Noah Hawley has written books, movies, and TV shows like Alien Earth and Fargo. He's been successful not just because he's a talented writer, but also because he's a consummate professional. He's fluent not just in the world of stories and characters, but he also knows how to work inside the industry and how to get things done.
If you want to make it as a writer, whether on the page or the big screen, this interview is a roadmap for doing that.
Transcript
00:00:25 Writers’ rooms
00:03:26 TV writing vs movie writing
00:06:38 What makes a good story
00:11:19 Writing for TV in 2026
00:16:17 The second-season trap
00:21:23 What’s so good about horror films
00:29:40 Scriptwriting
00:38:05 Can AI write TV shows
00:45:34 The problem with Hollywood
00:59:14 Working with a team
01:04:41 Why playfulness is important
01:07:09 Creativity vs business
01:10:03 How sound shapes a scene
01:15:24 Input feeds output
01:17:39 Noah’s mantra
01:19:10 Movies vs books vs TV
David (00:25-00:39)
I want to start by discussing writers’ rooms: their benefits and drawbacks. You’re primarily a solo writer, so I’m interested in hearing about your experience within a writers’ room.
Noah Hawley (00:40-03:25)
I have a love-hate relationship with the writers’ room. “Hate” is a strong word, but a writers’ room is a collection of people with very different brains, and the only common language they speak is plot. You tend to end up with: “This happens, then this happens, then this happens.” It’s very narrative-driven.
When you’re breaking story in a room with a “what happens next” mindset, you’re not truly using the writing part of your brain. Instead, you’re using the list-making or outlining part of your brain. These are very different functions.
I always try to steer them. When I say I love it, it’s because it’s a great way to help me think out loud and bounce ideas, especially when I’m in the room. But it works best when I’m driving the conversation. The perfect version is this: If I can’t be in the room tomorrow, I’ll tell the writers, “Don’t talk about what happens next. Instead, let’s discuss how assimilation is a theme that runs through this season of Fargo.” We’ll talk about the different characters and how assimilation plays into their stories, and we’ll keep that discussion going. We’ll return to it tomorrow.
I’ll often get pitched an idea in the writers’ room for Fargo, and I’ll think, “That’s a great movie twist if this were a movie. It’s a great turn.” But reality rarely ends with a “white hat versus black hat” showdown in the town square at noon.
Fargo, to me, is defined by many moving pieces on a collision course. Because there are so many of them, you don’t know which will collide or when. You don’t truly know what’s going to happen next, and that unexpectedness is part of the fun.
Take Season Two, for example. You have Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons, who have run afoul of a North Dakota crime family. The audience thinks, “I don’t care who they send; I’m rooting for Jesse and Kirsten.” Then they send the kid with cerebral palsy who just wants to prove he’s a man. Suddenly, the audience thinks, “I don’t want anything bad to happen to him.”
You’re putting the audience in a position where they initially thought they were rooting for violence, because audiences are trained that violence equals story progress. But when the violence actually comes, they react, “Oh, I don’t want this.” I’m always trying to get the audience to hold up a mirror and ask themselves, “Why did I want this? Why did I want these characters to fight?” Because now it’s happening, and it’s awful — violent and shocking.
David (03:25-03:48)
You mentioned character. When considering how characters differ between the Fargo movie and the Fargo TV show, it seems that longitudinally, the characters must live on for a much longer period. This extended lifespan implies that one of the most significant structural differences between a movie and a TV show is the depth and time we spend with a character.
Noah Hawley (03:48-05:05)
It is. When you look at the Fargo movie in its totality, it’s actually far more comedic than people remember. There are funny moments, of course, but the ending—with the wood chipper, the dignity of Marge’s resolve, “Tomorrow’s an irregular day,” her pregnancy, and his three-cent stamp—creates a certain sublimeness.
When you rewatch that movie, you spend a lot of time thinking, “I can’t believe they put her in that hat.” There’s a persistent comedy throughout. I felt that if we replicated that in the show, people would think we got it wrong.
In the first season, I started referring to it as No Country for Old Fargo. We needed more dramatic stakes. Once they break in and kidnap the wife, the threat level is initially very low. Frances McDormand’s character has no real threat until the very end. Bill Macy’s character, of course, makes many bad decisions that lead to violence. But in a 10-hour story, you need to keep the stakes high for everyone, and the threat needs to be constant.
David (05:05-05:40)
How do you watch a movie differently than someone who has never made one? I remember a friend in college, Kenner, who was one of those “movie talker” guys. It was interesting because he would comment on everything: “Oh my goodness, that shot! The dolly roll or that pan was amazing!” He was very cognizant of the music, the lighting, and the sound effects. He’d point these things out, and I’d think, “I’ve never watched a movie like that.” When you watch No Country for Old Men or Fargo, what are you looking for to understand what’s going on?
Noah Hawley (05:40-06:38)
My hope is that the first time I watch a movie, I’m simply enjoying it as an audience member. Afterwards, I’ll have thoughts about it.
I was discussing a film last night where someone said people were on the “love it or hate it” fence. I responded that I liked it, but I felt the women were in a drama while the men were in a farce. Those were two different movies that didn’t always jibe for me.
The women’s stakes were incredibly high; they were literally fighting for their bodies and identity. Then you had DiCaprio stumbling through in his bathrobe, and Sean Penn as a caricature. It felt like two distinct films sewn together. I’m not necessarily aware of this while watching, but by the end, I have a clear point of view on how the storytelling worked or didn’t work.
David (06:39-06:41)
Take me back to those different languages that you were talking about.
David (06:41-06:50)
We discussed theme, character, and plot. What are the different beats you feel you need to hit in a good story?
Noah Hawley (06:51-07:28)
I often start with a question, or an image that inherently poses a question. For instance, the first season of Fargo began with an image in my head: two men meet in an emergency room, one civilized, the other his antithesis. That immediately raises questions: Who are these men, and what happens next?
Another example is a woman driving home with a man sticking out of her car’s windshield, then making dinner for her husband. The question becomes, who is in the windshield?
My first novel, A Conspiracy of Tall Men, also stemmed from a question.
David (07:28-07:30)
Such a good premise.
Noah Hawley (07:30-08:53)
I had studied political science and this cycle of paranoia in American politics. After I graduated, we had Ruby Ridge, Waco, and The X-Files was on. I thought, “Here we go again.” I questioned what Americans were so afraid of that we kept cycling through this paranoia. That became a question I wanted to answer through the book; the book became the answer.
For me, theme is about figuring out the answer to a question. In Fargo, it’s always decency versus cynicism: How can decency win? The third year, for example, was very much about the post-2016 election landscape of “post-truth” and “alternative facts.” If you can’t agree on reality, how do laws function? How does law enforcement work?
That’s always my starting point. The characters, on some level, are always part of that conversation.
David (08:53-09:02)
As you think through that question about paranoia, what Americans are so afraid of, what are you able to achieve in a story that you can’t achieve in an essay?
Noah Hawley (09:02-11:18)
Genre is part of it. Genre provides a familiar structure for an audience. Within that, if you want to elevate the story, character, or theme, you’re doing something both familiar and unfamiliar simultaneously. Consider Memento, for example, a movie told backward. Simply by changing the structure of a detective story, you transform its entire identity.
My first question is always, “What am I taking for granted in approaching this story?” For Lucy in the Sky, a movie I made with Natalie Portman, I considered the movie theater itself. I was taking for granted that it’s a big rectangle with speakers, meant to be filled with image and sound. But what if the movie theater could be a tool?
When her character is in space, and everything is vast, the image could fill the entire screen, and the room would be immersed in sound. Then, when she returns and waits in line to pick up her child from school, everything shrinks down, and the sound moves to the front. The audience might not even consciously notice, but you’re using the theater as a tool to evoke the story’s emotion.
This can also happen within a story itself. On Legion, a comic book show, surrealism was built in from the start. When we first meet the main character, he’s in a psychiatric hospital, and we don’t know if his powers are real or if he’s crazy. This ambiguity allowed the audience to share his uncertainty. As he became surer, so did we. Because it’s a heightened genre, I could craft an episode where David is trapped in his mind, and Sid tries to discern which of his memories are real. You can personify things you couldn’t in a straight drama, like having him sit in an ice cube with Jemaine Clement.
David (11:19-12:00)
You were a writer on Bones. I used to watch Bones because it was on Fox, and I loved House, 24, and Prison Break. I remember sitting down to watch Bones; it was appointment television. We’d sit through the commercials.
It was the same with movies. I’d go to the theater. You mentioned taking the theater for granted. Another assumption was that someone would stay for the entire duration. That’s very different from now, watching YouTube or Netflix on my phone. From a storytelling tactics perspective, how do you approach your craft differently today, given how media is consumed?
Noah Hawley (12:01-13:46)
There was a phenomenon referred to as “peak television” around 2018 or 2019. We had gone from 250 shows on the air to 500. We literally doubled the amount of story we were pumping out to audiences.
We had all these new platforms: AMC, various networks, and Amazon. With so many platforms, the only way to garner an audience was to make something different and better. This led to a lot of experimentation with both genre and form.
You saw all the Jenji Kohan shows, and Netflix, for instance, tried to be splashy by doing something challenging or different. All the platforms followed suit.
As a storyteller, it was a great place to be. I thought, “Different and better? I can do that.” As a result, we had much more room to experiment.
Legion is the perfect example. It was a very surreal comic, inspired by old British comedy and television, with many elements that were not played straight.
I once told the network, “You’re asking me to compete with very deep pockets. At a certain point, the show’s cost cannot be my first priority. If you want to win awards, you’re going against HBO and similar competitors.” We were in a moment where the fourth season of Fargo was maximized.
David (13:46-13:48)
What year was this?
Noah Hawley (13:48-14:35)
2019, going into 2020. Instead of 10 episodes, we did 11, with the shortest one being 55 minutes long. When I returned for season five, I realized that’s not where people’s attention spans are anymore.
They want something more concentrated. Now, Fargo episodes are no longer than 44 minutes. We aren’t experimenting in the same way.
I still had a 10-minute puppet show in an episode, but it was much more concentrated and action-oriented. That’s where my head was as a viewer too. I loved all the experimentation, but now I just want a great story well told.
David (14:35-14:40)
When you say “verb-driven,” what do you mean? What is that opposed to?
Noah Hawley (14:40-15:15)
As opposed to a lot of shots of clouds or episodes where you spend a lot of time with characters, but at the end, you realize nothing happened this week to move the story forward.
There’s certainly a place for shows and movies that are more experiential and anecdotal. They don’t have to be page-turners or plot-driven.
David (15:17-15:22)
Are there shows or movies where not a lot happens, but you really like them and they’ve done well?
Noah Hawley (15:24-16:16)
I think so. You could argue that Mad Men was a show in which very little happened, or even The Sopranos. For a very long time, little occurred, but when it did, it felt explosive.
Pluribos, a show Vince Gilligan made this past year, is a perfect example. Not a lot happened in that show week in and week out. That’s his pace of storytelling.
In Breaking Bad, a guy comes home and opens the mail. The camera focuses on him. The critical thing in the mail isn’t the first, third, or fifth envelope; it’s the seventh. You linger on that shot, knowing something important is in the mail, but he makes you earn it.
David (16:17-16:54)
How is character and storytelling different when you think about movies versus TV? Even as a kid, watching Lost, it was clear to me that J.J. Abrams had a breakout hit. It started very coherently, but then you got the sense that the show was exploding in popularity, and the creators might have wondered, “What are we going to do with it?” It began to devolve at the end, with crazy things happening.
Movies aren’t like that at all. With movies, the start and finish are planned. So, talk to me about that moment in a show when you realize it’s doing better than you thought and you have to keep it going.
Noah Hawley (16:54-18:17)
That was the situation with Lost. I’ve talked to Damon Lindelof about it years ago. The problem was they wouldn’t give him an end date for the show. Because it was such a huge hit, they didn’t want it to end. He felt, “I have a finite amount of story, and unless I know where I am, I don’t know what to do.”
By the third season of Lost, characters were literally trapped in a cage because he didn’t know how much runway he had to land the story.
That’s part of it. Luckily, working at FX, I have the ability to decide how long the show is based on how much story I have.
I sold Fargo to them as an anthology, meaning every season is a new story. The first year was such a success that I expected them to ask for two seasons with the same cast and characters, but to their credit, they didn’t.
I know where the ending is. I always feel the ending gives a story meaning. If you don’t know how or where it ends, how can you know what story you’re telling?
David (18:17-18:23)
So you see it over and over again with TV shows: people love the show but dislike the ending.
Noah Hawley (18:23-18:24)
Yeah.
David (18:24-18:28)
Maybe it dragged on too long, and they leave with a sour taste in their mouth.
Noah Hawley (18:28-20:17)
I haven’t done many recurring shows. I did Legion, but that was reinvented every year.
It’s a bit odd to me because I’m used to wrapping things up at the end of the first season. The idea of having the same characters just telling different stories feels strange.
As I work on the second season of Alien Earth, I’ve been thinking about television shows. In the first year, you create a story and then populate it with characters meaningful to that narrative. You tell that story.
Then, you move into a second season, and suddenly you have all these characters you must service because they’re part of the show.
Instead of simply telling another chapter of the story and removing characters who are no longer relevant, creators feel compelled to service them. This leads to those “C stories”—like a random romance subplot you don’t care about—that are only there because writers don’t know what else to do with those two actors and feel pressured to give them a storyline.
I refuse to do that because it’s not good storytelling. It’s better to develop your second season, identify which characters genuinely fit, and then decide for the others if they’re not present, or if you’ll pause their arc for a season, or if they’ll return later.
The best thing for the story is to tell a great story. Feeling obligated to service every character ultimately hamstrings your narrative.
David (20:17-20:19)
You’re almost in a prison of your own creation.
Noah Hawley (20:19-21:23)
That’s where a show’s longevity can work against you. The first season often feels organic, but by the third, fourth, or fifth year, it can seem like they’re just treading water.
I view a movie’s structure like a pyramid. At the base, you have ample room to introduce characters and themes. However, the closer you get to the end, the less space you have for digression.
What I find interesting about long-form storytelling—like an anthology show or a 10-hour movie—is that I still have room, all the way to the end, to tell parts of the story that wouldn’t fit into a feature film.
In a movie, you must get straight to the point. In a show, you can digress; you could even have an entire episode from the villain’s point of view, completely changing the dynamic. That’s much harder in movies.
David (21:23-22:05)
Can you help me appreciate horror? I don’t like it at all and never watch horror movies. As a child, I’d get genuinely scared.
I remember having nightmares about Cruella de Vil after watching 101 Dalmatians. She was terrifying to me.
I also recall seeing Clock Stoppers when I was six or seven years old. Fifteen minutes into the film, I was so scared that I left the theater, huffing and puffing. I realized then that horror wasn’t my thing; I don’t like scary movies.
Yet, it’s clearly a genre you love and appreciate. What do you see in horror that I’m probably blind to?
Noah Hawley (22:05-24:09)
Horror is, in many ways, the most cinematic genre because it’s rarely about dialogue. It relies on lingering camera shots and is incredibly visual.
It also evokes the biggest emotion—fear—for the least amount of money, precisely because it relies on your imagination.
Consider a scene where a character sits with their back to a dark doorway. What’s back there? You immediately feel uncomfortable. Or the classic, “Don’t go in the basement.”
Horror engages an audience viscerally in a way almost no other medium can.
I appreciate it for its visceral impact and its cinematic qualities. Constraints on storytellers often lead to true innovation, and horror, by definition, is often a low-budget medium.
You might have just one location, like a house, and you’re forced to ask, “What can we do in this house?” This pushes creators toward incredibly inventive filmmaking and storytelling.
Furthermore, Jordan Peele’s success in both comedy and horror isn’t a coincidence. Comedy and horror operate on the same principle: tension, tension, tension, then release.
Whether it’s a punchline or a sight gag in comedy, or whatever emerges from the basement in horror, there’s an inherent uncomfortableness building up. If you rewatch Key & Peele, you’ll see it’s essentially horror, but they’re playing the funny side of it.
These are some of the reasons I appreciate the genre.
David (24:10-24:23)
Can you describe how you create tension in horror? It seems like pacing is a tool used over time, and then there’s what comes through sonically, like sound.
Noah Hawley (24:23-24:29)
Yes, or the lack of sound. It makes you lean forward.
David (24:29-24:37)
I also think of color: deep blues, purples, and blood red. What other tools do you employ?
Noah Hawley (24:37-26:44)
It’s about imagination. If you can trigger the audience’s imagination, you create patience. When you linger on a shot — a wide shot of a room with a character sitting at a table, their back turned, so you can see what they cannot — and you just hold that shot, as an audience member, you think, “I know I’m here for a reason. I know there’s something in this frame that I need to see.” You start to work yourself up, getting worried and nervous.
My daughter is 18 now, but since she was 12 or 13, she loved horror. We would watch a lot of horror, and I was always trying to scare her, which was very hard to do. We finally watched Paranormal Activity, which was made for $15,000 and basically shot on a video camera. It’s about a husband and wife, and he buys this video camera because something weird is happening in their house.
This speaks to innovation in horror. They set up the camera to watch them while they sleep. You’re looking at the bed where they’re asleep, and for some reason, the door to the hall is open. Who sleeps with the door open to the hall? But they do. You’re just watching, and they’ll fast-forward, but then you’re just watching them sleep.
It makes you think about how vulnerable you are when you sleep. You’re just lying there for eight hours; anything could happen. Anyone could walk in. It got to her because it wasn’t trying to scare her; it was just showing her how vulnerable she is for eight hours a day. She didn’t know what was going to happen. The camera is just objectively recording, and a sheet might be pulled back by some unseen force, or something minor will happen. But because your stress level is already elevated, it has a real impact.
David (26:45-26:47)
The word that comes to mind for me is subtlety.
Noah Hawley (26:47-26:47)
Right.
David (26:47-26:52)
Because your stress level is elevated, your senses are awakened.
Noah Hawley (26:52-26:52)
Right.
David (26:52-27:01)
Little sounds, whatever it is—”Oh, my goodness, what is that?” You don’t need much to happen to create an effect.
Noah Hawley (27:01-28:40)
That approach is different from almost every other form of storytelling because you have to leave space. On Alien Earth, it was a constant struggle to leave that space. There’s so much going on—character, dialogue, even the action of, “Oh, the creature’s out!” But then you have to build a moment of silence where, just behind them, you see a cabinet door sliding on its own.
You have to be aware that for the audience looking at that frame, if they see movement out of the corner of their eye, their adrenaline will spike. You have to leave room for that.
As a filmmaker, I can make myself feel every emotion except fear because I know what’s going to happen. I can get choked up at the emotional parts of the script that I wrote if the actors are good enough and the music is right. I can feel the adrenaline of the action or laugh at the comedy. But what I can’t do is feel the suspense on some level, because I know how and where it pays off.
That’s what you have to rely on an audience for. That’s why you test something, to determine if they want more anticipation. For example, “I’ll get a bigger jump if I wait a few seconds longer,” or “I’ve waited too long and now they’re shifting around, and I’ve lost them.”
David (28:40-28:40)
What does that mean?
Noah Hawley (28:40-28:43)
You’ll bring people
David (28:43-28:44)
into the theater for a showing.
Noah Hawley (28:44-28:49)
Even if you just show your friends or whatever, you want to watch an audience watch it.
David (28:49-28:49)
Yes.
Noah Hawley (28:49-29:40)
You do these test screenings for shows and movies, and the experience of sitting in a theater with people is the valuable part. Then they do these focus groups afterward that nobody enjoys.
There are usually three types of people: those who loved it, those who liked it but thought it could be better, and those who hated it. I’ve never understood why you include people who hated it in the focus group. They hate it; you’re never going to win them over.
They include them because the studio has a point of view. There are things they don’t like about your movie, and if they can include people in the group who also disliked that thing, they’ll say, “See, nobody liked it.” My response is always, “Well, that person just hated the movie. I could change the thing you’re talking about, and they would still hate the movie.”
David (29:40-30:04)
Exactly. When writing a dialogue-heavy script versus a horror script, how does it differ? What are you trying to achieve with a movie script? You would know better than me, but it’s not just words; you’re basically trying to help the reader visualize what’s there. So, how is that different between genres?
Noah Hawley (30:06-33:15)
The way I write them is not different. I write the movie the way I see it, watching it in my mind as I go. As I describe a scene, I’ll include directions like, “Angle on him as he crosses the room. Close up on the glass.” I’m trying to help you visualize the story as you read it. I find it’s a better communication tool.
I tend to write things I produce, so I script them exactly as I intend to make them. When I hire department heads and people to build sets, they can literally see how I plan to shoot it. It serves as an effective communication device.
Moreover, whenever you ask someone — whether it’s a studio or actors — to interact with your story, you want that experience to reflect the story’s true essence. If you’re writing an irreverent comedy, your outline better be irreverent and comedic.
Consider a pitch in the room. I once did a pitch where, after the usual small talk — water, pleasantries, and so on — you have to segue into the actual pitch. I said, “On the way over here, I was thinking about how I’d get into this pitch. Maybe I’d start by telling you how my house was broken into a few weeks ago and my guitars were stolen. Or perhaps I’d mention watching ‘Stripes’ the other night and thinking, ‘We don’t really have those 70s Bill Murray antihero movies anymore.’” I ran through a few other potential segues.
At this point, the executives were thinking, “What is happening? No one ever talks about the segue. He’s breaking the fourth wall.” I immediately had their attention because I was doing something different. Then they realized the segue was the pitch: a 70s-style crime story about a Bill Murray antihero.
By pitching it that way, they could see the show’s tone because the pitch itself conveyed it. It’s all about writing. The key to success is being good enough to get in the room — that’s talent. You need to be good in the room, demonstrating your ability to tell a story. And you must deliver when you leave the room.
I told them I’d write a show based on the movie Fargo, and that it would feel like Fargo when they watched it. I delivered. If you can do those three things, you will have a career.
David (33:16-33:19)
First drafts, you rip through them?
Noah Hawley (33:19-33:25)
Why do you do that? It just comes out at that speed. As I said, I see it, and then I write it.
David (33:25-33:32)
How do you structure your life to do that? Do you sit down for a set period and write, say, a hundred pages, just to get it all out?
Noah Hawley (33:32-34:12)
It depends. With fiction, I’d have an idea for a book, then allocate a certain period, maybe three months, between shows. I would sit down and try to write as much as possible during that time.
If I ended up with 100 or 110 pages, that’s enough. If you don’t return to a book for three years, you still need to see exactly what you were doing. You’ll think, “Oh, I see the voice, the characters, the structural conceits. I see where I was going.”
David (34:12-34:13)
There’s enough “there” there.
Noah Hawley (34:13-34:41)
Exactly. If you only write 25 pages, you think, “I lost it. I don’t know what it was.”
It’s a sprint to get it down. With scripts, I simply have fun doing it; that’s the difference. I’m sure you’ve talked to many writers who almost hate the writing process, or who can only manage one page after four hours at their desk.
David (34:42-34:49)
I don’t know if there’s a craft in the world that so many people who do it consistently and at a high level hate as much as writing.
Noah Hawley (34:49-35:09)
I know. It’s tough, because if you get to do what you love for a living, you have to love doing it. Otherwise, you’re just like everyone else trying so hard to live their dreams. If you get to live the dream, you should take joy in it.
David (35:09-35:10)
So for you, it’s fun?
Noah Hawley (35:10-35:27)
Oh yeah, it’s a lot of fun. I meet many people who don’t feel that way. I love all parts of the job. I enjoy the team sport of production, but I especially love being at that desk, working with words, and chasing the story.
David (35:27-35:47)
Help me visualize what that’s like. When you have the idea, the premise, the driving question, and it pops into your mind, you then try to get enough “there” there so you can return to it three months or three years later. Walk me through the process from initial conception to having enough on the page to step away from it for a while.
Noah Hawley (35:49-38:03)
I wrote a book called The Good Father. There was a writers’ strike in Hollywood in 2007. My daughter had just been born, and it was a three-month strike. We drove from LA to Austin and stayed there for two and a half months. Most people would have seen this as an opportunity to take a break, but I wondered what I could accomplish in that time.
Because I had just had a child, I was focused on what could go wrong, much like many new parents. It’s that feeling of needing to baby-proof your life. I had a story in mind about a doctor on his second marriage. One night, he’s making dinner with his new family when the doorbell rings. Someone has shot a presidential candidate, and the suspect is his son from his first marriage.
He grapples with two questions: “What did I do wrong? Could I have been a better father?” At the same time, he’s trying to prove his son innocent. As a rheumatologist, he’s a doctor of last resort, someone who examines all systems of the body when a medical mystery is unsolvable.
I thought it would be interesting if he performed case studies. He looks at figures like Sirhan Sirhan, John Hinckley, and Jared Loughner, wondering if his son is like any of these “three-name shooters.” The book contains both the fictional narrative and chapters dedicated to Sirhan Sirhan and the shooting of RFK Senior, as he tries to find his own child within these cases.
Mixing fiction and nonfiction in this way was very interesting for me. I needed to delve deeply into the story and write two or three of those analytical chapters so that when I returned to the project later, I would understand its core drive.
David (38:05-38:18)
It seems the party line in Hollywood regarding AI is generally negative: “AI is bad. We will not use it. It’s killing creativity. It’s going to take our jobs.” In what ways do you agree with this sentiment, and in what ways do you see things differently?
Noah Hawley (38:20-39:43)
On some level, it depends on the ambition of the storytelling and how formulaic it is. Consider Law and Order; how many seasons are there? I imagine AI could write a Law and Order script that you probably couldn’t differentiate from a human-written one. There are hundreds of hours of content, making it highly trainable due to the show’s established formula. It doesn’t possess a deeply inventive creative ambition. It’s a procedural with a comforting sameness from week to week.
However, if you ask AI to invent, be playful, or innovate, I don’t know that I’m worried about it right now. It’s a tool, like any other. We used to talk about visual effects ruining cinema. Think about the original Star Wars, where they used matte paintings, built models, and literally flew ships around. Then, as visual effects improved, we started to see fully CGI worlds.
David (39:43-39:45)
Now you have Avatar and James Cameron.
Noah Hawley (39:45-40:09)
No one thinks that’s cheating anymore. So, AI is a tool. I’ve spoken to someone who uses AI for de-aging actors instead of visual effects because AI is better at it. You can feed in many photos of a younger Tom Hanks, and AI will handle it.
David (40:09-40:16)
I’m thinking of Benjamin Button. There were a few parts of that movie where I didn’t feel they quite got it right, and that could have definitely been done better.
Noah Hawley (40:16-41:20)
Again, it’s a tool. If we use it as a tool, I think it has many uses. I wouldn’t use it to write for me, but I do use it for productivity. If I need help thinking about a story or conducting research, I can bounce ideas back and forth with it. I still end up telling the story myself, but it acts as a mechanism. It’s not a blank page, which can be intimidating for many people.
I’m also used to rewriting other writers, so there’s a sense that if you give me material, I might say, “That’s not quite right; here’s how I would do it differently.” Seeing something done incorrectly can also be a trigger. You might realize, “Oh, I see how I would do it now. I didn’t know before, but now that I’ve seen your version, I know it shouldn’t be like that; it should be like this.”
David (41:20-41:36)
It’s funny how often that happens. We might have a vision for something, but when asked to explain it, we can’t. Then, if someone shows us three examples, we can identify what’s wrong with each one. At that point, we know exactly what we want and can articulate the problems with the existing options.
Noah Hawley (41:36-42:46)
We’re all trying to move these businesses into the future. How will people read novels in 10 or 20 years? What does a novel need to be in 20 years to remain commercial? If we want to practice our art as a profession, we must consider this. It’s not about making something commercial, but about understanding our audience—our readership or viewership.
For instance, in 2018, I created a season of Fargo with 60-minute episodes because the audience wanted more. Then, in 2024, I made much shorter, more concise episodes because I felt that was where the audience was. I love both seasons and think they are great, but I’m aware that people’s attention spans shift. You have to be aware of the current moment and what’s coming next.
David (42:47-43:16)
You’re talking about the audience, and I’m curious to hear about the duality in your approach. On one level, do you think, “I am the creator and director. This is my vision, and I’ll put it into the world to see if people like it?”
Or, on the other end of the spectrum, is it more like a show such as Law and Order? Do you approach it as a product, aiming to deliver something predictably excellent and being very cognizant of what the audience wants?
Noah Hawley (43:17-43:50)
You have to be aware of the audience no matter what. Whether you choose to cater to them or not is your decision.
However, making corporate art like television or film involves significant investment. It can cost 40, 50, 100, or even $200 million to create something. This means you’re working with a corporation whose primary motivation is to turn a profit.
David (43:50-43:51)
A profit, of course.
Noah Hawley (43:51-45:34)
Their goal is to turn a profit through the art you’re making. The question becomes, how do we manage the risk and reward so that there’s more reward than risk? My job as a storyteller is to balance commercial success with my desire to experiment, challenge, and take the audience to unexpected places.
I have to convince the corporation that I’m the safest risk they can take. I will experiment, play, and deliver something original, but I’ll also bring it in on time and on budget.
They still worry. Every season of Fargo I make, I get the same note: “It just doesn’t feel like last time.” My response is, “Yes, it’s a totally different story.” I understand where the note comes from, especially when moving into a new season.
Consider the second season, arguably many people’s favorite, that 1979 American crime epic. Season one was a literal, scaled-down story about an insurance salesman, much like the original film’s car salesman. Season two, however, was a broader American crime epic about the rise of corporate America and the death of the family business. The network asked, “How is this Fargo?”
I assured them, “You’ll feel all the same emotions you felt watching season one and the movie. Those feelings will just arise in different places and for different reasons.” But until you show them, they don’t truly understand.
David (45:34-46:16)
Derek Thompson, a journalist at The Atlantic and one of my favorites, has a concept he calls “most advanced yet acceptable.” This idea suggests that when creative work succeeds, it must push beyond our current understanding. Something needs to change.
However, if it changes too much, people may not be ready for it. If it doesn’t change enough, there’s no novelty, and it becomes boring. Much creative work involves pushing these limits, whether it’s the distinction between Season 3 and Season 4, or launching a new product. It’s about finding the right degree of difference for it to truly resonate.
Noah Hawley (46:16-46:51)
One of the things I enjoyed most about the Daniels’ movie, Everything Everywhere All at Once, was how much it frustrated people in Hollywood. There were no obvious takeaways; nothing they could simply copy and say, “If we just replicated this, we’d have the next biggest Oscar-winning movie of all time.”
It was a true unicorn. It won so many awards and ran the table, leaving people stumped on how to replicate its success. Hollywood always rushes to where lightning just struck.
David (46:51-46:53)
That is so true.
Noah Hawley (46:53-47:33)
Their takeaway is never, “Perhaps if we made something as original, we would be as successful.” Instead, they think, “What can we copy about that to leverage for our own success with something else?”
I’ve built a career in television mostly by adapting existing intellectual property, such as Fargo or the comic book Alien Legion. However, I also feel I’ve built a reputation as an original storyteller. That seems contradictory: How can both of those things be true at the same time?
David (47:33-47:34)
Yeah.
Noah Hawley (47:34-48:29)
I always strive to bring the same level of originality to Fargo as I would if I had invented the story myself. In many ways, I have.
I use the title and the Coen brothers’ distinctive tone of voice. I also draw upon the various facets of comedy, violence, philosophy, and spiritual undercurrents that run through their work. It’s a recipe that allows for constant variation.
You can adjust how much comedy you use versus violence, how philosophical it is, or how much it explores themes like Judaism. All these elements, in different measures, create a totally different experience, yet it remains the same at its heart.
David (48:29-48:38)
You’ve got me thinking about how consuming art changes your sense of what’s possible.
Noah Hawley (48:38-48:38)
Right.
David (48:38-48:42)
Take Memento. What if you told a detective story back to front instead of front to back?
Noah Hawley (48:42-48:43)
Yeah.
David (48:43-48:50)
Or consider The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Eric Roth looked at the F. Scott Fitzgerald story and asked, “What if someone aged backwards?”
Noah Hawley (48:50-48:51)
It is.
David (48:51-49:11)
It’s a decent story, but what if someone ages backwards? Then there’s Everything Everywhere All at Once, which presented a new way of making a film.
How did Don DeLillo achieve that with White Noise for you? It feels like that novel awakened and unlocked something within me.
Noah Hawley (49:12-51:32)
I was a huge reader throughout childhood. I started out reading a lot of science fiction. There was a science fiction bookstore down on 8th Avenue when I was growing up, and I’d go there for all the Robert Heinlein, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Asimov, and all the classics.
I was also listening to a lot of British comedy records. My dad had studied overseas and brought home many old Goon Show and Firesign Theatre records. Monty Python was popular, and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy had just come out.
Then, of course, there’s the New York tone of voice. Growing up in New York, there’s a certain way of talking, a wise guy attitude. DeLillo is so New York; he encapsulates that humor. I had never read anything truly meta before his work.
White Noise, which came out around ‘84, was one of the first novels to extensively discuss consumerism and pop culture. There’s a moment when the father turns off the lights and leans close to hear his young daughter talking in her sleep. She’s repeating, “Toyota Celica,” over and over.
He created this meta-ness, a driving thematic quality. The book expanded my concept of what literature could be. It wasn’t just a story; it was about something, it had a point of view. His character, a professor of Hitler studies, talks about how all plots lead toward death. These bigger ideas resonated with me at the right age, making me want to write about larger concepts too.
David (51:33-51:38)
What did DeLillo teach you about storytelling, especially compared to someone like Kurt Vonnegut?
Noah Hawley (51:40-53:39)
They’re both playful. I reread a lot of Vonnegut before writing my last book, Anthem, because I wondered how he managed what he did. He’s the only one who has ever truly done it.
He manages to write a book like Slaughterhouse-Five about his World War II experience, using the conceit that his main character has come unstuck in time. The character bounces uncontrollably between moments in his life, from wartime to after the war. Vonnegut is also a character, narrating his own book and discussing his war experience. He invented the science fiction writer Kilgore Trout, bringing in so many cross-genre elements that shouldn’t work, yet they do.
Not only does it work, but he also infuses a very simple, yet important and meaningful, morality. I wanted to understand how he achieved that, especially since I found myself as a narrator in my own book and needed to define those boundaries.
We don’t know how to do anything until we learn. I don’t have a degree or an MFA, and I never went to film school. I learned to write books by writing a terrible one, then a less terrible one, and by reading constantly. You learn on the job, and if you do, you must accept that it’s a process to reach great work.
David (53:39-53:55)
While not true for every writer, a common theme I observe on “How I Write” is this process: You see something that moves you, perhaps to awe, and you think, “What’s going on there?” You then try to integrate that into your own work.
Noah Hawley (53:55-53:56)
It doesn’t work.
David (53:56-54:13)
You try to integrate it, figure it out, and you repeat that process. Over time, you begin to understand what other people are doing, and, strangely, you develop your own style by integrating the works of those who have moved you.
Noah Hawley (54:13-56:17)
You’re synthesizing all of your unique inspirations. I loved science fiction as a kid, but I also loved British comedy. That’s not necessarily something every New York kid would have. Then there was the New York comedy from the other side of my family: the Jewish Long Island side, the Mel Brooks side.
These are two different types of comedy, but they synthesized for me through the absurdism and surrealism of my first movie theater experience: 2001: A Space Odyssey. I was seven years old. I remember sitting there, fascinated, even though I didn’t fully understand it. I had never seen anything so grand. You start with Neanderthals, then you’re in space. For a kid, it was an amazing movie, even if its pace was slow.
When you start to tell your own stories, you draw from all these places. One of my first high school writing assignments involved Joseph Heller’s Catch-22. He invented the phrase, which describes the irony of a World War II pilot wanting to avoid dangerous missions. If you claim to be crazy to get out of flying, they argue that wanting to get out proves you’re sane. But if you were truly crazy, you’d want to fly the missions. Either way, you’re caught in an impossible situation.
There’s a humor and satire to that. We had an assignment to write our own chapter of Catch-22, picking a character and writing a new chapter for them.
David (56:17-56:17)
In his voice.
Noah Hawley (56:18-56:55)
In the voice of the book. I loved that assignment. In many ways, looking back after having done Fargo and Alien, it was the same thing. I asked, “What is it about this book—its style, its humor, its themes—that I was able to access and channel?”
What skill allows you to do that? It’s about taking the spirit of a thing, not copying it, but understanding how the original artist achieved it and then finding your own way to do the same.
David (56:55-57:04)
I like the concept of voice because it’s definitely present. It’s obviously real, but it’s not something handed to you on a platter; it requires looking, feeling, and reflecting.
Noah Hawley (57:04-58:04)
The Coen brothers write many movies they don’t direct, and those films never feel like Coen Brothers movies. There has to be something in the translation from page to screen that completes their voice.
My job wasn’t just to write in their voice, which I could do, but also to understand that comedy and horror are often the same. Part of it was realizing Anton Chigurh’s haircut is hysterical, yet to the audience, it’s weird and unsettling. Why does he look like that? Does he know? On some level, his stupid Prince Valiant haircut makes him scarier.
I know they laughed at his appearance after creating it, but it’s not comedy within the film itself. There’s something in that gray area between farce and horror that is uniquely Coen. So, how do I channel that?
David (58:04-58:21)
One difference between humor and horror is that I still feel the same fear when watching something alone. However, I laugh much harder when I watch a movie with other people.
David (58:21-58:33)
Laughter is a shared experience that builds like a crescendo. Conversely, when I watch something alone, I often only realize how funny it was in retrospect or when discussing it with someone else.
Noah Hawley (58:33-58:40)
The shared fear experience also elevates it.
David (58:40-58:41)
Because we’re all scared together.
Noah Hawley (58:42-59:14)
So much of horror relies on silence. Then, a jump scare makes people around you scream, and the stress level in the room rises.
I’ve watched horror movies alone during the day and had to pause to calm my adrenaline, just to keep watching. They can be incredibly effective. You become acutely aware of your aloneness, realizing you’re a frightened person who is isolated and alone.
David (59:14-59:43)
As you write Fargo and Alien, creating shows with distinct voices, you work with and lead a team—the DP, the director, the writers, and many others. How explicit are you about the voice?
Does it develop over time, perhaps with a style guide? Or do you tell your team, “It’s very important you understand the voice; there’s a feeling that’s hard to explain, but I’ll know it when I see it?”
Noah Hawley (59:43-1:01:03)
It’s both. To some degree, it’s a voyage of discovery. To build a cohesive team, especially when I’m directing, where we’re all working towards the same vision, I must be able to explain my approach.
With film, and entertainment in general, I’m always trying to evoke a specific feeling in the audience. I don’t always know how to do it, but I’m willing to explore bad ideas and play around until I find it.
For instance, when adapting Alien, I don’t rewatch the original film. Instead, I reflect on the feelings that movie produced in me and what truly resonated. Then, I consider how to generate those same feelings in a new audience by telling a different story.
I’m not focused on the intellect or the plot; I’m focused on the emotional “paint swatch.” It’s like, “Oh, it’s bone white and eggshell.” If you think emotionally about a movie, you might say, “I was feeling blue, then red.” How do I create those feelings in the audience? In the most obvious way, it’s a sad moment with sad music, but that’s a very straightforward and often predictable method.
David (1:01:03-1:01:09)
I like the color wheel analogy because there are probably complementary feelings, just like there are complementary colors.
David (1:01:10-1:01:18)
Grief and humor, for example, are opposites. They’re like blue and orange on opposite sides of the color wheel. Yet, one can enable the other.
Noah Hawley (1:01:18-1:04:25)
One of my favorite things to create in an audience is a feeling of catharsis, which literally means that from sadness comes happiness. There’s a complexity of emotions that needs to be released, building up to give you a transcendent feeling at the end.
I tried this with the last season of Fargo. Sam Spruell’s character broke in and tried to kidnap Juno Temple’s character. She took half his ear off and escaped. He ran into her one other time, and she thought they were square. However, he later showed up at her house, waiting for her with her family, when she believed everything was over.
When I sat down to write that scene, I didn’t necessarily have a plan. I knew he showed up and initially thought it would be another set piece where she had to defeat or escape him. But as I started writing, the scene didn’t want to be that.
I thought, “Well, that’s his scene. His scene is violent action.” What if she refused to play his scene? She essentially says, “Look, it’s a school night, and we’re halfway to supper. So we’re either going to have to reschedule this, or you need to wash your hands and help.”
Then he’s in the kitchen, helping her make biscuits. This was going to a really interesting place for me. I loved that she refused to be in his scene, trying to force him into hers.
There’s tension because he’s a hair away from reverting to his original plan, but she keeps working on him. They end up sitting together, literally breaking bread, and she raises the idea of forgiveness. She suggests that at a certain point, you just have to forgive and move on.
He takes a bite of the roll, and his eyes tear up. It’s this profound idea of forgiveness in our human culture. I felt that the complexity of emotion built into that moment made it incredibly heightened.
These things, however, can make networks and studios nervous when emotions get really complicated. I remember when I worked at ABC, they used the word “emotionality.” They’d talk about the “emotionality” of something. I thought, “Well, that’s not a real word.” It’s either emotional or it’s not.
Then I realized “emotionality” actually referred to the simulation of emotion. It’s like the sad music starts before the sad moment to tell you that something sad is coming up.
David (1:04:25-1:04:26)
You’re supposed to feel sad.
Noah Hawley (1:04:26-1:04:40)
They want clarity, where you only feel sad when you’re sad, and only happy when you’re happy. They don’t like it when emotions get too complicated, where some people might feel one thing and others feel something else.
David (1:04:41-1:04:51)
You keep using the word “playful” when you talk about writing. Why is playfulness so important? Why do you keep coming back to that word?
Noah Hawley (1:04:52-1:05:08)
Because it’s an act of imagination. Think about kids on the floor with pretend play: one moment it’s a spaceship, the next they’re cowboys. They have access to a level of imagination through play.
David (1:05:08-1:05:11)
You should have seen the forts we used to build with couch pillows growing up.
Noah Hawley (1:05:11-1:07:09)
That act of play means you are open to all possibility. I’ll write the script, get on set with the actors, and then we’ll play with the material. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything different will happen, but it means you need to be open to whatever comes.
That playfulness extends both to the page and the screen, but also to how you approach the business of writing. It’s all an opportunity for creative problem-solving. When a network or studio gives you a note, and you think, “That’s completely wrong; that’s what they think it should do,” you can’t just say it.
Instead, you think, “Okay, how do I get what I want while making them think I’m giving them what they want?” It’s a creative and playful approach to problem-solving, because yelling is rarely the answer.
Many artists have an instinct to be junkyard dogs and protect their work at all costs, but that’s a recipe for disaster. You hear stories of someone getting their first show, going to war with the network to make the show they envisioned, and then never making anything else again because the network decides life’s too short to work with them. You’re actually failing if you do that.
You have to find a way to seem easy to work with, to be easy to work with, but also, for them to realize you still got what you wanted on the screen. The storyteller got the story they wanted to tell, and everyone feels good about it.
David (1:07:09-1:07:33)
We often have this idea of the crazy, wacky, wild creative. It really struck me when I read about Christopher Nolan and his consistent ability to deliver on time and under budget.
That’s something that stands out with you. I think at your level, you’re able to speak to creatives and speak their language, but also be the business person.
Noah Hawley (1:07:33-1:07:33)
Yes.
David (1:07:33-1:07:44)
You can also speak to business people in their language, while still being the creative person. Being almost multilingual seems really important.
Noah Hawley (1:07:44-1:08:26)
I want to do this for a living. I’ve had conversations with authors who ask, “Do I have to promote my book?” My answer is always, “Only if you want to write another one.”
They’ll also ask, “I have a pilot in production, and they want me to change the story. Do I have to take their notes?” If all you want to do is write an outline, then you can hold firm. But if you want a script from that outline, you need to work with them. And if you want that pilot picked up, there’s a lot of give and take involved.
The skill lies in knowing where to compromise without sacrificing anything too meaningful.
David (1:08:27-1:08:28)
There are deal breakers.
Noah Hawley (1:08:28-1:09:00)
A good note is something like, “That’s confusing.” I want to know if something’s confusing, or if they say, “I see what you’re going for, but I don’t think you got there,” that’s incredibly helpful.
A note is not, “I would do it differently.” In those moments, I tell them, “That’s just a different story. It’s not the story I told.”
It’s not helpful to suggest something else happens because that’s not the story I’m telling. Maybe it’s a good story, maybe even a better one, but it’s not mine.
David (1:09:00-1:09:03)
It’s like someone walking into a candy store and saying, “There’s not enough vegetables here.”
Noah Hawley (1:09:03-1:09:04)
Right.
David (1:09:04-1:09:06)
I’m not trying to sell you spinach.
Noah Hawley (1:09:06-1:10:02)
The worst situation you can find yourself in is realizing you’re making a different movie than they want. There’s nothing you can do about it.
You find yourself in that situation from time to time, and there’s no way to resolve it. If they fundamentally feel, “We wish this had gone a different way, story-wise,” you’re stuck. They might even rewrite and reshoot half the thing, which happens sometimes.
That’s why communication is so important: to ensure that the movie I’m making is what you want. It’s not about catering to them, but avoiding that 11th-hour moment in the editing room where you realize, “This is never going to resolve itself.”
David (1:10:03-1:10:41)
I just made a short film, and what surprised me most was the subtleties of sound. The way you put sound in post-production, playing with echo and reverb, can make a space feel big or small. The length of a song can create suspense or signal the end of a segment.
You started your career wanting to be a songwriter, even a rock star. Given that, how do you think about music during the scriptwriting process, and then how does that translate to putting it on screen?
Noah Hawley (1:10:41-1:15:23)
I use the same composer on everything I’ve done, Jeff Russo. We start talking very early in the process. Before I had a Fargo script, I discussed with him what I felt that show should sound like.
I did my first location scout up in Calgary, and I had ten pieces of music he’d written that I could listen to while rolling through that landscape. You really feel the tone of the show that way.
With Legion, we sat down, and I told him it should sound like Dark Side of the Moon, which is the closest you’d come to the auditory experience of mental illness in musical and soundscape form. He went out, tracked down a 1979 patch-cord synthesizer, bought one, and we started dialing in the show’s sound. So it begins with the question, “What does it even want to sound like?”
Consider a movie like All Quiet on the Western Front that Ed Berger directed. When the score comes in, it’s this ominous electronic score with nothing period about it. The tension between the period piece and the modern music elevates it, creating a modernity that transcends it beyond just another World War I movie.
Then, on Legion, I decided that I wanted the needle drops—the songs we use—to sound like the score. This way, you never broke out of the musical concept of the score. Because I was a musician and a singer, the easiest way to achieve what I heard was to do it ourselves. I would choose the songs, and he would compose the music. Then, at the end of the day, I would go in and record some music.
This creates an almost hypnotic feeling; you never break out of the piece’s tonality. I’m always trying to figure out how to create a specific feeling in the audience. Music is one way to do it, but so is the lack of music.
If you’re mixing tones—if you have drama, comedy, and violence—what do you score? If you score the comedy, you kill the drama. If you score the drama, you kill the comedy. So, a lot of the time, it’s about where music doesn’t go.
For example, in Season 3 of Fargo, Carrie Coon plays a cop who is at her lowest point. We had a running gag for her where electronic sensors never recognized her, automatic doors never opened, and soap dispensers never worked. She began to think she wasn’t real. She’s having a conversation with another cop she met during an investigation, admitting for the first time that she doesn’t know if she’s real.
The other woman gives her a hug and says, “You are real.” Then, when she goes to the bathroom, the soap and water work. When I looked at that sequence, I thought, “I could score the emotion of her confession, and that would be legitimate. It would heighten it.”
However, I decided to leave that dry and instead score the triumph of the working sink, emphasizing her being real. Because there was no music until that point, the impact of that moment was profound. What you often find is that people use too much music. You watch many shows that are 42 minutes long with 38 minutes of music because they don’t trust you to have your own emotional journey with the story. Then, the music becomes meaningless.
David (1:15:24-1:15:28)
I heard a story about Scorsese: he used to watch a movie every single night.
Noah Hawley (1:15:28-1:15:29)
Right.
David (1:15:31-1:15:50)
Have you done anything to intentionally structure how you consume media? You’ve probably referenced twenty movies already in our conversation. Is that something you’ve done deliberately, or is it simply because you love movies and this medium, so you’re constantly consuming and then creating?
Noah Hawley (1:15:52-1:17:39)
Yes. When you have a lot of output, you need a lot of input. Whether it’s reading books, articles, essays, or watching things, I’m always looking for something that makes me think, “Oh, that’s interesting.”
It’s like when I discovered Paolo Sorrentino and The Great Beauty. He’s a contemporary Italian filmmaker with a Fellini-esque quality. A part of your brain opens up that wasn’t open before, and once it’s open, it stays open.
I’m always looking for those moments. One of my favorite routines, which I don’t get to do all the time, is dropping the kids at school and then going to a restaurant or cafe for a second breakfast. I’ll have something in my back pocket, whether it’s a book of ideas or magazine articles.
The moment I think, “Oh, that’s interesting,” my mind becomes engaged. That thought makes me think, and once I’m thinking, I can think about my stories.
The hardest part is when you sit down and feel like you have nothing. You left it all on the page yesterday, and nothing new has come in during the last twelve hours. So, where do you go with it? Sometimes the answer is, “You’re just not going to write today.” You have to be okay with that too. But if you can trigger a thought, you’re suddenly off and running.
David (1:17:39-1:17:53)
I want to discuss hiring as we begin to close. When you think about bringing people on, you’ve mentioned a type of person who “just works too hard.” Intuitively, one might wonder how that’s possible.
Noah Hawley (1:17:53-1:19:09)
Let’s talk about that. I have a line: “Don’t climb four flights of stairs to get to the second floor.” Some people work way too hard just to go up one flight of stairs.
When you get up every morning, you have to go in and shoot eight pages of a script. You have an action scene and an important dialogue scene, and you wonder how you’ll fit it all in. Every morning, we know what we have to do is impossible, but we do it anyway.
I remember talking to Jason Schwartzman when he was nervous about a scene. I told him to picture his favorite scene in his favorite movie, like I Could Have Been a Contender. They shot that on a Tuesday between 4 and 8 PM. They didn’t say, “Oh, this is the ‘I Could Have Been a Contender’ scene.” Or maybe they did. But at a certain point, you just have to get in there and do the work.
I guarantee if we don’t like what we did, I’ll find a way to take another shot at it. So you have to lower the stakes on some level, even as you’re trying to create playfulness.
David (1:19:10-1:19:20)
Let’s conclude by discussing movies, books, and TV. I want your quick take on writing for each medium. Let’s start with movies.
Noah Hawley (1:19:20-1:21:33)
As I’ve said, with movies, you start with all the time in the world and end with none. You have to structure them, and this is true of books as well, so the plot doesn’t hijack the story. If you reach a point in a movie where you’re simply paying off what you set up, you’ve lost control of the story.
I started writing what I call emotional thrillers on the book front with The Good Father, then Before the Fall, and Anthem. I did this because my first novel, A Conspiracy of Tall Men, was about a professor of conspiracy theories whose wife died in a plane crash. He finally finds the conspiracy he’s been looking for, but he’s lost his wife, so it’s no trade-off.
However, in that book, particularly in the last few chapters, I had set a conspiracy into motion and felt compelled to pay it off. I realized I was just writing what happens next, which wasn’t as interesting to me. But if I can build it as an emotional thriller, what you truly want to know is if the character will be okay, and how they will navigate their emotional crisis. That’s what you really care about.
Yes, you want to know the solution to the mystery and see everyone end up safely. But you still have room to tell the interesting parts of the story and not become a hostage to the earlier work in the book or film that now has to pay off. On some level, it’s a subtle thing for a reader, but for the writer, it’s huge. The moment you think, “Ah, now I have to type about the car chase,” you’ve already lost interest.
It has to be a character piece the whole way through. The stakes must be character stakes, not plot stakes, in my mind.
David (1:21:34-1:21:35)
Tell me about TV.
Noah Hawley (1:21:35-1:21:43)
A television series has a beginning, middle, and an end. A television season has a beginning, middle, and end. A television episode has a beginning, middle, and end.
David (1:21:43-1:21:45)
It’s like a Russian babushka doll.
Noah Hawley (1:21:45-1:23:36)
You have to think about it in a way that this hour we watch together will give you the feeling of a complete story by its end. A problem you can run into in a season of television is the “late middle problem.” You start big, put everyone in motion, have a major event around mid-season, and then another big event at the end, but there’s a lull in between.
In Fargo, I solved this by having the show jump ahead a year in episode eight of the first season. In season two, episode seven, Ed and Peggy went on the run, and the show changed locations. It moved. We weren’t stuck writing to standing sets.
We aren’t trapped in a story where there’s only enough money for a set piece in episode five and another in episode ten, and then it’s just people talking in a room. That drives me crazy when a show feels like they don’t want to spend money, but they’re not using those constraints to innovate as storytellers. They’re just accepting it, taking it for granted, saying, “Okay, I guess we’ll just have an episode where everyone’s talking the whole time.” But you could make the talking more interesting, or create an urgency in that one location.
It’s about being able to look at your season and episodes and pace out your story effectively.
David (1:23:37-1:23:40)
Let’s end with the core lesson of writing novels.
Noah Hawley (1:23:42-1:24:37)
Patience. Someone once told me that when you work in Hollywood, the phone rings every day, and someone says they love you. When you write novels, you just sit in a room, and the phone doesn’t ring. You have to be okay with that.
You have to be okay with it being a long journey. You’ll live with this thing for two, three, or five years, and it will have its ups and downs. It’s not an instant return, unlike television, where you can write a season in a few months, shoot it in a few months, and have it on the air within 18 months. That feels like working in real time. With a book, you’re going to sit in that office for a very long time before anybody sees anything.
David (1:24:37-1:24:37)
Noah Hawley, thank you very much.
