Where was I? Somebody went, Hey, Papageorgio!! INTO MUSIC
Hey, it's Les from the TV Dudes. As part of our continuing coverage of ATX Television Fest Season 13, I'm thrilled to bring you my chat with Halt and Catch Fire creators Christopher C. Rogers and Christopher Cantwell, as well as actor Toby Huss (John Bosworth). We talk about Toby's career and why HACF was special, what making the show meant to the creators, and about what a bonding experience it was for all involved.
So I'm Les from the TV dudes. Can I have each of you introduce yourselves?
Sure. I'm Chris Rogers. Christopher C. Cantwell: Uh, I'm Chris Cantwell.
I'm Toby Huss.
And of course, we just got to see the Halt and Catch Fire panel. Panels are always fun. You know, it's not like there's ever animosity on stage, but if you guys had group hugged at the end, it would not have shocked me . So much love. And you could tell how special it was. I was really struck, especially hearing it in y'all's voices that, that this was *the* thing that made this career possible, made this dream happen. Can you talk a little bit about, the fear, the trepidation, getting your feet under you? Did you feel 'over your skis' that whole first season? What was that like?
We were just talking about this this morning, actually, like both of us. It was the first TV job we ever had was that show. Um, so it's really daunting to walk into a writer's room and all the other writers are more experienced than you and have these incredible credits, you know, Mad Men and Deadwood and Southland. And, um, it was, uh, it was daunting, like from one moment to the next. And also it's an industry that it seems to delight in scaring you about the responsibilities of being a showrunner and . Uh, you know, here's welcome to the hardest job you're ever gonna have. And you're, you know, you're never gonna see your family again. And it wasn't that, and that was what was amazing. So I think it took us a while to unclench. And let the adrenaline fade, if it ever really did. But like, and just ease into it and trust the fact that everyone around us was really supportive and a wonderful person.
I know from me too, there was just like a, uh, you had gone to film school, so, so I assumed you had a, a trove of knowledge on this, but there was just like several moments where like, we went to Atlanta to location scout, and I was like, oh, this is cool. We're gonna go on fun trips for this job. And then it was like, okay, now you need to move to Atlanta for like X months. And I was like, oh, this is escalating quickly. , you know, . Uh, so, so I think there was just also some kind of sincere, not knowing about what was next that was thrilling, but also, you know, everybody thinks they're a fraud. Uh, and they, I still think I'm a fraud, but it was, you're not, it was excited. Thank you, .
Well, I know from my point of view, it didn't, it never once seemed like this was you guys' first job. That's, that's amazing. It never did. It always seemed like this thing was moving forward. It was really smart and was really thrown out. And like, we'd get those scripts and we'd look at 'em. We'd all read 'em together and Huh. We'd sort of died. We'd spend four hours. Sometimes we'd make dinner and spend four hours with these scripts of these dudes who hadn't, hadn't, hadn't written shit before. It didn't make any sense. And also the way that they, 'cause you have to build that environment. It doesn't just come on its own. Mm-Hmm. . So something was coming outta you guys that was really genuine and since, I mean, you saw the result of it 10 years later, we're still, we really like each other and it's genuine. And we made something really artful and I, we never knew it was their first, their real first real gig.
Knowing that it, uh, was a bit of a show in the bubble or whatever it means, and that you weren't dead sure that you had a season two, three, and four... It doesn't feel like that from the audience side. It feels on rails, that these character arcs are so solid. Where Boz gets to go from this guy that's like 'stupid kids with your stupid ideas and I'll show you how business works' to kind of being rat-fucked by 'em.
Oh, yeah. Doing some jail time
And then coming back. Toby, as an actor, was that fun to get to revisit a character in a way that you don't get to do in movies or, or in single-season shows. Was it fun to get to grow with Boz and did, did you guys fully know where that was going? Or was that something that evolved from knowing Toby?
It was, it was great to be able to play that. I mean, it's super rare, you know, because usually they're gonna have, they're gonna hang out a character like Bosworth as the foil to all the fun shit that's happening. Hey, you gotta keep it down in there that computer's never gonna work. Pound, pound, pound. I represent the establishment. Something pretty hammy. And they never let him once be hammy. They never let him once be a caricature. They opened this guy up in a, in a very unique and caring and a compassionate way because that's how I always looked at. I had a lot of compassion for that man, you know? 'cause he really got rat fucked. He really got rat fucked by the crew that came in and destroyed his whole world. I mean, that was gone. And you guys let him build himself up after that and, and open him up as a human being. And it was, that's that's really rare. Yeah.
It's a remarkable thing in any show to, to get to see a character experience repair like that. And I think you guys did it over and over. Watching Donna put away what every woman I know was raised to do, which is make themselves small. Make the guy next look better. And that's not great, but almost every woman I know my age got somewhat raised in that. And to watch Donna drop that. And not just have characters tell me Donna's smart. But like y'all mentioned in the clip they showed. You *see* Donna is smart. I can't believe how often shows forget to show me something rather than tell me something. When it's such an adage. Moving it from time to time, what did you guys see emerge as the, as the theme of the show? For me, it, it, it feels like being seen. Boz becomes a more pure Boz. We get to watch all the characters, really. I mean, Gordon has a kind of Flannery O'Connor ending, but to see all these people evolve like that... I think it's just a really special thing. When you're sitting down to write it and you don't know if you have another season, was it tempting to try to rush those arcs? Like, oh gosh, should we get, should we get Donna to where she ends now? What if, what if we don't get a season 3? What if, you know, what if the audience never gets to see Boz rebuild?
I don't think we ever approached it that way with that mindset. I think it was, this is the time we have to tell it. We don't know if we're going to get to finish it. I think we, you know, we at least had what I think television of the, the distant past didn't have, which was they could be canceled in the middle of whatever they were doing. They'd order a season and be like, okay, we have this season, we have these 10 episodes, so where can we, what's our starting moment for them? And then where are we taking them? Right. We're gonna arc them that way. And if that is our last one Mm-Hmm, , then let's put it in a place where there, there could be a suggestion or more story or, um, we finish it there. You know what I mean? Mm-Hmm. , they finished looking at, um, the, the beginnings of the worldwide web in season three. That could have been the finale, you know, like, uh, two, I forgot where it ended, but... Um, oh. Two is moving to California. They all get on a plane and they go try it. It's one of my favorite, you know, like Yeah. They, that that could be it. It would've been sad if it ended after one. But I mean, even if you look at that season, it's like Joe had a plan to take over the world, essentially. And, and what was revealed was that he actually didn't have a concrete plan. He was kind of going by his gut. He was motivated by things inside himself that he was in denial of. And that all gets ripped open by the people he uses in that season. Mm-Hmm. . So that he's just totally laid, bare and dismantled so that by the end, he has this grand idea to make a computer and he just burns 'em all down by the end. You know what I mean? Mm-Hmm. because he has been brought to his knees by the sheer humanity he's encountered in all the other characters. Yeah. And so, you know, like just those first moment, last moment was, was always so important to us in terms of the structure of each season, you know? Okay. Yeah. I think it was, we really approached it that way.
I grew up near Dallas, in Paris, Texas about an hour away.
Oh wow. Yeah.
So. 'Texas near.' For me, Boz felt incredibly true. The look at the show in Dallas felt incredibly true. Guys I knew as a kid. Friends of my Stepdad, guys doing more cocaine than you should do making computers. Doing anything, frankly. You'd hear these wild stories. It's, you know, eighties. Computers. Seeing that on screen was a blast for me. What was it like getting to build that world? I know set can feel magic sometimes. Y'all talked a little bit about stepping into a period decorated set, and it's just weird. What was it like for you, particularly growing up in Dallas? To build that again and then make it feel even realer than cosplay?
For me, just growing up in Dallas, and I think, you know, I, my father worked in computers. Cardiff Electric is very much inspired by the place where my dad worked at the time. Um, and, you know, I had all those conversations that you have with your father. Like, I never wanna do what you do. You know, all you throw that back at them, you know, sometimes you're like, you want to maybe follow in their footsteps. And I remember my dad at one point saying to me, because his job was so difficult and sometimes thankless, he did enjoy parts of it, but it was, it was very difficult and very stressful for him. He said, I do what I do so that you don't have to, we had that conversation too. But, you know, I also had the, like, really defiant, you know, rejection of all of that. And then I walked onto the set of Cardiff Electric and I had recreated my father's office, which is, that's like something you can unpack with your therapist for the rest of your life. You know what I mean? Like, it was really, really surreal for me in that way.
Toby, you mentioned getting down to Atlanta and being on set, going through the, the scripts with the rest of the cast and stuff. Can you talk a little bit more about unpacking these things over dinners? I, I don't feel like most shows, even movies work like that anymore. You talk to stage actors and sure they got rehearsal time, but a lot of times when it feels like people just parachute into a movie. What was it like having a, a little bit of camaraderie time with the cast?
It was beautiful. I'd never worked like that before. You know, I, you know, theater things, maybe something like that. But even then it was, it was everybody, you know, going over to Lee's whatever place he was renting, and he'd make some dinner and, you know, we'd all bring some food over and make dinner and have some wine and hang out. And we would, we'd get through with a scene and then it would be, it would be, you know, Mackenzie talking about the scene, and then Scoot would say something about it. And I'd say stuff, no, I think Cameron's really, Cameron means to do this. And we'd argue about stuff and talk about stuff, and it was, it was great. It was like old school theater of stuff working, and it was beautiful.
Did that get to filter back to the, to the writing?
Yeah. Yeah. It's hard with the distance. But it's funny, they, they kind of train you as a showrunner. I feel like there's a lot of showrunners that walk around kind of bragging about how they kinda shut up their difficult actors. Like you hear a lot of like, misguided war stories about, "They told me they wanted to change the line!" But usually you'd get in a lot of calls on Monday from these guys after they've gone through the script where it was like, oh, that's better. That's a little better. . Yeah.
I think we just, we just...
...decided to those notes.
It takes a, it's a, it's much more effort and time commitment from both the cast and us. But we would get on the phone and talk for an hour and just, just be there as a conduit. And then we were just so happy to hear that that was happening.
But it was also to you guys credit, because you could have said - as normally would happen - Hey, you know what, we gotta nip this in the bud right now because you guys are discussing a thing that we don't need discussed. You just, you gotta do what we want you to do. And you, you, you would let Lee call you and say, Hey, here, here's my revisions, . And, you know, I don't think I ever had any big revisions, but it was, I'm involved in the process. So I am really protective of those guys. And if they have a problem with it, then I have a problem with it too, so let's figure this out.
This and that. What we make, what makes you feel invested in a thing too, by the way. Like, whoever felt more invested after being told, like, just shut up and do your job.
Exactly. But you'd be, you'd be shocked at how often that happens. Like, I had a director fucking two weeks ago come up to me on the set of a TV show I was doing, this guy comes up and, and I do a little thing and he said, Hey, uh, and the showrunner was there in the, in the garage watching we're shooting on location. He goes, you know, you wanna pick it up a little bit in this scene? And oh, okay, I'm playing a cop introducing him to other cop, some guy, and can going, I kind of improvised a couple lines and the director comes up almost ashen face, but he went, "Don't improvise."
Oh my God.
And he walked away and I went, okay, okay. You know, look, it's, it's my, I gotta get outta here by five paycheck. Like, okay, no more improvised, good for you. Let's go. I get the rules. Look, this isn't gonna make me that or make me this. Yeah. Let's get the fuck out. . It was like, look, that's not an uncommon attitude if somebody just goes stop, stop with this shit. Just do it.
I think if the conversation was, was about the work, like we were always open to it. I think you and I, that was the big thing we talked about going into your first writer's room, and it was Halt it was like, we just knew that we had to keep an open mind when it came to everything. And if it was about the work, it was a conversation worth having, obviously, you know, like you're gonna run into bad faith arguments and things like that. But we had so few of those because everybody was so invested. Mm-Hmm. . Um, and like, I think that, that we start, we just started from there because we had to, we had to learn on the fly. So it was like, if, if if doors were shut on on us, we were, we would be out of luck. You know what I mean? If we had a showrunner that started who really brought us in and was incredibly transparent with us, with John Lisko and, and kind of, we learned from him, you know what I mean? And then tried to try to even evolve that and make it even better as we took over. Yeah.
One of the favorite things that ever got told to me about screenwriting was that, uh, no matter how good it is, a screenplay is an invitation to collaborate. So I, I really think it's mature of both of you that, that you, you have this baby and, and you, you've already had to share it with the writer's room and, and you've got other input and everything, and you've got this group and you trust in them, then the actors are thinking about it... And they've got physical knowledge in their bodies of how this works. It's gonna feel weird if I move like this or say it like this. Trust me, guys, if be more natural... That's gotta be hard, to keep letting more people join in on your thing. Can you talk a little bit about what that felt like?
I mean, I don't know. Like they just so consistently made it better along the way because, I mean, I don't know that you, you write stuff, the worst thing that can happen, and I've seen this happen where it's like you write a thing and you're like, this is fucking perfect. And then people put it up on its feet and you're like, Ooh, okay, , um, wow, maybe I didn't write something that good. And you realize it is just, you know, it can be the same words, but it's just like the choices that get made, the level of investment, the collaboration of it. And, and so I guess I feel that way about like every step of it, you know, because so much of what we saw on screen today, we didn't do, other writers did it, or the director kind of made a great choice, or the actor made great choice. Yes. And so in success, you end up getting this monolithic credit for a thing, but that, that is such a team lift. And I, I don't know, I guess it just kind of started that way too. I mean, don't get me wrong, I think it's a great script. And we did, we tried to hold up our end, but we were just surrounded with that field, a lot of talent, and we tried to let our players play.
Yeah. Otherwise, it's a, I feel like if you, if you, I've seen people create something and then be so protective of it that it just dies. And that's not doing the thing you love a good service. You know what I mean? You've gotta you've gotta share it and, and, and then when it airs, it doesn't even belong to you. Like it's, it's the people in the audience that we're at the panel, you know what I mean? It's, they all have their thing that they take away from the show. You know, it's no longer just ours.
I remember one time my daughter was five or six or something like that. She climb a big tree in our front yard. And, uh, I didn't want to stop her from exploring, but you're also terrified. 'cause she got up about four feet and then she got up six. I went, oh fuck. Come on kid. Don't fuck. Don't go up to 10. And she starts going up to like 10 feet, which is, you know, in your mind it's gonna kill a child if she falls. Yeah. And I just said, because you can't just scream, be careful, be careful. It just does something for you. Nothing means them, means nothing. Them, when you watch this thing, you can't, you gotta let this thing live. You gotta let this thing be heroic. Our own little hero make mistakes, whatever it is. I just said, Hey, um, okay. Just remember who your feet are and your hands. TH 00:18:07 Okay. , she went, yeah, okay. Climb me. Climb. And you had to kind of walk away and let this thing happen. And, and it's a, it's a, it's trust, but it's terrifying. Mm-Hmm. . And then it had to be at some point with you guys, with this show to go, I, it's gotta, it's either gonna sink or it's gonna do its thing. We have to, we have to let this show become what it's supposed to be. Yeah. And maybe it's gonna be an injured animal, but let's hope not because you have the right things in place and hopefully it won't be.
Exactly. I love, I, I'm always a sucker for love history and so I love getting to watch each seasons a history that I felt like I kind of knew, sort of lived through, but you get to see it turn on its ear a little bit. Um, and we we're wrapped up. I, I'll let you guys go. I, I just wanna, in terms of bringing stuff to it that you put in the last season aired just after I had lost my long illness and he passed. And so I, I was caught off guard honestly in the discussion of Gordon at the thing of life. Like, I didn't know that was that close to the surface. I, oh yeah. It's remarkable sometimes to, I know people love to go, ah, it's tv. I don't need to own a tv. I'm a book reader. Have you watched TV lately??
Stories are stories. They help us process.
Hundred percent.
Thank you guys for making something that helped me feel. OUTRO MUSIC