IN MOTION (backup) V.3 - USC School of Cinematic Arts - University ...

Illustrious Alumnus
by Justin Wilson, M.F.A. ’98
JAVIER GRILLO-MARXUACH
After earning his master’s degree from the Division of
Writing for Screen and Television in 1993, Javier Grillo-
Marxuach worked as a writer-producer on a number of TV
dramas. With stints on such shows as Boomtown, The
Pretender, and Charmed, he has demonstrated a great deal
of versatility, as well as the ability to let his own voice shine
within the parameters of network series television. Grillo-
Marxuach may not be a household name yet, but the
success of this year’s smash hit Lost has given him some
well-deserved recognition. (Just don’t ask him to reveal
any of the island’s secrets.)
Why is television so appealing now for writers
like yourself?
I think it’s very easy to feel that features are the sexier arena.
The profile is very high and it’s a very glamorous world.
Television is a place where individual writers can really
establish a voice and create a larger body of work faster.
You develop your skills a lot faster because you’re writing
in a much more consistent pattern, and it’s a much more
writer-friendly world than features.
The limitation that you have as a television writer is that,
unless you create your own series, you are working in someone
else’s universe. I don’t think one is better or worse, but
I know a lot of writers who have written a dozen features
that haven’t gotten produced. The one thing about television
is that the great majority of what I have written has
been produced. I get to see it on its feet, and a month later
I’m writing another thing. And you’re constantly moving
and constantly pushing at the limitations. That’s why I find
it more attractive.
You started out as an executive. Can you talk
about that transition from network executive
to network writer?
I had a master’s degree from USC in screenwriting, so my
focus was not to become an executive. But you know when
the graduate screenwriting program ends and you graduate,
they send out a letter of the synopses to all the agencies?
Alumnus Javier Grillo-Marxuach is a writer and supervising producer on the smash TV show Lost
12 | in motion summer 2005
The script list?
Yes, the script list. I had written a $120-million action
movie for a 50-year-old Puerto Rican actor. Who I guess at
the time would have been Raul Julia. Then he died…so,
that didn’t exactly set the world on fire...I was working at
Kinko’s and trying to figure out what I was going to do
with my life, what I was going to write next, and becoming
very frustrated. And I got the opportunity to interview for
this [executive] job with NBC, through USC actually…It
began as something that I thought, “Wow, this will be a
good way to know a piece of the business and have a position
inside.” And after I took that job, I felt like it was the
place to be for a writer. I really enjoyed talking to TV writers,
and working on the development of pilots and things
like that. That job was kind of like my second master’s
degree. It was very specifically a master’s degree in television,
and how the TV industry works.
I was involved in … a show called Seaquest. The executive
producer took a liking to me, or maybe he just didn’t want
to get notes from me anymore — I’m not sure which one it
was — and he offered me a job. The hardest part was getting
the job at the network, which was a three-month
interview process.
Going back to USC, were there any particular
professors or classes that really had an impact
on you?
Absolutely. I was fortunate to be there when Frank Daniel
was teaching — I’m sure he continues to be a legend in the
department. David Howard, who was head of the department
and my thesis advisor, was tremendously supportive,
not just of my work, but of the idiosyncratic pockets of my
vision. He had a real passion for [writing] and was just a
great teacher of the theory of screenwriting.
When you go into the screenwriting program and you take
Nina Foch’s class, that’s also going to make an impression.
She’s an extremely powerful person who has a very definite
point of view, and the things you learn from her you’re
going to continue to use throughout your career.
Without slipping into hyperbole, I use the things I learned
from USC on a day-to-day basis. They’re the tools of story
analysis and story creation that formed the foundation for
what I do.
So now you’re on a show, you’re working, and
you have to execute someone else’s vision of the
show. How are you able to manage that while
you’re finding your voice and demonstrating
something distinct about your writing?
If you can’t check your ego at the door, you probably don’t
belong in television. Which seems contrary to popular
opinion, because a lot of people believe that all writers are
egomaniacal. But when you are a paid writer or writer/
producer on someone else’s television show, you are going
to try to fulfill their vision. You have to find within yourself
the way to manifest your own creativity while fulfilling
their vision. That’s a creative challenge that not everybody
may want to take.
For me, it’s a very fulfilling thing to go in and write a script
that is in the voice of Damon [Lindelof, co-creator and
producer of Lost ] or J.J. [Abrams, co-creator and producer
of Lost ] that still has my own personal stamp on it. That’s
when you are truly successful as a television producer,
because that’s what we do. If that’s something that you can’t
reconcile with, then you’re probably better off writing features
or doing something that will allow you to have more
of that idiosyncratic voice.
I think that what happens in a TV show is, if you come in
slowly through the margins, your voice starts to seep into
the creative process. A show begins by being someone else’s
show, but if you’re able to successfully contribute to that
show it becomes, not your show by any means, but a staff
show. The mark of a well-run, well-designed show is that it
accommodates a lot of different viewpoints within the
greater structure. And the creativity really falls into the category
of…writing a haiku: I need to have this many lines, I
need to have this many paragraphs. Can I do that and still
give it my own personal identity?