This is Gavin Newsom and our conversation with Ryan Murphy continues. What you mentioned Ted Netflix, I mean, so whole the whole streaming thing. But now it's interesting you're kind of back a little bit that sort of Disney Hulu FX yeah thing. I mean, but where's you said Hollywood's going younger? I mean, is is that a time of life or is that a state of mind? What do you mean younger? It's always isn't it been a youth? I mean, what's
what's what's your journey here since eighty nine? I mean, where where are we in terms of now We'll get into tax credits, competitiveness in a minute, but I'm just curious just what you meant by youth and younger people, what streaming means to you, what's sort of what's the state of play from that perspective? Because you've seen every damn side of this, You've been part of each side of this.
It's interesting because you know, I've kind of been at this now since nineteen ninety eight. Was my first show, Popular. It was a very cult show. It ran two years. Leslie Bibb, who was on White Lotus, was one of her first starring roles. So I've been through a lot of different changes, you know, like that two thousand two, two thousand and thirteen, fourteen was very like prestige push it as much sex and blood and gore, and you know, it was like that. It was like the period the
of the white male anti hero. You know, if you look at the Sopranos, mad Men, these are the things that were very popular.
Yah.
And then I think there's the Obama section that sort of started twenty twelve, that went through twenty seventeen, and that's I think, you know, more female programming, more progressive programming. Glee certainly falls into that, right, American horror story certainly falls to that. The normal heart which I did and now and then what happened was there was the streaming wars began, you know, that really started in twenty sixteen.
And were you.
Anxious at the time about that and you're like, this is the end of the world.
No, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Yeah, well for you personally, well, I think for everybody. What happened was, you know, literally production doubled overnight, and there was a lot of new young voices that were able to get things made. For example, you know I did pose during that time that never would have been on the air. Yeah, five years before then or even now, I don't think interesting. But then what happened was COVID and the strikes, and now it's really hard for young
people to, I think, get things on the air. It's really hard for different points of view. I think we're in almost like a Victorian age, which is a it's a reaction to COVID and perhaps the two Trump presidencies where I'm finding it very interesting, Like like what you're saying is people don't win anything to push. They're freaked out enough about their lives. So also gen Z is very pearl clutching. They're they're much more like sort of they don't like a lot of things that are in
their face. They don't date as much, they socialize as much, and they don't you know, it's a very cautious generation. So but you know, the state of the business is really really bad right now, and I'm lucky in that. I you know, I went back with my great friend Dana Walden, and but I really never left because I was doing all my shows. You know, that was part of my deal. I was lucky. I kind of had I got to keep my legacy shows and go try new things at Netflix, right, So I went back to
Disney Fox and then I continue my Monster Show. So I kind of I respect everybody, but you know, I'm really excited too. It always takes me a while with a while with a new deal to figure out what I'm going to do. But I think the stuff that I have coming up is like very four quadrant, very mainstream interesting, and I'm doing what I've never done before where I go through every minute of the show and I'm like, how do I make this for everybody? How do I not you know, alienate people and.
The pearl clutching Victorian. Is this sort of the anti WoT push back? Is it the sort of antidi you've been you know LGBTQ? What I mean, what is it? Just is in that space that you're referring to. No, is it?
I just think it's a cultural taste.
Like for example, without naming the show, a friend of mine does a show and it started off and it got really great reviews and in the first you know, they did a test of it. In the first fifteen minutes of the show, it's a PG rate comedy. There was a very sexualized situation where you saw nothing but it was hinted at, and the dials went and they lost twenty percent of the audience wow in thirty seconds because of a joke like that never used to have.
And I just think that it's culturally people are I don't know, again it's I say that, but again I think people want their comedies and their dramas soft, but they also like their true true crime shows clearly.
Like they want to be able to pick.
Okay, this is my mood and this is my level of anxiety, which is there's not a lot of blending of genres which I think used to happen more interesting. And I do think, you know, young people are not as there's always the reaction.
You know.
I came up of age right after the you know, the Reagan years, so that was the period of Madonna. If you look when I was a kid, she was so popular. I think because she was tapping into rebelliou yeah, yeah, Now the rebellion is how do you rebel? You become quieter and you're like, you're it's it's a softer, interesting, more emotional, introverted group of people. But I do think there's also a big changing of the guard right now.
You know, like there's young voices fighting to get stuff on and I think it used to be ten of them would, but now one of them will. But that one could be, you know, a Spielberg who could completely change the game and people will follow that person. I can feel that. I can feel a lot of young people chomping, and I feel culturally things are shifting.
You get another twenty years of this in you.
That's interesting, you know what. Probably Yeah, I love that.
I really was. I wasn't talking.
About like I have a farm, yeah, and New York.
I've always seen you as a farm guy.
Well I'm from Indiana, so you know you're an Indiana guy in the back of a like I shucked corn, like I mean, if we found out.
I mean, you're an athlete, so that's most important, quay guy.
Jeez, Yeah, I don't know. So I'm like to do I hang it up and make it.
You couldn't even handle that you could hang out on farm all day.
Well, I love going there.
I understand that, but every day. Seriously, I know.
But you're right, I probably can't because I like, you know, I like show business, and I like, I like creation. It's like I like the making of new things, and I like putting people together. And I love I love my job. And you know, my great idol, Norman Lear, he worked. I mean he worked into his late nineties, which is an amazing thing. I think he probably worked three or four hours a day. But what are three
or four hours? You know? But the thing about Norman that I marveled at was he was eternally curious and young people love that. He went like, he sought me out when I had my first big hit, and I.
Just pick your brain just to get to know you.
He I got a call out of the blue, yeah, and it was from Norman Lear. And I'm like, this is not Norman Lear, because you know, I grew up watching you know, I was six when All in the Family came out, but I grew up with that show. And I was like, this is no way he's calling me. And I picked up the phone. It was like, who is this really? And he goes, hey can know me, and I was like, wow, really? And then I had dinner with him and he would give me great advice.
And the thing I loved the most about him is he would call during disappointments, like he called me when the New Normal was canceled tonic, and he was like, every every failure is I think he said like something like every failure is a new open door. You can walk through it best. And I recently at auction, I bought one of Norman's ed Rashe paintings, and the painting simply says truth.
Yeah, And so I like, I like, you know, living indez of it all.
I like talking about my points of view and things that are truthful to me.
I love that, And I'm like, why would.
I stop if I can keep my health?
You know?
What is the state of play out here? I mean we did, we doubled them more than double the film tax credit. We needed to do. That. Seems the industries and life support out here, the world reinvent it is competing against us globally, not just other states, which I think we fully don't A lot of us don't fully appreciate what's happening overseas. Yes, in particular, what more do
we need to do a lot more? I know tax credit is still not sufficient, But what's your sense of where where Hollywood, broadly described or defined will be in a decade. If what doesn't happen, well, you.
Know, another changing of the guard to answer that question is, you know, Hollywood used to be Hollywood. You know it was a dream place that it isn't now. But Hollywood for the most part is without exception of tech business, and it is thus much more of a bottom line business. There's no there's there's no more of that sort of you scratch, you know, you can have two bombs, but if you give me a hit, we're good. Like it's that, that's over. So it is a tech controlled landscape. Many
good things have come of that, I think. But I'll tell you a story like I make between six and eight things a year, and I was walking.
Through proving it's not once a quarter. But anyway, I'll go back to that such bullshit.
But some of these I don't run.
I guess once a quarter, I could say my new things that.
Are an estalogy.
And I was walking some of the lots to look for safe space, and I was astonished at how it is crickets like eight vacancies, people that I have grown up with who run these lots walking out with tears in their eyes please come here. And I think the problem is you know, if you're wanting to shoot in California and there's five other states that will give you.
Better tax credits, and now there's only one. So well, okay, but for a.
While we were five and I used to you know, and I'm very lucky and that I have enough clout where I could say, no, I'm shooting this here, like I will, I'm shooting this here.
So you know.
The thing that I've also been astonished with that's a new feeling. Like I was directing All's Fair recently, my Kim Show, and I had so many this is right after the fires, and I had so many crew members come up with tears in their eyes, thanking me for staying in California because the problem is so many people have left, and what has happened is they leave their families.
And I know three.
People on my crewse who are currently going through divorces because their families were broken up and they had to leave for work.
And also.
It's very very difficult because you think of like generationally, it's very easy for people in their twenties and thirties to pick up and go to Georgia, of course, but if you're in your.
Forties fifties sixties.
We're losing a whole generation of talent that cannot do that, so they cannot go to where the work is. So I find it heartbreaking. And I do admire and commend you for what you have done, which is great, but I think that the more we could do because it's you know, Hollywood is more than just a state of mind. It's a California legacy, you know what it really is, and it's a worldwide legacy. And I think you and I before this were talking about San Francisco, like two
years ago. I remember having a conversation with you saying, what the hell is happening with San Francisco. But in a recent trip, it's astonishing at how things can turn around and how so resent you. That's like AI money, I think, and a lot of tech stuff. But I have great I have great hope, and I commend you, but I say keep fighting the good fight because we need you.
This town needs you to do more.
And and what I'm seeing is it's just not individuals, it's families that are depending upon it. That's the thing that I never really put two and two together. Like if you're a young family and dad or mom has to leave for four months, five months?
What do you do?
That's that's really difficult morally, spiritually. So anything we can do to increase reasons why tech companies have a reason to say, Okay, we'll keep that show here. And I'm very lucky this fall, Like I have two things shooting and I demanded that they both shoot here. Keeping keeping you know, people together and keeping my crews together. That's a very and I'm thinking about that more and more and more. And because of the work that you've done, it's become easier for me.
No good.
But you know, there's different things about the incentives that are very hard too, like out of boundary, like you know, stuff like that that we should take out.
It's hard, no, And the lottery system is also.
Right, which we're fixing and we've fixed. I mean, so we went from three hundred and thirty million dollars seven hundred and fifty million, and so the key was in a challenging sort of environment political environment to least to lock that in. Now we can start to unpack how within that framework we can be more competitive and make the adjustments. We've made a few, but we've got more that obviously need to be done in that space.
But I mean, I really admire what you're doing. I don't know any politician that I've met in my lifetime who's gone through so much adversity from I mean, everything's not.
Much has happened last six years. I mean, are you talking about Ryan? What are you talking about?
I mean, I admire what you've done, and I know that you, like you've also inherited many messes. God bless so I acknowledge your work, and I say keep doing it because people people are so appreciative for what you recently have done, and I anything else you could do. I'm here as an advocate for my company town, but I think how you've turned things around in many areas is commendable. You're my long term friend, and I say, keep doing it. I appreciate it, keep helping us. I appreciate it.
Before I let you go, Before I let you go back to your kids or your farm, my farm, Okay, stress test that what I mean? What's what are the little scribbles on your little notepad? That a little you know, the thing that's like you're looking four years from now. You're like, oh you just wait, I've got a project. I've got so I know you can't say anything, but is it like a oh yeah, I can say, oh good, what do you got? Bring it on? Then?
Well, you know it's interesting because my life is I'm already working, Like I don't even know if I'm here in this room because I'm like working.
A year ahead. Right. It was fun.
I heard an interview with Taylor Swift where she said the same thing. I was like, Oh, I really relate to this. It's like, I'm already planning my releases for twenty twenty seven.
Twenty seven.
We just talked about Jfkate Juniors that comes out six twenty six, So like, I'm really sort of plotting well.
And I have two goals, to be honest, one.
Of which is to keep as many of my shows in California as possible, which is why I'm glad to be here today.
Well done.
And I want to do a.
Vampire show, which I've never done.
She did a little sci fi. Now we're on the vampires.
I mean, I've had vampires in my work, like you know American horror story Lady gg I famously played one. I want to do that. And I want to do a movie about faith. I'm working on my One of my great friends is Dede Gardner, who runs Plan B brad Pitt's company, and she and I are working on a faith based movie that kind of puts me in touch with my altra boy days. Look at that, which people would never think of me doing. But I want to do, like you said, I want to do something
optimistic and about perseverance and forgiveness. And so I'm working on those things. I mean, vampires and you know, religious.
Vampires and faith.
It was obviously, well that's the secret of my career. Do the opposite of what you just did. That's always what I've done. And if you look at my year roll out, it's everything is the opposite of the thing they came before it.
You know, what are the big sports ones you're gonna do?
You know I just did one.
I did the Aaron Hernandez story, which is America sports story. Give me forgetting come on, yeah, I don't know that.
I'll be like, if you ask.
Me, you talk a big game about your sports. I mean, I'm just trying to well connect your story.
My sports thing is my oldest child, who is twelve, is wants to be Tom Brady.
Right, He's a.
Big of course he's twelve number twelve.
Yeah, he's a big football or yeah.
You see you got Giselle and Brady in your back of your mind.
Of course, that's right, that's what I wanted to do.
I'm not surprised.
Do you know him?
I mean, yeah, I met him.
He seems really cool.
See, I mean he's too perfect.
So I'm kind of living my sports now and I'm starting to.
Read his blog every week now. He's got a new blog, Tom Brady every Monday. Fantastic, like he like everything he does is fantastic. It's upsetting, actually a certain.
What do you mean?
No, it's just a really well researched and written blog he does every week, which is motivating. It's contemporary, it's about health, it's about relationships, his relationship to what he's doing. It's fresh, it's very thoughtful.
Yeah, it's excellent.
It's like just interesting.
Do you use his products?
I haven't. It's interesting. I've started to notice a few of them starting to get promoted.
So like your life, this is my last question for you, as high pressured as you are, and like what is your secret for keeping it all together?
Like what is your I'm gonna answer that. What's your Do you have a morning routine?
I do.
My morning routine is I get up and I have coffee and no one is allowed to talk to me.
Like what you just hear that guy?
I have an hour of like quiet reading, meditation. I'm really cranky, and I try and do some But.
The kids know how to avoid you, or do you?
I mean they just I go to a room. Yeah, they can't get Yeah, I mean anybody can get me. Like if you have kids, you know, they can always find devices.
They don't need you.
But I try and do some like movement. You know what do you mean?
Movement?
I try and move I try and go on a walk. I try and get on a treadmill. I try and walk around. And that's part of the my Apple watch. I count my steps. I'm very conscious about.
A cup of coffee. What are you eating every morning?
I eat the same boring ass. I am a person of tradition. I have a vegan protein smoothie that has eight fruits in it. I love that, and then I have through a the day four to six vegetables. So wow, I really work hard on that.
That's fantastic.
Yeah, Like I get a gold medal right, like I will legit, but it's it's a practice, like you've got to work at it, and it's not fun.
It's not you don't enjoy it, you know.
I enjoy the tradition of It's fine.
It's not that it's purple. It looks like blueberries.
What do you miss? You miss like bacon and eggs from the back, pancakes.
But like, what do you do? What do you what's your I'm the same thing I do, smoothie. But you're a big exercise guy.
I'm a little bit three four days a week. Yeah, nothing exciting, but no, it's the fruit that's I'm religious about it for years and years and years, but I love it, Like I can't even imagine not having smoothier just fruit until and I say noon whenever eleven thirty.
You're like a big dinner guy.
That's all I care about.
Yeah.
I live for me too, live for dinner.
And I'm in the middle of like a hideous ninety day cleanse, So why are you doing that? Just I just came back from vacation and I was like, this is gross, Like it wasnation supposed to be the yeah, but I just felt it was too much and I'm like, I want to just spend the summer being one with the.
Soul stestn't try and get in some healthy thing, you.
Know, So an hour of sort of just you time meantime, and that could also be reading or I stay up late, you know, Like like I like to review what I'm getting ready to present to people, because it's like being a public It's like being a public speaker. You walk into a room and I have people who are taking notes and I perform the parts. My job is to have people heading in the same direction, and I've become better at it. I think, in the past year.
Are you a better business person than you've ever been before? Or I would say, create more great, great a person.
I always used to think I was a lousy business person, but then one day one of my agents said, you know, you're really smart at business, and I was like, what you know. I was like, I'm just like a creative person, like a dumb artist. But that I but I I I make it a daily practice. And if I don't make my business a daily practice, I feel bad. I feel guilty, you know. But I'm also like I'm kind of insane. I have a very I love collecting art like I love the I love that kind of stuff.
It's a I love that, you.
Know, aesthetic design.
It's my favorite thing. That's my hobby.
That's an art. That's how I like. I work on a lot of projects like that. I think in another life I would be a landscape designer or something because I love that. I'm very odd. But like it's producing. I'm producing. I have a vision and I love bringing people together. Yea to fight as you do the same fight. It's it's almost like being a television showrunner is almost like being a governor.
You know, it's the same thing. It's exactly the same thing.
There's an opening about eighteen months. I'm just saying, can you imagine me as the government?
You have a point of view. I don't know this. I'm not so bad. What do you think?
I don't know. If it's a good dig I'll let me ask you. What are you going to do next?
I don't know. I just you know, this production by the way, this production writing thing.
We should flip.
I've got a lot of I've got a lot of ideas. There's a lot of ideas. I've been told you you could run a studio. You have the glamour to run a studio. You could Jesus what you ever want to? I just need a pair of sunglasses. What do you need down here? What do you do?
You need a point of view, You need a point of view, and you also need to be able to lead love that. Yeah, that's it.
People want to be n You did notice I looked down. It's impressive. Yeah, I am very self conscious.
Now, why can't you talk openly about your future and what you want?
Is there some day where that will happen.
I'm not uncomfortable. I'm just moving around.
It's very look at me. I haven't wedding.
Is there a day where you have given yourself to make a decision about your future with that one's date?
I mean, it's what life evolves, you know, it works. It's saying you want to create, you want space.
It's not a linear It's a very hard time to be doing what you're doing.
It's different. I mean, it's yeah, there's a lot of a lot of I mean this this got gotten serious, very serious. What's going on in DC and what's going on here? I mean, you got five thousand military in the US city. You know he didn't send military overseas, so that I'm here in the United States.
Do you ever speak to him privately? Yep, Yeah, because I remember you two having from what I always heard from you and from people close in that you had a very nice relationship.
Ninety minutes in the Oval office a few months ago. We had a really good conversation, and then eight hours later tweets out new scum and and then federalizes the National Guard. It's a it's a hell of a thing. Of course. I no one worked with him more closely as a governor, a democratic governor, than I did during COVID.
Yeah, and it you know, it.
Was extraordinarily collaborative. So it's my mindset is open hand, not a closed fist. But what he's doing now is to vanalyze this country and this democracy and just you know, people out on the streets just going about their day and folks and masks coming up on mark cars. This is different. This is different. So you know, when you run for governor, we can talk about some strategies that I think may work.
You can run my campaign, can.
Run your campaign. I'm going to do the creative and I'm gonna come up. We're gonna come up with slogan. I don't know, but I want this. I think this faith thing could work, and it may so I need this to come out.
For the right.
I'm shocked my vampire thing. I may want to push back the production schedule. We'll talk about faith. I'm only going to talk about reconciliation.
I'm only going to send you copies of my shows that are literally the sweetest, kindest.
I just no more. I don't need refrigerators.
You may, but the world does, the world wants it, deal with it. Listen, they may call you in August. I do things like that. It's not about the thing in the refrigerator. It's a question of why is it in the refrigerator? What happened to somebody? Yeah, no, I get it's it's it's you know, this is what makes.
You qualifying to be actually governor. It's it's a human condition, the same job. But sincerely, like literally, what is the motivation the why? What's the sort of the essence of the why? That's important. Politicians don't that. They don't explore that.
Well, that brings us back to the men Indez, you know, parole. It's just it's the same thing.
Should I watch it? Before I make the decision. No, I don't want to.
You shouldn't.
I'm not going to.
And I admire you for your daughter not co opting you into watch it.
Did she watch it?
Yeah? They watched it. And it's they because there's a few of them, not just one daughter. I mean I they Yeah, come on, it was this was a cultural phenomenon, Yes, took off. I mean they had to be in the know when they went to school. The kids, other kids were talking about and remarkable, like I've not experienced that. Well, I have not experienced that as a father, obviously, not in the position I am in where there's real accountability on it.
Yeah, I mean, you know, on the positive side, the very idea that it would launch a conversation with your kids is not a bad thing. No, it's great, And I love that they're and I also they have a point of view.
They have a point of view, and I'm allowed me to explain how this all works. I mean, the idea you're talking about with the parole system, commutations, resentencing what youth offenders under the age of twenty six, and special dispensation that's offered to youth offenders, and you're talking about your twelve thirteen year old kids is a hell of a thing. So in many ways it was great educational It's been a great educational process.
Yeah, I can see, I hear that, I feel that.
Yeah.
I mean, I get so many young people who write me about it. But I guess we'll talk at the end of August.
We're going to talk about it when we launch your campaign for governor California.
You have to resign and then run my campaign. I would be the worst. I could never do that.
I'm not convinced.
I can't even run for mayor of West Hollywood.
I can't even do that. I would be too perfect.
I mean, you got farming background, We've got the faith. I'll mean everything about this.
Maybe I should.
Pray and plant vegetables instead.
Thank you for having men.