Rodney Barnes

know if he's still there. But every day I kept coming in and not just going the writer's room and sit on the couch and just keep pitching jokes and pitching jokes until Don Rio, who was our showrunner, Uh, he said, you know what, sit at the table, and that was the beginning. Hright. My name is Rodney Barnes. I'm an executive producer and writer on the hit show Winning Time on HBO, and I write a bunch of other cool stuffs. Hello, friends, welcome to another episode of

Off the Beat. I'm so glad you're here. As always, this is your host, Brian Baumgartner. Today, as you just heard, I'm going to be speaking with writer producer Rodney Barnes. Now, who's Rodney Barnes, you might ask, Well, he is a man,

a writer who has mastered almost every genre. I mean, I'm not exaggerating He's worked on everything from sitcom's like Everybody Hates Chris Too, satirical cartoons like The Boon Docks, which by the way, won him a Peabody, and sports dramas like the new hit HBO show that I just finished, Winning Time. Trust me check that show out if you haven't. It is worth it, whether you're a sports fan or not. Oh and when he's not doing all of that, he

also writes graphic novels. So yeah, no big deal. Listen, if you're looking for some inspiration for some real talk about show biz, you have come to the right place today. I mean Rodney. He literally left the writer's room for season two of Win Time to come here and to talk to us. We're gonna walk through his incredible career from being a production assistant on a first name basis with his childhood heroes to learning to tell the best story he can no matter what room he is in.

You know what, I'm gonna let the man. I'm gonna let the master speak for himself. So here he is Rodney Barnes. Everyone, Bubble and Squeak. I love it, Bubble and Squeak, Bubble and Squeaker. Cook at every month left over from the night before. What's up, Rodney, How are you sure? I'm all right? How are you doing? Doing okay, doing okay, just okay today. Yeah, so we has worked. There's a lot of stuff going on at the same time, but it's all good stuff. Well, good, well, thank you

for taking the time to talk to me. First off, I have to say congratulations on your huge smash hit, which I finished a couple of days ago, now winning time on HBO. I'm very excited to talk to you about that. But I wanted to start going back a little bit for our listeners and for me, like how you got to where you are now? You grew up in Maryland, right, Annapolis, Maryland? Annapolis, Maryland is where I grew up. You grew up, you were born and raised,

you lived there for your youth. Yeah. I was born at the U. S. Naval Academy. My father was in the military, lived there, stayed there for twenty five years. I went to college in the area. Sort of figured my life was just gonna be regular Annapolitan for lack of a better word. Every job that I have was in the area and never really could sider being in California.

One day and then um. When I went to Howard University, I started to work on movies and TV shows Pelican Brief, Clear Present, Danger, Quiz Show, Forrest Gump, anything that came to the area and I could get a gig on would be a production assistant or an assistant director. And then eventually I worked on a movie, Major Pain, with Damon Wayams, and he took an interest in me and

gave me an opportunity to work on his movies. And that sort of led me to l A And I'm packed up my stuff, moved out and left in my car for a while. That famous l A story, you know, scratching and scraping and try to make your way. And I did that and here we are here, here we are before I want to talk about the car. But when you went to Howard, as you said, when did you start to sort of think this is what I want to do. I want to be involved in entertainment

or I want to be a writer. Well what happened was I went to when I first went to college, a bunch of journey colleges and different colleges. It was to play sports, and probably a third of the way in I realized I wasn't good enough to make a living at being an athlete. But I kept doing it anyway because I didn't have a plan. B There was nothing else really there, um, you know, for me to do. So I kept doing it because it was something to do.

And then eventually, UM hit a wall and said, you know, I'm going to run out of time, and a friend suggested I go back to school for real, and I went back to Howard focused on the film and television business. Still had no idea how it was going to work. I did not know what the bridge from the East

Coast to Hollywood, you know, how that worked. Didn't understand the business at all, but slowly but surely, and I'd say being a production assistant was a huge part of it because I got an opportunity to see how it all sort of came together and slowly but surely make my way in it. Now. Writing was another thing. It

was more of. I knew I wanted to write, and I knew I wanted to be in the business, but I pretty much knew no one was going to hire me just being so green and just buy a script from me and make a million dollars and everything was going to be great coming out of the box. So I looked at being a production assistant and working in production as a way to keep a roof over my head, you know, while I was figuring out the writing part two. So the first part sort of supported the second part, right.

You know, it's so interesting. I've talked to so many people and we've talked about the value of just on set experience, just being around a set, seeing how things work, whether you're working in exactly the area that you want to be. How valuable that just that experience is. Well what I think a lot of people I talked to a lot of writers, they don't want to go through that process. They want to do the thing they want

to do, which is understandable. But if you come from the conventional working world, which ninety nine point nine percent of us come from, it works its own way. But the entertainment business works another way. It's a way we talk, it's a way at the pace at which it moves, the expectations, the emotional psychological development that you have in order to be able to deal with constant rejection, all of that stuff you typically don't get in the conventional world.

If you work at a regular government job, like you know, my family did. They are boundaries that you work within. You you know what they are. You get a reviewed every year, you get raised, or you don't get a raised, and it's very conventional, and in Hollywood it's sort of like the circus. You know, every month, two months, three months, you could be moving on to the next place, and you've got to figure out how you're gonna make it. In between, there's a lot of rejection, or could be.

I don't know anybody that hasn't, but I'm trying to be out to miss it. Certainly in my career has been a lot of rejection, and you have to mostly be able to continue to get back up off the horse when things don't go the way that you wanted to go. Maybe you don't have that mental toughness. This is gonna be a really hard ride for you. And so I think having those jobs gave me an opportunity

to learn stuff, to get those muscles ready. Living in my car, just a lot of things that I had to do to get to this place that I didn't realize at the time. I always use the analogy of when you're in the gym, you have the machines and you have free weights, the machines do some of the work for you because they balanced the weight that you're

lifting and you're just doing the movement. But when you're doing free weights, you have all those little muscles to balance it that you're doing yourself, that you're utilizing to lift in the weight. That's sort of what I look at working in production is because there's so many little things that you're getting about how to interact with other people within the business and learning what to do and

what not to do. You know, I've never had mentors in the conventional sense of the word that someone put their arm around me and said, sonen, come on, I'm gonna show you how this business work. But I've been blessed to be in rooms with some really high level people and how they conducted themselves and how they dealt with stress, and how they you know, we're leaders, and just to be able to observe was the biggest thing. If I had had success in my twenties or you know,

even early thirties, I would have blown it. I know I would have blown it. And having the opportunity to take a step back and just learn is invaluable. Yeah, you know, everything for me is not about the office. But I will talk about Greg Daniels, our showrunner, who talked about for him, which makes so much sense. Oftentimes, writers, particularly young writers, are writing and a void without really

understanding how television or movies are constructed. Whereas when you hear a p A and when you're on set, you know you can't write some things. I used to joke with him, I'm not Homer Simpson. There are things that a writer can write for Homer Simpson and and an animator can animate that. My body is not gonna do that. There's no way to shoot certain things. And so I think as a writer having that because oftentimes they're right, you're stuck in a writer's room. You're not really on

set on a day to day basis. Being able to understand that is so important. The greatest boot camp for me on My Wife and Kids, which was my first show sitcom, was that I had the opportunity to you, after you're a million percent right, that you believe, when you're sort of in the comfort of your own mind and space without anybody evaluating the work, that you can just write about anything. You can say anything, you could

do anything that no boundaries. But when you start to learn how to write producible scripts within the budget that you're working with, within the constraints of a net worked if you're a network on a network show or what have you, you realize when you're actually in production and making a thing, now you're really writing to something versus

just your imagination and your desire to write. And I can say for me, the first ten years of my career were really all about that thing that you what you just mentioned, It was learning how to be a professional writer and learning how to be a professional you know, mentally and emotionally in both situations. Like like I said, I'm glad that I had to go through the process

of being a staff writer twice the story editor. I jumped up a couple of levels because I was on some shows for a while, But I needed that initial training in order to get from zero to one, or I doubt that I would have. You know, some of the good things that have happened to me later in my career wouldn't have happened if I didn't have that foundation to go back to. Yeah. Yeah, so you meet the wayans their supply word of of you. Yes, you decided to make the jump to Los Angeles, and then yes,

as you mentioned, you were living out of your car. Now, how what did that do for you or to you in terms of it would have been very easy to give up at that point. Yeah, I was fortunate about the whole living in my car thing. You know, certainly when you say it through the years of Today's listener and they go, oh my god, you lived in your car. You were homeless. It must have been the worst thing in the world. And it wasn't. For the two years that I was following Dame and around the country. He

wasn't putting me up in hotels. I was living in my car then too, But there was something about being close to the thing that I wanted to do. I knew everything in my hometown. I knew what life would be if I went back there. I didn't know what it would be in Hollywood. And I've got this guy, and he's given me jobs and the mom sets every day and I'm meeting the right people. I'm learning a lot.

You know, it didn't feel like homelessness. It didn't feel painful because in my mind, Okay, I would be in my car at night, but I would be on set like six seven in the morning because that's what the p's you know, come in. They come in first. I could eat and craft service all day. I probably actually gain weight because there's endless there's an endless plat food. I got along with the transport guys because so they gave me gas. I could go into honey wagons and

take a shower. I started a garbage business with my truck where at the end of the night they would give me a buck fifty a bag to get rid of the catering the locations. Folks would like here, get rid of this, and I make a hundred bucks, which at that time was huge with my dollar a day salary. You know, it wasn't bad. It was work a boy. It wasn't like I was a guy doing nothing. It was just I didn't have enough to sustain myself in

the way that I'm sustaining myself. Yeah, that you took it as this is just what life is, and I'm looking for this next opportunity. But I'm in l A. I'm working, I'm I'm doing it. Yeah. Blade was my first movie that I worked on in l A. I love comic books and a comic book guy, so I'm on set every day. Wesley Snipes knows my name. He's in the Blade outfit. Steve Norrington is telling me stories about when he was a special effects guy and the chest Burster and alien Like. I'm around some really cool

people doing really cool stuff. I'm learning l a because every day we have a different location. You know, it's kind of cool. Yeah after that, Uh, you mentioned it already. You you work with the Wayans. Your first writing job right on my wife and kids. That was your first staff writing job on television. Yeah, Damon, Uh, Damon and I we weren't around each other for a hot second, and then I got an opportunity to work on my wife and kids. He hired me as a punch up

writer for one day. I just kept coming back. This was pret not eleven day. And I got to notice security guard at the gate at ABC, and he just saw me coming every day, so he'd let me in. And you know, I'm not trying to get that guy fired now, but I don't know if he's still there. But every day I kept coming in and not just going the writer's room and sit on the couch and just keep pitching jokes and pitching jokes until Don Rio, who was our showrunner, Uh. He said, you know what,

sit at the table. And that was the beginning. And once I got at the table, it was like, Okay, I'm gonna keep doing this thing. Now I'm sitting at a writer's table. I'm a writer. And they hired me to be a staff writer the next season, and that sort of was the beginning. Television, particularly that type of television coming from films is different, right, I mean the presentational style. Did that present for you any challenges or

were you just full on enthusiastic about just being a writer. Yeah, I was enthusiast. I was terrified about being a writer. This is that them talking about the emotional psychological stuff. There was a lot of imposter syndrome. There was a lot of knowing what I didn't know. I thank god that Done was my first guy because he was patient with me. He saw whatever he saw and allowed me

to grow. And so it was really a thing about a lot of times folks come to me and they say, you know, I just want to work for you so I can learn. I just want to learn. And I'm thinking, this isn't college. You know. I don't say it out loud, but I'm thinking, but I did get an opportunity to learn, but I also contributed as well. There was this duality

of walking with both realities. That being in the writer's room with someone who had a huge amount of experience, it was invaluable, but I had to earn it every single day when I went in. I had to do what I could to answer your question. I didn't really have professional chops in the way that I think I do today, but I gave what ahead right. What attracted you from an early age to graphic novels? What what was it about that or comic books that that that

you really responded to? Well, I could tell you. My mother was a school teacher and she used to do her lesson plans at the public library. This is pre they weren't computers. All she had was paper and pen during those days. Being a single parent, she would take me to the public library with her, and they had this little pen where they had the kids books in and the Curious George's and Dr Seuss and all of that stuff. But under those books was a box, and

then that box were comic books. And I knew what that box was, and I pulled him out and this love affair was born that to this day still grips me in a weird kind of way. I think it was the nature of the stories challenged me in a way that the kids books didn't. It's like the kids books were clearly for kids. If I had nothing, I would read them. But there was something about like I'm gonna name folks I don't know if anyone knows who

they are. But there were guys like Jim Starling and Neil Adams and Mike Rell and a bunch of great creators who wrote what I would call early Star Wars or early you know, Star Trek or any of the things that would push the envelope. They would talk about social issues, they would talk about you know, good versus evil, life and death, all of this stuff. And it wasn't literature in the classical sense of the word, but it was preparing me for all of those things that I

would encounter later. So they didn't feel intimidating if someone had me read Shakespeare, because these guys had already taken a piece of the things that they do and put them into Superman, Batman, green letter books. That sort of was a great bridge from me to the more adult fair that I and in too earlier but I was just in tregue. I love the art, I love the stories,

and I'm I was an only child. Even though I have a lot of half brothers and sisters, I spent a lot of time by myself as a kid, So comic books were sort of like a friend that I could depend on. Yeah, this doesn't fully relate. I am wondering if my daughter has kind of a similar fascination my sister. This happened last night, not a joke. My sister sent a bunch of books from her Her kids

are older, my daughter's seven. She reads every night. She just reads, reads, reads, reads, and she's been getting into this box of books. And she said to me last night, as we're going up, she said, I read this cool story last night. The woman died because got bit by a snake. But then the the man died too because he got bit by a snake. And she starts talking and I'm like, what is she reading? Where did she find? And it was a kid's adaptation of Anthony and Cleopatra.

She I go, where is this book? I've got to see this book and it's just, you know, totally for kids. But like she doesn't she doesn't want to read Dr Seush. She she is fascinated by what you're talking about, like bigger stories that, even if they're told in a simplistic way for kids, clearly had a huge impact on her. Yeah, and you know Stephen King walks along the lines of that as well. I remember as a kid when you say, have paperback books on a spinner, and I had to

reach up. So that tells you how old I was to them. Six eight now, so I've been like six ft tall since I was probably thirteen years old. And I remember getting carried. I remember the cover of the book. I remember where I was when I bought the book, and I don't know why I grabbed my eye. I don't know why I caught me, but I was just spending and spending and spending, and it stopped right there, and I bought carry and I remember opening up the

book and I saw all of the reviews. They used to have them in the I don't know if which publisher it was, Penguin or whoever, but I saw all of these reviews. I was like, Wow, this must be really good. All of these people like this book, and I didn't know how it worked back then with the press and not to say that it was obviously I'm still a fan, and then he did tell him slot then he did the shining, and I was right there just going basically doing the same thing I was with

comic books. I was building a relationship. And you know, I'm in my fifties now and I was a teenager then, and I just built this relationship with an author that I came to depend on the consistency of a guy

like a Stephen King. You know, in my mind when I think about being an author and writing comic books and novels as well, it was like, how could I build up a lifestyle that would house that type of discipline to where I could be prolific in that way too, to where you know, I'm writing television, but I'm writing comic books, and I'm writing novels, and I'm writing movies

and I'm doing all these things. But that requires a certain type of structure to your life, because no one's gonna, you know, make you right or make you do these things. You have to sort of come up with the intention on your own that this is what I want to do, this is what I need to do. And again, going back to that p a thing and survival. You know, pas come and go. You know, it's the thing that you can get rid of. There's ten more standard in line.

There's a thing that you have to do two um, you know, show that you really want to be there and develop the reputation so that people keep hiring you again and again and again. You know, just to be able to think nimbly. Nobody comes along and says this is what you need to do. You have to figure it out yourself. And I think that that skill set went from being a production assistant to being a professional

writer to this day. You mentioned Stephen King, and I know you have a deep love of vampire horror novels. What is it about that material or the way that stories are told in that genre that appeals to you so much. The life and death thing is huge, you know, the life and death thing that didn't exist in children's books unless you were getting into the dark Disney stuff. You know what, wasn't afraid to deal with life and death.

But typically there's this thing in horror to where there's a good guy and a bad guy, and the bad guy the antagonist operates on a place with a lot

of intangibles. That's the supernatural stuff, and in order for the protagonist to make it out alive, whichever one does, because obviously some won't, he has to use a unique set of skills that go beyond conventional thinking because you never know, you're dealing with a vampire who is immortal and you know, can turn into a bet and some of the mythos, and what do you do if you're trying not to get your next sector, try to you know, get your wife back. She's been bitten and you want

her to come back to being a human. What do you do? There was always something about that and then um not being able to predict the outcome, you know, being able to go in a room and that could be scary stuff in there, and a gun might not help you, karate might not help you. There's there's just so much to it that you have to use your mind and your imagination in order to be able to make it. That's so I've never thought about that before.

But the unconventional solutions to a high stakes problem where you have to use your imagination, I think that's that's awesome kept me going. Get time. I have to talk about one of your really mega successes, The Boondocks, for which you want a Peabody Award, And really that's mixing a few of your loves, right, adapting a comic strip into a television show. What was the process like for launching that, forgetting that that show going? It was already

on track. The strips creator uh Am Gruta had already been working on getting it going and was really looking to work with television writer because he was trying to adapt it for TV. And at the time I've been working on my wife and kids, and our sensibilities sort

of meshed in a way. There was this frustration I had because it was another side of me being a writer working on network television with my wife and kids, and everybody hates Chris the boundaries she had to work within and with the Boon Ducks that didn't exist in the same way. So I was able to find this world where you could virtually say anything seemingly and be creative in a way at network television didn't allow during

that period of time. And certainly, and even bringing the cultural thing in, I could talk about black people in a way here that I couldn't run network TV. Frustrations and politics and all of this other stuff that it gave a certain amount of freedom that wasn't there and any of the other things that I had done, so, you know, just having the opportunity and I was doing it.

I was working on that show at the same time I was working on the other show, So it was almost like an exhaust valve, you know, uh, air brakes where you just need to let off some pressures. Like I would do this one thing in the morning and then do another thing at night, and they were completely different things. But again, I look at all of that stuff is sort of a boot camp or training ground

because school teaches you what school teaches you. But when you're trying to build that bridge to being a professional and wanting to do more mature things, it takes, like any crap a, doing it over and over and over, and then different types of ways and different entry points of different tones and different styles, and before you can get to a place where you can say, Okay, I'm not intimidated by anything that's coming my way because I've

probably seen it before. You know, there's always that the intrigue of something new. But once you've done something enough, you know. The championship games are tonight in the NBA, and these guys have been playing basketball for so long, even though it's a different style, is still a game of basketball. And that's sort of how I look at

writing because of the drama. I've done, comedy, I've done animation, you know, a lot of different single camera, multi caam commercials, whatever, and all of that comes from having done so many different things that when I walk in the room, even if I haven't done it before, I'm like, Okay, this is connected to something that I've done before, so it doesn't feel completely foreign to the place where I'm going to be intimidated. Yes, well, I just finished Winning Time

on HBO. You were talking before about having a fascination or or really appreciating life and death situations high stakes. Well, I guess there is a little bit of death in this. I think you guys did an astounding job of making everyone watching feel how high the stakes are, even though again we're talking about about basketball. So talk to me a little bit or you're you're clearly you're a basketball fan. I am as well. What attracted you to wanting to

tell this story? Obviously a seminal moment for well, for the Lakers, for the city of Los Angeles, and for the n b A in general, I'm as a huge NBA fan. I was very interested in the character of David Stern actually and sort of beginning to see his ascension through the organization and how he shaped the next from Magic and Larry to Michael, and how how he viewed building the league. How did this show come to be? Obviously it's based on a book, showtime. What attracted you

to it and made it a story you wanted to tell? Well, a little bit of a history of how it all came to be before me. Jim Heckt, who was one of our executive producers, read the book, Jeff Berman's book, got it to Adam McKay. Adam McKay dug the book, he got it to HBO. HBO said, yes, we'll do a mini series on this. We need a writer. They reached out to Max Bornstein, who I've been writing with for about a decade, and then he reached out to me.

That's sort of how I got involved. Unfortunately, I'm old enough to have seen a lot of bad sports theme movies TV shows, um where if it's not about one particular player, it's usually about the coach or the owner or someone and the players are sort of relegated to one dimensional caricatures. That's the good one, that's the bad when that's the one that's gonna a shot as someone is going to jail. And we won the final game. Where we lost the final game, that was sort of it.

This was an opportunity to tell a layered story. It was the opportunity to speak to a period of time I knew. I understood not just the games, but everything that was happening in the world. I remembered the rhythm and how people spoke, how people looked, the attitudes of people. I was telling my son one day, we were talking about professional wrestling, and uh, you know, my son was looking at some of the footage I was looking at

and he was like, oh my god, that's appalling. He was looking through today's sensibilities into the past and it wasn't that long ago, and I'm trying to explain to him the context of how it's different and blah blah blah, and all he could see is what he knew. And I wanted to give sort of kind of creative bridge to be able to speak to a world that I won't say I missed, but I'm certainly and of in its own unique way. I just watched the George Carlin

documentary on HBO. You know, it was another voice of that period of time that I remember so clearly, and comedy sort of doesn't work that way anymore, and not on mass and so the opportunity just to speak to a period of time on a subject that I was deeply connected to, that was the draw for me. Yeah. I have heard that you describe the show as a love letter to a period of time, but also to the Lakers and to the game. It's fascinating again, a

layered story. You described it as focus. I mean, well, let me ask you this, who is the show about? Is it Dr Buss? It's about the organization because everybody gets some everybody gets love. So you got Dr Bus. Dr Buss and Magic are sort of two halves of a whole. And then there's the world that's the extensions

of those two worlds. You've got from Dr Buss, you've got his Emily, you've got the management team and the people that he interacts with primarily, and from Magic side, you have his family and other players, and you know how they interact with him and the little in the world that they occupyed the thing, the verb of what they do. They played basketball. The management side owns and operates the team, so that would be the two halves of the whole. But everybody gets enough love that I

would say it's about the Laker organization as a whole. Yeah, I mean, you're you're the expert without knowing the story, and I had not read the book, but I sort of understood the show time that it was sort of

made in Dr Busses image. But I think adding in or explaining the stakes of what he was going through and the decisions that he made and the choices from everyone else essentially in the organization to say, this is only gonna work if we build it in his image in a way in terms of not just the style of play though it was, but also everything else that created it an event that is now arguably the biggest a basketball game in Los Angeles for the Lakers, is

arguably the biggest sporting event for a regular season game that you could go to maybe the Knicks at Madison Square Garden or something like that, but but in a particular time. But yeah, yeah, but I think even you know, even so today, I mean, having the stars, they're having well. I mean, I guess Lebron is there now, but it becomes an event going to a game. It's not just

a game. I agree. I mean I think that you know, for the Lakers, whether they're good or bad, you know, whether they're having a good or a bad season, they've built sort of an entertainment infrastructure that it becomes an event. Every game becomes an event, is sold out, regardless of they play in the worst team in the league or whatever.

I'd say, A team like the Yankees, you know, sort of have that mystique to them to whether they're good or bad, you show up and there's this aura of what they are that sort of accompanies the experience of watching them play. Maybe the next have it, you know, I think the Dallas Cowboys have it. Dallas Cowboys. Yeah, yeah, you know, maybe the Patriots. Those teams that are sort of have sort of broken out of the idea of sports and into the zeitgeist of pop culture. To me

are the ones that have an extra thing happening. Um, how important was it for you to get the characterization's right about the people you were covering. I mean, obviously there's been a lot of discussion about some of the portrayals, I would say, most notably Jerry West also Kareem a little bit early on in the in the thing, how important was it for you and how accurate do you think that you all ended up being portraying these these

legends and the sport. This is what I'll say. We did a lot of research with what we had read, a lot of books, a lot of articles. Never about

disparaging anyone. We come from a place of fandom and appreciation, you know that said, I'm also very empathetic with the idea that if someone was telling the story of Rodney Barnes, and certainly of a certain period, and they picked certain things and they said, I'm gonna tell oh, that's interesting, I'm gonna tell that story, and I don't get an opportunity to sort of net or add all of the various things that were going on in my life in my mind at the time to sort of supported that.

I would feel a way too, you know. So it's more of um, it's more of a place of understanding. Again, never work to disparage them. Put a lot of work and effort into the research that we did, and we try to take a year's worth of a basketball season, condense it to ten hours. You know, it's very difficult. Yeah, you're not going to get like a documentary style thing

where things are told by effects only. You have to dramatize a certain thing in order to make it work, and we try to the best of our ability to do that in a way that is um balanced and so, you know, again, empathetic to those guys, right, I certainly hear and believe that. I mean, there's a ton of love shown for everyone involved. I guess I'm gonna ask this in a slightly different way. Is it more important as a writer on this series to tell the best story that you can or to get it right? Right?

Is such a subjective thing, you know what is right? I think you try to tell this the best story that you can, for sure, but you also try to tell a story that is layered and nuanced and his depth and is entertaining the other stuff that goes into the gumbo of storytelling. It's a lot of different things, of course, being fair and all of those things too, But we're making entertainment more so than just spouting facts and again right as relative Right, I listened to John Ireland,

who is the now the voice of the Lakers. He and Mason are probably my two favorite l A sports people to listen to if I'm driving around picking up kids from school in the afternoon. And he loves that. I've heard him rave about it, and he's a current employee obviously of the Lakers. He said, and it was

in the middle of a huge compliment, he said. Oh and by the way, leading up to Boston, the Lakers actually won the game before, but he tells in in the story that it would be better, right, I assume in terms of stakes that they were as down and out as possible before they end up beating Boston. Is that the thinking that's kind of what I'm talking about. Yeah, I would say it's related to that sort of thinking. I think when you're trying to tell a story, you're

trying to manipulate emotions. You can tell a story about a boxer, or if you're saying you're doing a thrill in Manila, you're making a movie about it. Ali one fifteen rounds probably in that fight, would it be slightly better if you gave if you showed Frasier's punches landing, you know, and a little bit more, you know, even way so that by the time you get to the end that yes, Ali one, But do you want to watch a fight that's unusual because Thrill in Manila was

a great fight. But do you just want to see this fight where you have Ali dominating if you're making a movie of it, or do you want to make it seem as though there's more danger present for Ali in that fight in those areas where we may have said, Okay, the score was a little bit different or whatever. You're trying to emphasize the next moment that you're coming to that ultimately is going to drive us to the ultimate truth.

The Lakers won the title and etcetera, etcetera. But the journey to getting there for the person that wasn't alive in nineteen seventy nine, it doesn't know the history, It doesn't know any of those things that's going on this this ride. You want to make it as pleasurable for him as you can. Yeah, well, and it It certainly was that compelling for well, for sports fans and non sports fans alike. It's just a great story. I just want to ask you, because obviously we employed this, you know,

slightly different way on the office. The decision to have direct addresses to the camera where the characters are sharing their thoughts. What was the idea behind that or why why was that decision made? You know, it's another way of it's another way of getting more information out from either the scene or more exposition with the character. And it's just something that Adam McKay does incredibly well in some of his stuff that we utilize in our show

to do the same thing. We've got a massive cast. You've got so many characters and so much narrative real estate that you're trying to occupy with all of these characters that anytime you get the opportunity to add a little bit more so that, you know, to enrich the experience of a scene or a moment, that's sort of what's behind it. Yeah, I felt like especially with the scenes with John c Riley and Dr Buss, they really

helped get in. I had the head of that character in moments that I felt were both pleasurable and important historically. Was he that cash poor? Is that true? There were financial issues? There were financial issues. There were financial issues. Yes, they were financial issues. It's fascinating to me. Well, you had a huge cast, you were a part of it Maurice stead of Lager Security, Leger Security. Thank you. Brilliant performance.

By the way, how was that like for you being on camera with all the guys, Well, hey, it was overwhelming. It was not something that I requested. The way it started, we were working on the show in New York when I was working on Wu Tang and Max was working on a movie Worth in New York. We would get together on a weekends, UH some other folks and start working on the show. And I saw my picture up on the wall with the other actors, and I'm like, what is my picture on the wall? And oh, you'll

you'll see, You'll see. So when we got to l A, I see this character Maurice. Oh you're gonna be Maurice. Who the hell is Maurice? I know Cooper and Worthy knows who the hell is Maurice. Oh he's security. Gonna do one episode and blah blah blah. Then I did another episode and then it started to become this thing to where when we had to cut a scene but we still needed the information, we just sticked ma res in and you know in that scene we would compensate

for the thing that we couldn't do anymore. That Scalper's one in episode five was really because we didn't have time for a bunch of extras and a scalper and for Claire to go outside and talk to the scalper and get her. So we had her talking to me about give these tickets to them when you go outside. You know. Every scene that I was in apologized to the actor I was working with, because he deserved better.

The first scene was with Adrian Brody. He was an Oscar winner, you know, and so it was like Ctera, etcetera, etcetera. It was an honor, was intimidating, but it was that's awesome. And he, by the way, Adrian Brody is, pat Riley is. He's great. And I've always been personally fascinated with Riley and his story and l A to New York to Miami and so interesting. What surprised you most about the reaction to the show? I think the players, some of the real life folks who judged it the way that

they did, some of whom didn't watch it first. That was a surprise, you know. Other than that, everything else sort of kind of was what I expected it to be because I knew what we had. I knew we put a lot of work into it, but yeah, I would say the reaction was the only thing that was a surprise. I was thinking about and by the way, my math is not great, but I was thinking about the movie Nixon, right. I was thinking about the movie Nixon with Anthony Hopkins, and I was thinking about, you know,

recreating that time period. And I started thinking, well, but so much time had passed between Nixon and that movie, And then I started thinking. I started doing the math in my head. I mean, it's been forty three years. It doesn't seem like it, but it's been forty three years since that season of basketball happened, which is probably longer than the Nixon Between the Nixon movie. It's so interesting to me that it's still so present. And maybe it's because some of those guys are still so such

big personalities today. There's that. But the thing that always gets me when we talk about numbers in time, I think because it was the turn of the century, when you get to the nine the seventies to two thousand, for some reason, because it's that, it doesn't seem as long as it did if you were saying nineteen, you know whatever, There's something about the math. That makes it feel like it wasn't that long ago, but it really was.

And like you said, I think the state of media keeps the guys present because they work on the liquor after show. You still see Norm Nixon, We still see magic everywhere Kareem. You know, it's like you see them in a way that in the seventies, you know, retired guys probably you wouldn't see in the same way because you didn't have television and media the way and social media they had. They still have a voice, you know

that usually wasn't the case. Um, congratulations on everything. You have a number of really interesting projects going back to some horror graphic novel stuff, Tales from the Crip with Snoop Dogs That sounds so exciting to me. And have you started working on that? Is that is that going? I'm writing the book now, along with a bunch of other ones of Blackula and my regular book Philadelphia and a lot of vampires, a lot of horror, a lot of stuff. That's a lot of fun. It takes me

back to my childhood. A labor of love more so than just labor. But Snoop Dogg is fantastic. We talk all the time. It's great. Oh that's awesome. And I I want to say, I think what is so cool about what you have done and are doing that. You're bringing your own cultural experiences to these types of stories that that hasn't been done before. And I find that so bold and courageous and well awesome. Really, so thank you. I really appreciate that. Good luck with all of that. Also,

I'm a big golfer golf fan myself. You're working on the Tiger Woods scripted mini series, good old Tiger. Yeah, finished the script and finished the Bible and let's see what happens. Well. Congratulations on all of it and on winning time. Congratulations on that. I can't wait to the season two. Right as this is truth has has been ordered, it's we're going. I left our writer's room to come talk to you. There. You went for one zoom to the next zoom, so I don't know if I would have,

but I appreciate you doing it. Thank you so much, Rodney. I appreciate your time. Congratulations and good luck. Thank you. Look forward to doing it again. Rodney. It was so great to talk to you and to get to know you a little bit. Thank you for stopping by. I cannot wait for your Snoop Dog collaboration coming up very very soon. I know it is going to be incredible. And to those of you out there listening, thank you

for tuning in. Rodney said it best. What we do is a labor of love and you know, not not to be too cheesy, but we get to do it because of you. So thanks, I appreciate you listening, and I'll be back next week with another exciting interview and hey, I think that you're gonna like it. Off the Beat is hosted an executive produced by me Brian Baumgartner, alongside our executive producer Lang Lee. Our producers are Diego Tapia, Liz Hayes, Emily Carr, and Hannah Harris. Our talent producer

is Ryan Papa Zachary. Our theme song Bubble and Squeak performed by my great friend Creed Bratton, and the episode was mixed by Seth o'landski