecting. And I feel like I do that too personally, like in something the the the unwillingness to take seriously a really bad thing just to deflect, and so I couldn't relate to that impulse. But so that I think is my answer.
Yeah, no one has ever had more sass. I refer to it as sassy. She's say, uh okay, Charmaine from Buffalo, New York, what is your favorite episode and why? If you have a favorite episode.
I do have a favorite episode. I think my favorite episode it's a big it's actually a big Luke episode. It's in the first season, and it's when Richard has a heart attack. I think that there is like, it does have this tragic comic effect to it. There's something really, I don't know how it becomes such a warm, intimate episode,
but it does. And there's something. And then especially you know at the very end when you're watching the Christmas carollers and you were lucky to turn off the lights, there's something really, I don't know, there's and then also that conversation that you know, Luke and Emily have. I it's a I think it's a really beautiful episode.
Let me see Laura Lee from Portland, Oregon. If there was a storyline you could change, what would it be?
That that's kind of this might be controversial. I think personally my least favorite storyline was when Richard and Emily separated.
Feel did that leave? It left a massivoid? It did?
And seeing Ed Herman and Kelly Bishop on set like on screen together is like to not have that was right kind of disappointing. I mean, what was that like to experience like, do you you know, is that something that like you've you've like was that also felt.
Yes, no, but rewatching it as we did recently, because I've never seen any of these episodes, by the way, except the pilot. So when I saw that, I, uh, you know, the writer in me went crazy and I said, what are they doing? You know you built you build this house, This foundation is built upon this. You don't wreck this. You don't even.
I don't know.
We we uh, we took it to task. We took them to task over that.
I mean, I one of the few north stars in the show is that Emily see ida eye on a lot of things, and to take that away as can be, I feel like a little destabilizing for the ecosystem of the show.
You know, mm hmmm. I don't know if you're I don't know if you're a fan of it or familiar with it, but I love the actors in it. There's a show called Billions, yea Dami, Damian Lewis and Paul Giamaudi and it's a real Shakespearean mono imano type deal. When Maelan Ackerman left him took the kids away from him, I thought that was a big mistake. She was his moral compass, and now he was alone, without his sons, without his family. I thought it really weakened his character.
And I don't understand maybe she got another gig and she wanted off the show, or she wasn't getting enough, but she was a really integral part of the show. And I think actors don't understand the effect they have on our own audience. But I thought that that particular example was unfortunate for that show. He needed to have a moral compass and you just can't take that away.
No, it's the beginning of the end.
It's the beginning of the end.
They I will say, they got back together on Gilmore Girls.
So I'm.
I think it was figured out that this that having those two actors not on screen at the same time was doing nobody anyways, right right, right?
Okay? So was that the most upsetting thing you saw on I would say that that was the most of saying right, right, okay?
Okay.
So this is from Trish from Fort Lee, New Jersey. Was your favorite boyfriend for Rory? Do you find any of them intolerable?
Uh? I'm gonna give the most diplomatic answer that I can. I think that they were all good boyfriends that didn't meet them at the right time, that they all cross paths at the wrong time with each.
Other artfully, artfully expressed, artful. That is a wonderful dodge.
Thank you.
Okay, So this is this is uh Shanikwa from the Bronx wants to know do you think Logan is a bad influence on Rory?
I mean, I think Rory is a bad influence on Rory.
You know, you know a lot of people are going to agree with you in this fan base.
He can be a little jerky sometimes, but I don't think you know, he means well. Whether he does well is different. But I don't think he's trying to push someone in the wrong direction.
Mm hmm. All right, here's a big, big question, alex uh. Okay, this is from Ramola from New York City. Do you think Emily and Richard are good parents to Laurel I? Or maybe the question should be were good parents to Laurel I? Because I mean, there she's what thirty six now? So thirty seven? So yeah, he stopped. I mean, when does the parenting end?
I maybe I think they did the best at what they thought was right. I think and Also, I think Laurel I says that too in that episode that I mentioned. She's like, my you know, my dad is from a time and a place. He has these values, he believes in these things. He did right by his family as far as he saw. And I think, I mean, first, I don't think you can necessarily look at Laurel I and be like, I mean, this is the person who like, I don't think that they did a decent job like
she turned out okay. But I would also say that I think that they did what they thought was best and they did that well. So I think that whether or not they're good parents is a hard thing to answer, but I do think that.
I don't.
I think that they had a vision of the world and I think they lived by that and I think they did that well.
Right, lots of questions about Luke and is that her best lorealized best match? All right, so let's just let's just talk about Luke, because we never really talk about Luke that much. Did you think that Luke was her best match loraalized best match?
I do, And I also and I think that the
I think that the writers did as well. I think that I actually I would love to know if my theory is correct, and maybe it's too far back of an answer, but like I feel like you can tell when the season two pick up order came based on when they sort of pull off the gas for the Luke and Loral like they're like it's like they are not saving any any energy for the swim back to shore, and then at a certain point, like it's clear, like, well, we can't do it right now because presumably they got
renewed for a second season, like in that hospital episode, like you you know, that feels like it's the beginning of something incredibly magic and charming, and it doesn't really come back there for another for some years. So I mean, I would I would love to note that that's my theory. That's my theory about.
The time of things. From what I can tell and what I have gleaned, I think the network wanted it sooner, and I think Amy and Dan fought him tooth and nail to drag it out, which I think was the smart move obviously, and I actually think they could have milked it for another couple of seasons.
That that would have been a controversial move. I meant that I actually have a new question for you. I'd love to know, Okay, when you I guess like when as an actor, I you know, you you shut the door on a character when the show ends, and then nine or so years later, like you have to you're you know, like you have to find a way to open that door again, like well like and to do that very seamlessly and to be to sort of rediscover that character, Like did you have a process for doing that?
Like during the not the reboot, but the like, what were you like, did you have tools? Did you have like a touchstone? Did you like how did you know that so well?
Because the band got back together and you're playing with your old players and it's like we didn't forget how to play. And the panic was in the beginning that I didn't feel like this guy anymore. But then I put the clothes on and put the hat on, and I took a walk around stars Hollow, which they built back up again Netflix did, and it was a better, brighter, shinier version of what we remember. There was a bigger budget for these four you know, hour and a half
movies is basically what they were. And just talking with Lauren again and talking with Michael Winners and talking with you know, Rory and doing scenes with them again and rehearsing again. It all just, you know, it all flooded back, and I, you know, the time that went by was no longer an issue. You know, I changed a great deal. I'd gotten married and had a son, so I didn't I couldn't relate to Luke as he was, But how could you. He wasn't that Luke anymore. He was this
guy now. And it's just this time went by and I looked different, and Lauren didn't look that much different, so it was a little more and h But yeah, it's really just being around the old players again and you know, playing the music again and it all sort of comes back.
That's that's kind of a that's a I know, it's a very it's a very heartwarming thing to hear as a fan because like you do sort of imagine, like I know, you see a lot, you see a lot of reboots of a lot of shows that don't go so well, and then on this one, like I know, people had varying, very strong, varying opinions, but I don't think that anyone felt that anyone was not in the scene and not in the moment. That's I don't know, so it's I was just always amazed by that aspect of it.
Certainly, I really think that, you know, the other actors. Actors breathe life into each other, and we're solely dependent on each other, you know, and it's an exchange. It's like an exchange of energy and light, if if you will, And that just sort of activates the whole process and it and it becomes, oh, yeah, this is how it feels, and this is who we are, and this is how we relate to one another, and this is what it is, and this is what it sounds like, and this is
what it feels like, and let's go. Give us the words, let's go.
That's very similar to writing. I mean, because I when I, you know, do any screenwriting, I write with a very good friend of mine, and like there's this sort of kinetic exchange, and then there's also this like like damn, that guy really just come up with that awesome line. I got to come up with a better line. I got to do better than that. It's like the most exciting thing is to find yourself in a situation where you're playing cap with people. So I feel like it sounds very similar.
I think you're right. I think you've nailed it. It's, you know, just keeping that ball in the air and making it go higher and higher and higher. So let's talk about your screenwriting. How did you how long have you been wanting to write? And did you want to write novels or how did you sort of rotate into writing screenplays? Not not that that's that's it's an extremely difficult thing to do. Yeah, to write a good screenplay is no mean task. No, it's it's it's not it's daunting.
It is did you grow up loving literature and and you were well read kid, and and you admired certain writers growing.
Up completely totally. And but I also sort of like very parallel to that, really really loved movies. I really liked old movies. I was and still am a big movie nerd in high school. And a lot of my favorite writers did. But like Graham Green and Raymond chandl like did they did both, you know, novels and screenplays, And so I feel like a lot of that is
very very very close together. And I and so, as I mentioned, I write mainly with you know, a very good friend of mine, and we both sort of love the same movies, and eventually we were just, you know, just just happened, and it's a really exciting, really fun thing. Very can be very frustrating sometimes in the development.
But anything anything worth it is right, it's yes, but birth.
Pangs, yeah, it's it's and then you know, obviously there's a unlike journalism, I feel like there's also sort of like a very. You have to be willing to say goodbye to projects that you really love almost as quickly as you fell in love with them. For you know, let's say producers move on, or someone drops out, or this happens, that that happens, or the weather changes, and you have to be willing and able to like close the door on something and move on.
I remember falling in love with movies as a young boy. We went to a lot of movies. It was my generation went to tons of movies. I remember seeing, you know, the Exorcist came out and I don't know, I was all of ten or eleven years old, and my mother was like, you're not going to see that film, and I said, no, I'm going to see that film. We're going with my Italian friend and he's going to wear a Crucifix. We're gonna be fine, don't worry about it.
The devil can't get to us. And we were so terrified by that film because she she acquiesced and we went to the theater and she actually was sitting in the back of the theater, you know, just sort of watching us to see what anybody would pass out to protect you. Yeah, she wasn't buying it. So we ended up sleeping though there was three of us that went to see A three uh, my other friend Tommy, and
we stayed at the Italian boys home that night. We slept on his floor in his living room floor and sleeping bags to be protected from from Satan because we were also freaked out from that film. And and I really must say that it is not a horror film, and it and it defined horror for me and my generation in a different way that horror is defined. It's really a film about the fear of a woman losing her little girl, and that's all it is. That's what
it that's the that's the horror. And it's such a beautifully written and such a beautifully acted and beautifully directed film. And when I saw so, I was always fascinated with the power of film, and I didn't understand it was the It was really the writing that was the thing, because great writing is going to find a great director, is going to find great actors, going to find a great studio starts with the writing. So I see Altered States.
I don't know if you've seen the film, and I don't know what you think of Patachevsky, but I just felt I fell in love with acting because of that film, because of Hert's performance, because of the concepts behind what he was representing that entire world academia, and knowing that Chayevsky moved to Cambridge, lived there for three years and did his really did his research, I mean, really dug in it's it's it's very similar to how todd Field
is now behaving. I just saw tar on their on the airplane and say what you want about the ending, but I thought, this is as well researched and and Toddfield has learned the language of classical music on a level of a Tchaievsky and level.
Yeah, and well, I mean, one of the amazing things about Chaiovski is that like it wasn't just like it just feels like everything that he writes is like like, how can you know so intimately? So many things like how can you? And then like network and you're like what, like how did now you know?
How? This?
Like it just it was one thing. And he's an incredible writer. And I don't know if you've read Sydney Lumet's book Making Movies, which is one of my favorites. He has a lot of very very funny stories about Patty Chaowski having tantrums with the studio.
Oh, okay, I will, I will read it. I have not read that one. I've read most of them, but I have not. I will read that one.
It's it's a it's like half memoir, like There's a great Thing where he very very very poorly disguised as the fact that Robert Redford wanted to play in the like the leader on the Verdict, and kept trying to like make the actor more virtuous and better and not an alcoholic and not mean, and then at some point he was like, no, that's a fire Redford, and just bring back Paul Newman. And it worked great. It's very funny. It's a really funny book.
Will I will, I will. I'm on location, so I will have plenty of free time to read and I will read that one. Thank you for that recommendation. All right, so we'll have you back on after the strike is resolved. We can continue the conversation. You're a fascinating young man. Thank you, and then we can we can talk about some of your work maybe.
Okay, it's it was a pleasure meeting you and me too, and yeah, thank you so much for having me.
Thanks for coming on.
Yep, take care.
All right, bye, Hey everybody to forget.
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