Paris Barclay | Behind The Lens
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00:00 You know, you're already one of the very few, we were talking just before we started this,
00:04 to be nominated in a drama, in a comedy series, and in limited series. Pretty extraordinary.
00:10 Documentary next, you know? Well, you know, you don't really do it for the awards. Well, of course
00:16 you do. What else would you do? I'll tell you honestly, I do like to go. I do like to go to
00:22 the party, but I go with the feeling that I'm going to lose. And that's helped me so much. If
00:27 you go thinking you're going to win, you're going to win, you're going to win, I always go with I'm
00:30 going to lose. And then I usually do lose, and then I'm okay. And when I win, I'm like really
00:35 surprised. You actually won sort of early on. You won a couple for NYPD Blue. I have a two for that.
00:42 I've done very few episodes, maybe 10, 15 episodes by the time that I actually won.
00:48 And that shows you the power of writers, which I will now give a shout out to.
00:52 I don't win these awards by just directing like shit I imagined. I win it because David Milch's
00:59 script is so great. I win it because Aaron Sorkin's script of The West Wing was so awesome.
01:04 Ryan, Ian, Brad Falchuk, and that one episode of Glee I did the first time. I mean, it's the writers
01:10 that start the magic. All I do is sort of build the roof on their house. But I don't have a house
01:16 if I don't have the writing. And I think, you know, our friends in the world of StudioNest
01:22 need to really evaluate how they look at that. These people are building the houses they then
01:26 build their profit on. And I get the awards and the acclaim from doing something to
01:31 realize the work that they do. But I got nothing if they don't give me a great script.
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02:50 Welcome to Behind the Lens today. Wow, I have a nine-time Emmy nominee with me, a two-time winner,
02:57 also winner of many other awards, Humanitas prizes, four Peabody's, was the president of
03:04 the Directors Guild of America from 2013 to 2017, and now nominated again for directing in a limited
03:13 series or anthology or movie for television. And that is for Dahmer, which actually a long name,
03:18 Dahmer Monster, the Jeffrey Dahmer story. Welcome, Paris Barclay.
03:22 Thank you for having me, Pete. It's an honor. We just call it Dahmer.
03:26 It's a shame just to start with that name because it makes it sound like it's really,
03:32 really, really about Dahmer, which it's really, really, really not.
03:34 No.
03:35 So it takes you down a road already. But I'm not in charge of naming. I'm just in charge of
03:39 making shit great.
03:40 Well, now you obviously have worked with Ryan Murphy, who produced that. That's part of his
03:45 empire here of shows that he's done. And you've worked with him on several shows, from Glee to
03:52 American Horror Story. And you're definitely someone he goes to over and over again. So I'm
03:59 curious, in this case, you directed two of these, including the finale.
04:03 I did.
04:04 But the one you're nominated for is an extraordinary piece of television work here
04:10 called Silenced in so many ways. And I'm just wondering,
04:15 when he came to you with this offer, what your reaction was when he said Dahmer, Jeffrey Dahmer?
04:22 About 10 seconds into it, my reaction was no.
04:25 Really?
04:26 Yeah. First, I was stunned because I thought, you know, I've known Ryan a long time. He's not
04:30 going to do Dahmer. I mean, I've lived with Dahmer. What is the point of Dahmer? I don't
04:34 want to see Dahmer anymore. There have been all these other movies and documentaries about it
04:38 again. But then in his traditional Ryan Murphy way, he seduced me by telling me this particular
04:44 story, the story of Tony Hughes, this gay black man. We're going to show his life. We're going
04:49 to show his dreams before he meets Dahmer and really start to turn the series to be really
04:54 deliberately about the victims, which is what he wanted it to be from the get go.
04:58 And as he told me the story, I thought, oh, my God, I have to do this. But I'm very scared
05:04 because it's going to be very tricky. It's not just tricky because we're dealing with a deaf
05:08 actor, but it's going to be tricky because it's Dahmer and this victim. And how will that work
05:13 out? Yeah. So then he sent the script that had been done by David McMillan and Janet Mock,
05:17 and it succeeded. It succeeded pretty masterfully. And by the time I got to the end, I felt what
05:22 people are feeling when they see the show, which is crushed. And, you know, my dreams were shattered
05:27 along with Tony's. And so then I became scared again because I thought, oh, I got to do this.
05:33 Yeah. We got to find a deaf actor to do it. And we have to actually create this world of silence
05:38 and music and terror and love at the same time. So that's basically the gamut. And it also was
05:46 the turning point, I think, for this whole series, you know, in what it's ultimately about.
05:52 Fortunately, is the victims. It really is. And I thought, OK, if we really show Tony and his
05:58 humanity, we could do something really great. We can say that it's more important to look at the
06:03 victims and for you, the audience, to fall in love with them and to relate to their family because
06:08 we show a lot of the family and his mother in it, too. That's how you understand the pain and the
06:13 wreckage Jeffrey Dahmer caused, not by seeing more of his murders and actually seeing the
06:18 the horrible things he did. You do it by finding so much to love in the people who he victimized
06:24 and he victimized to Nisi Nash's character and his own father. So there's ramp. There's a lot
06:29 of victims in it. But I thought this episode actually got to that point really clearly and
06:33 also got to the point of the police's incompetence and indifference and society's inability to trap
06:39 this guy earlier, which I think is, you know, troubling on so many different levels for me
06:45 in today's climate. But even back then, I mean, you almost had an excuse because it was whatever
06:50 the 70s, the 80s, but it's still today happening. So it also had this relevance and resonance to
06:55 today that that I actually said this is worth spending my time doing. I think it has a lot
06:59 of relevance, sadly, to today and systemic racism that exists and with the cops. And, you know,
07:06 when a black person keeps saying something, how long it takes them to even take it seriously.
07:11 And especially a black woman. Yeah, I mean, that's what I love about Nisi Nash's character.
07:16 And she's spoken about it, you know, here on the trail. But a black woman not being believed in
07:21 that moment when Dahmer had Conor, the young Thai boy there and said he is my boyfriend and brought
07:27 him back and the police allowed him to do it. That kind of triumph of privilege is so devastating.
07:33 And I thought the show dramatized that that really happened in a real way that I found
07:38 incredibly compelling. Yeah, amazing. I actually is sitting in that chair before the nominations
07:44 came out. I had Evan Peters. Yes, I saw it. Yeah. And he's just an extraordinary young actor. I have
07:49 to say, you know, the story people don't know about Evan because he gets this, oh, he's method.
07:53 Oh, he must have been dumber all the time. So scary. It wasn't quite like that. Yeah. I mean,
07:58 he's extremely studious. I had never worked with him before. Yeah. So I set up a zoom with him and
08:03 we had an hour and a half. But actually, it's supposed to be 20 minutes went on for an hour
08:06 and a half conversation about his preparation, his thoughts about the character and in particular,
08:11 his thoughts about the story, because it was a departure from some of the stuff he had done in
08:16 the previous episodes. And I realized, oh, so I'm dealing with a genius here. I'm going to have to
08:22 be better because he had thought so deeply and he had prepared for four months, as you mentioned to
08:27 you. And it really showed. And I said to Evan, how do you like to be directed? How can I most be
08:31 helpful? And he told me very honestly, give me as many takes as time will allow. That's what I like.
08:38 I like to do it again and again. And I noticed that in the filming of it. And sometime around
08:42 take 10, 12, 13, something new comes up. That's kind of wonderful. And it's in the movie. So I had
08:48 to build the days around simpler shots and allowing him to have the chance to play and also
08:54 allow me the chance to help Rodney Burford, who played Tony Hughes, really be an equal to Evan
09:00 Peters, the incredible award winning actor, which is amazing because he basically had no experience
09:05 in drama. Yes, he only had the drama of his life. Yeah, reality. He'd been on a reality show.
09:11 And I was scared again because I said, OK, so this is who we're casting. This is all going
09:17 to hang on Tony Hughes. This is all going to hang on how much we love this kid. So I met him via
09:22 Zoom and my God, I loved him. I just loved who he was. I loved his spirit. And I realized what we
09:27 have to do is not make him perform as Tony Hughes. But the job of me as a director is to allow Rodney
09:34 to shine through that character, to let him be Rodney, to create environments where he's
09:39 comfortable enough to bring his natural qualities, his sense of humor, his smile, his engaging.
09:45 And so a lot of my directing of him was trying to stop him from acting. There's no reason for him
09:50 to act. All he had to do is just rest into it, believe in himself and be. How would Rodney do
09:56 this? And that worked very, very well. Oh, that's good. Well, that's the best kind of
10:00 direction you could possibly give. Yeah. And I told him it was it was a love story,
10:05 but I told him everything I do is a love story. Every show that I do ends up being about love.
10:11 Oh, OK. Yeah. Whether it's Glee or whether it's Sons of Anarchy or if it's in treatment,
10:15 it ends up being about love. In this case, he loved his future and he loved his family.
10:21 And those are the things that are taken away from him. And part of the reason why I every time I
10:26 watch it, I'm so crushed is because it truly shows the evil of Dahmer through the love of his family
10:32 and his friends. And it just shows you how evil can in these cases triumph over even that kind
10:38 of love. I don't believe in the love between them. I'm not doing a romance or a love story.
10:43 I think that's just Jeffrey on a good day behaving somewhat humanly. So I didn't want the story to be
10:49 about that. But I did want the story to be about the love that surrounded him, the love that lived
10:54 on after him and how well Jeffrey could destroy him. He actually couldn't destroy his mother's
11:00 pain. And we carried that through in several other episodes in the back half of it. He couldn't
11:04 destroy the memory of him. And that's why I think elevating Tony Hughes into the conversation.
11:10 Now, every time I see a crime, I think about things like that. I think about the family of
11:15 school shooting people. And I think about what that was like when they got the news.
11:20 Just as you know, it puts me more in a just humane point of view towards the world.
11:25 It's just devastating. In another time, they would have cast a hearing actor in the role.
11:31 And, you know, it's interesting with Coda and winning Best Picture and all of the attention
11:37 that once again went on the deaf community of actors and everything that will never happen
11:42 in Hollywood again. Aren't you glad? I am glad. But it's extraordinary for you as a director
11:48 to work with actors like that and and go into that world yourself. I think it changed my life.
11:55 I mean, I'm not overstating the fact that having the opportunity to work with not only this deaf
12:02 actor, but with Jared Dubosk and Anthony Michael Spady, who were his friends that you saw on the
12:06 pizza scene with the Gabriel Gomez, who was our ASL interpreter and our ASL master and everyone
12:13 going through that experience, the rehearsals of it, how we had to refine the language to represent
12:18 black ASL or BSL, as we call it, of that time. Right. And how the actors had to contribute to
12:24 that. And I learned so much. I thought, honestly, and I know I'll seem stupid here, but I thought
12:30 actually sign language was the spelling out of words that we would have in English. But it is not.
12:34 It is a language in and of itself. And it's idiomatic. And that's why some of the signs
12:39 seem much quicker than the words you would see on the screen is because they're expressing ideas.
12:44 And the face and the emotion in the hands are part of that communication. I didn't really know that,
12:49 even though I'd worked with deaf actors before that didn't really land until I sat in that
12:54 pizza scene and I put the camera at table height and I became a spectator of those friends. Yeah,
13:00 which is my favorite scene in the whole movie. It's a great scene. For five minutes in silence,
13:05 I just watched them communicating. And I saw again their love. And I saw again how much they
13:10 can chide each other and kind of torture each other at the same time, support each other's
13:15 dreams. And I thought, OK, so this is a world that I'm entering into. And I'm just praying
13:20 that the audience feels the same way I do as we're filming this, that this is something worth telling,
13:25 something worth hearing, something worth knowing about. And it expands our view of the world a
13:29 little bit. I'm curious. You know, I looked at numbers here over one hundred and sixty episodes,
13:35 one hundred and seventy now, one hundred and seventy now of television. And many times you're walking
13:40 into a series that you didn't create, that you didn't start. And you're walking in and taking on
13:46 a template that was set for it. Or how how does a director go into something that's preexisting?
13:53 That's such a good question. And it's it's one of the most difficult parts of this job.
13:57 But on Dahmer with Ryan and Jason McCormick and Carl Franklin setting up kind of the template for
14:04 how the show should look and feel in that very first episode, which is magnificent.
14:08 I didn't get to see it, but I got to see some of the dailies because they were still shooting it
14:12 when I was shooting Episode six. It went on for a while. So I didn't actually see it in its entirety.
14:17 But I saw scenes of it and I saw dailies of it. And I knew from talking to them how they wanted
14:22 the camera to be still and how it was going to have this fluorescent 70s, sadly, urine colored
14:29 palette through the episode. And they made some really strong, dramatic choices. And so I knew
14:34 going in what they had done. But when I read the script and put it together with those choices,
14:39 it didn't really work because this story starts with Tony Hughes and is a departure
14:45 from the series. And so I went to them and I said, you know, this this episode is different.
14:50 Can I break the rules? And they said yes. And Ryan supported me in that. But what I really wanted to
14:56 do is not just break all the rules, but break the rules with Tony, which is why there's a different
15:00 feeling of the camera. The camera moves much more with Tony. There's brighter as he goes to the
15:05 store and looks for a job. You have this feeling of everything is flowing for him and coming
15:09 together. But once he meets Dahmer, Dahmer's look starts to intrude. And over and over again, when
15:17 he went, Dahmer is thinking about crushing the pills and poisoning him. It feels like the way
15:22 the show was before. Right. And as the show progresses, more of the Dahmer look and the
15:27 Dahmer feeling takes over. So it's really like music. I had the cello that I was waiting until,
15:32 you know, the second act, the Adagio or whatever it is. I was waiting for whatever they call the
15:37 second act of a symphony. And I wanted to start playing the cello there. And then the cello
15:41 overtakes it. And in the end, in the last scene where he devours a part of Tony Hughes, which is
15:48 pretty chilling, the cello becomes a bass. You know, that's the feeling of it. And he's really
15:53 enveloped in the darkness and the look and the world and the center punching and all the stylistic
15:58 devices that the series had come to. So it looks like the series is going to escape Dahmer. Yeah.
16:05 With Tony, it looks like it's going to be something new. But Dahmer eventually takes over
16:11 and eventually wins. How have you been so successful in this when you look at the kinds
16:19 of shows that you've done really in the last few decades? The best of television is it's an
16:25 extraordinary list of shows from Empire to Scandal, Glee, E.R., NYPD won two Emmys for the West Wing,
16:35 lost in treatment. You go on and on. Do you just go into, OK, do you get offered shows? You go,
16:41 I just don't want to do that. That's a piece of crap. I've seen it. I have nothing to give. But
16:47 that happens. How do you get so well? That happens. But a lot of times the shows pick me.
16:56 Sometimes they just choose me like house. I only did one episode of it, but it was the three stories
17:01 episode, which for which David won the Emmy for writing. But it's just I'm very fortunate and
17:08 extremely lucky. But I'm also just again, comes back to love. I have this idea that directing is
17:15 actually creating an environment where people can love each other. It's really not about the action
17:20 cut and being dictatorial and demanding this and demanding that. It's really about being like the
17:25 host of a party and coming in and making sure everyone is comfortable and feels taken care of
17:30 and has enough food. You know how when you host a party, you're exhausted at the end of it. That
17:34 comes to. But mostly what you're doing is creating that environment where, you know, basically love
17:40 reigns. And in the case of Evan and Tony Burford, they actually really were friends. I mean, in that
17:47 time period, Evan supported him in a way that I don't think I've ever seen a number one. So that
17:52 proves that he wasn't Dahmer all the time, helping him get his mark, giving him little acting tips
17:57 along the way, making him feel comfortable, applauding him when he did well, which is very
18:02 important if you're new and you're not experienced. Yeah. So I think part of the reason why that works
18:06 in any show, there isn't a show that really works in an environment of hate and rebuke and disdain.
18:14 It just isn't the way that it goes. You know, I'm thinking I'm doing this documentary on Billy
18:18 Preston now, which has been my big thing for the past two years. Billy Preston is the same way.
18:23 And I think, oh, I got it from Billy Preston in that he works in this free flowing spirit of love
18:29 and the music flows. But when they're like you saw with the Beatles and other points in his life,
18:34 but there's lots more to that. But when you actually stifle that and when there's controversy
18:39 and hate directed at him or at me or anyone there, suddenly that flow dries up and what you get
18:46 isn't as magnificent. So that's basically my job. And most of my energy is towards the party,
18:51 is towards creating that environment. Is that's a feature documentary that you're doing on Billy
18:56 Preston? Yes, we're just in post-production now. It's pretty extraordinary. We got Apple to give us
19:01 some of the unseen footage from Get Back. So that'll be a part of it, which is pretty
19:06 magnificent. And we're telling the story from the beginning to the end. I mean, he had all these hit
19:10 records, but he played with everybody, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles. He played with Aretha
19:15 Franklin for 30 years. And now he's sort of forgotten. Get Back showing a little bit of a
19:20 light on him. But this documentary is going to tell the story of how his love transcended all
19:25 these generations and all these genres of music. And who's that for? Is that for Apple?
19:29 We did it independently. Because that's the way it works now. Independent producers,
19:36 White Horse Pictures came to me with Stephanie Allain, who's a great producer, and said,
19:40 let's do a documentary. And I said, who's going to do it? Who's it going to be for? He said,
19:43 oh, don't worry. We'll worry about that later. Let's just make a great movie. And we did. And
19:49 we're finishing it now. And then we'll go out to the marketplace.
19:52 And then you go out. I can't talk to anybody that wouldn't know this more firsthand than you,
19:56 because you were, as I mentioned, head of the Directors Guild. And the Directors Guild carved
20:00 out an agreement, as they always seem to do with the producers, whereas the writers and actors,
20:06 as we speak, have not. And so what advice do you have in this situation with this turmoil here?
20:13 You know, I think Chris Kaiser is saying it great and said it really well just a few days ago.
20:19 It's time for the MTPT, whatever their initials are, to just say, let's get back in the room.
20:25 Let's listen to these concerns. Let's take them seriously. Obviously, there's an issue with AI.
20:29 We have to address it as completely as possible. Obviously, there's an issue with mini rooms.
20:34 We can't stonewall it anymore. So they have to come and they have to be willing to make a deal.
20:39 And maybe we have to make some compromises, because I'm in the Writers Guild and SAG as well.
20:43 But I think the primary move has to come from the producers. And I don't see that happening.
20:47 I just see them sitting back and waiting. And I don't know if they're waiting for people to starve
20:51 or lose their houses, but they must have some strategy. And as far as I'm concerned, I support
20:56 the writers and the actors getting the best deal possible. But we need to get the producers to say,
21:01 let's get back in the room and we need to see them willing to move to make that happen.
21:05 Gosh, I hope so. How did you get into this business? Everybody has a story of someone.
21:12 Short version of my story. Let me make it really quick. So I wanted to be a composer,
21:19 a musical theater composer. So after college, I went to New York to become Black Stephen Sondheim.
21:24 And that sort of worked for a little bit. But while I was trying to be Black Stephen Sondheim,
21:29 I was also that name that was an extraordinary way to change your name to Black.
21:33 I know I worked with Stephen and he told me I was good enough to be Black Stephen.
21:40 I wasn't good enough to be Stephen Sondheim. That was accurate. So I was in advertising and
21:46 working as a creative supervisor and occasionally I would do commercials. And as I mentioned to you
21:50 before we went on, the first commercial I got to direct was a commercial I had written for the
21:54 American Foundation for AIDS Research, which had just started in 1986. And it was a PSA that was
22:00 supposed to star Elizabeth Taylor. And we had one of the agency's biggest directors on tap to actually
22:05 direct the commercial. It was very exciting. But then he wanted us to fly him out to California.
22:11 And we actually had no budget. This was a pro bono commercial that we were doing. And so we
22:16 couldn't fly him. And Elizabeth said, well, get rid of him, fire him. You do it, Paris.
22:19 And so I'm flying to California because I lived in New York at that time to direct Elizabeth Taylor
22:24 as my first real directing job. How many people can say that? She was three hours late and smoking
22:32 really long cigarettes and cursing like a sailor. And the crew loved her and she was great. And she
22:37 did the PSA and she shook every single crew man's hand and woman. She went around, introduced
22:42 herself and shook their hands. So that was really nice because it's Elizabeth Taylor. It's like,
22:46 wow, she came to me. And then after that, I became a music video director. I started a music video
22:52 company and became a music video director. And I directed videos like Mama Said Knock You Out and
22:56 lots of other big music videos at the time. John Wells saw my music video reel and hired me to do
23:02 an episode of television, a short lived CBS series he had called Angel Street with Robin Givens.
23:07 And I did it. And it was not a big success, that show. And then a couple of years later,
23:14 he had his next show, which was ER. And he hired me to direct ER. And because of that, I got onto
23:20 NYPD Blue and suddenly I had a career. And it's all because John Wells saw storytelling in my music
23:26 videos and said, I think he can do it. And that's part of the reason why I've been so involved with
23:31 the DGA and with mentorship, because if you really look hard at people, you'll find the people that
23:36 you believe in and then you got to promote them. And that's been a part of my story.
23:40 Which is so great. And you didn't even mention your movie, that wonderful Wayans Brothers film.
23:46 I seldom mention that.
23:47 You do. The title for those don't remember from a few years ago, Don't Be a Menace to South Central
23:54 while drinking your juice in the hood.
23:57 Yes. A comedy classic. It was actually the Wayans Brothers, the young ones first movie together.
24:04 Oh, yeah.
24:05 It is funny. And this is the third time in two days someone has talked to me about it.
24:11 It's still out there.
24:13 It is.
24:14 And my kids love it. And I think it's just, I love comedy and I love doing comedy.
24:21 So even while I'll do Dahmer and enjoy that, I also enjoy doing sort of reckless, pratfally,
24:27 broad, parody humor as well.
24:29 Paris Barclay does it all.
24:31 And them some.
24:33 Congratulations again on your latest Emmy nomination for Dahmer and more to come.
24:38 I'm sure. Thanks for joining us on Behind the Lens.
24:41 I appreciate you. I'm honored.
24:48 Thank you.
24:48 [END]