Today’s most notable creatives join Variety at Sundance for exclusive in-depth conversations across various entertainment mediums, presented by Audible.
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00:00It can really resonate with people.
00:01People really do like listening to stories in audio format.
00:08And I knew the source material was compelling.
00:12And I knew the two guys that were running the show
00:17were friends, and I trusted their impression
00:21and their guidance and wisdom.
00:24And so I said yes.
00:25Music
00:37John, I will say to start, I'm actually a little bit confused.
00:41I saw you previewing the commanders Eagles game.
00:45What happened to the Chiefs?
00:48Oh, um, I don't know.
00:50I just like football.
00:52I'll watch anything.
00:54It's exciting.
00:54Well, I will say, I apologize that we're doing this interview
00:56at the beginning of your game,
00:58but we promise we'll get this over with.
00:59Trust me, I will not be here long.
01:02It's all right.
01:04We're going to do live updates
01:07during the panel later, don't worry, don't worry.
01:09But this is a project that has become quite important to you,
01:13this idea of playing Jack Bergen again,
01:15continuing the story.
01:17What was it about, you know,
01:19this initial pairing with John and with Aaron
01:21that made you want to be a part of this project?
01:23I've worked with John and Aaron.
01:27I go a long history with both of these gentlemen,
01:30and it goes back to a TV show I did called The Division.
01:34It was my first starring role on television.
01:37Aaron was a producer-director on it.
01:39John was a writer-producer on it.
01:41And we maintained a friendship over the years.
01:45That was 25 years ago, maybe more.
01:48And, you know, it's —
01:51that's what our industry kind of engenders sometimes.
01:54It's like you have these relationships,
01:56and then these opportunities come up.
01:58I remember the original version of The Big Lie,
02:00the first season of the Jack Bergen story,
02:03John had written as a feature script.
02:06And for various reasons,
02:09that wasn't going to be able to be made or produced
02:12because of cost and time and this and that and the other.
02:15And then Aaron came to me with the idea
02:18that this could be a podcast.
02:20And I was like, that's a great idea.
02:21And I had done some work in that space before
02:24and had a great time doing it
02:27and found that it can really resonate with people.
02:30People really do like listening to stories in audio format.
02:36And I knew the source material was compelling.
02:41And I knew that the two guys that were running the show
02:46were friends, and I trusted their impression
02:50and their guidance and wisdom.
02:52And so I said yes.
02:54And it was a tremendous success.
02:56And so when they said, let's do it again,
02:58I said, yeah, let's do it again.
03:00And I hope we get to do it again.
03:02It's a tremendously fun experience
03:04and two guys that I really like working with.
03:07And I got to meet Anna,
03:09and I'd known Alia for a long time,
03:10but we'd never gotten a chance to work together.
03:14So it's, again, it's about meeting talented people
03:20and being able to share that experience with them.
03:23Well, Alia, what was it like to get a chance
03:25to finally work together after knowing each other for some time?
03:28When did we meet?
03:28It was painful.
03:30No, I mean, a long time ago.
03:31A million years ago, right?
03:33I feel like through David Cross and that kind of thing.
03:34Maybe, yeah, right.
03:36Here?
03:37Los Angeles?
03:38Oh, sure, for the story's sake, why not?
03:40Yeah, we met here.
03:42I'm actually doing one of these.
03:43We're on this couch.
03:44In this very room.
03:46In this very room.
03:47I mean, it was a pleasure.
03:48You know, something about doing these kinds of recordings,
03:52too, is that, which is rare,
03:53is we got to do them actually together,
03:55doing the scenes together.
03:57And especially with this, like,
04:00it takes place in, like, the 40s and this fast pace.
04:03So it's a really fun world to step into.
04:06It's not lazy.
04:07You're on the front foot, kind of.
04:09And creating that energy through voice
04:12is something new for me that I'm really enjoying doing.
04:15And it's really fun as an actor.
04:18When you have really great writing and guidance
04:20to be like, this is where we are, this is the world,
04:22it's really fun to throw yourself into it.
04:23And every, even, like, bit part,
04:25every actor that they would bring in
04:26where I just have one little scene,
04:27they were just amazing actors, you know?
04:29Like, character actors that I've seen around in L.A.
04:31So it's really fun,
04:34because it kind of feels like an old world, in a way,
04:37because it doesn't get to happen that often, yeah.
04:40Ana, what about for you?
04:41Because you, you know, piloted this
04:43with the first installment,
04:46but now, you know, you're kind of also
04:48part of, like, the linchpin bringing us in to the second.
04:52Yeah, you know, I think the character is great.
04:56From the first season,
04:58they did an incredible job writing Lala,
05:01because also, she's not, like,
05:04she has her own personality.
05:05She loves cars and, you know, she works,
05:09like, even if she's in the 40s, she's an independent woman.
05:12So I think, I love that about the character.
05:16And, yeah, she's kind of like
05:20the conductive
05:24character to tell this story about Chavez Rabin,
05:29which is very important for Latinos.
05:30So I was very happy when I,
05:34when they told me that there was gonna be a second season
05:36and I was gonna be, you know,
05:39be able to play this role.
05:40So I'm very happy for that.
05:42I'm so glad you mentioned the cars,
05:44because, Aaron, it kind of speaks exactly to
05:47what makes this so still exciting and inventive
05:51is there's so much you're able to do with sound,
05:54with this, and really fill out the rest of the world.
05:58Tell me a little bit about why you initially
06:00felt like this would be a good medium for this story.
06:04It was an opportunity to do a story
06:07that we hadn't been able to make.
06:10And as John said, you know, it's a period piece,
06:13and it's a, you know, the original one
06:15was a little bit of an obscure piece of Hollywood history.
06:19So to be able to do it and make it come alive
06:24on a new medium was a great challenge.
06:27I mean, none of us, well, John's had a lot of experience
06:30in voice work, but Mank and I,
06:33we'd never done anything like this before,
06:35and it was really, I'm sure he'll say the same thing,
06:38we've grown up in movies and television,
06:41working in movies and television,
06:42where the credo is show don't tell.
06:46And all of a sudden we're doing something
06:47which is the complete opposite.
06:49You can't see anything, and so the challenge
06:52of having to tell the story with voice,
06:55with inflection, with performance,
06:58to create geography with just your left ear
07:01and your right ear, and whatever sound effects
07:05can take you in there, it was a great challenge.
07:07And I'm really glad that we went into it
07:09as completely blind as we did,
07:11because I think I would have been terrified otherwise.
07:14So the fact that it succeeded as well,
07:17it's very gratifying, it's really, it's fun,
07:19and it continues to be fun.
07:22John, you know, what has it been like
07:24to kind of craft these scripts and these narratives
07:27that are, again, you know, showing audibly, I guess,
07:33but yeah, so kind of translating what you had originally
07:39done with the intention of it being a film
07:41into this version instead.
07:44Well, yeah, I mean, it started as a screenplay,
07:46but then when you, and it all came together
07:48kind of magically, like sort of a dream during COVID.
07:52You know, it's like someone basically from a company
07:56from Fresh Produce said, do you have any ideas?
07:59And I had this script, and it went,
08:02and as I started thinking about it for audio,
08:08you know, you realize you can,
08:10you have more room to paint characters,
08:13and you also have, the audience is sort of imagining
08:18what's going on from the sound and the voices.
08:21And it's a little bit like, you know,
08:25a three-minute song can affect you as much as,
08:29you know, the best novel you ever read.
08:32There's something about that, just hearing something
08:36that gives it kind of a unique quality.
08:41And, you know, we could expand characters
08:44from the screenplay and, you know,
08:46sort of get into this area more.
08:50You know, Lala didn't have a lot of friends
08:53in the screenplay, and we sort of developed this whole world.
08:58And, you know, and the Jack Bergen that was in the script,
09:06you know, John made it come alive.
09:08You know, when you're writing, you're not really writing
09:11until the characters start talking to you on their own.
09:15And so John made that happen in the first one,
09:19and we just wanted to know what would happen next.
09:22I'm also curious about the idea of bringing in, again,
09:25these are all real things that have happened in history,
09:29where we're kind of, to some extent,
09:31dramatizing these events.
09:33What was it that inspired you to get
09:36into the Chavez Ravine story with this season?
09:41Well, it really came from Paul Jericho,
09:44who produced Salt of the Earth in the first one.
09:47That was, you know, it came from his story.
09:52And then after we did the first one,
09:53we were looking for something that
09:57would have that same kind of historical kind of context,
10:03and could tell you something about something
10:06you didn't know.
10:09And I've been a Dodger fan for a long time,
10:13and I only recently, you know, Chavez Ravine story is,
10:19I mean, there was just a thing this year
10:21where they're trying to make reparations
10:23for the people who were kicked out of Chavez Ravine.
10:28And I love LA, and I love LA stories,
10:30and I love detective stories.
10:33I mean, yeah, that is kind of a very exciting part of it,
10:36is being someone who lives in LA,
10:38and now getting a chance to kind of learn more of the history.
10:40There's so much to mine from.
10:42You guys could be doing this for the next decade,
10:45if you wanted to be.
10:47And what's also fun about that is
10:48you can also be following different characters.
10:50It was really nice, Alia, to see the way your character
10:54and Jack's kind of sort of like parallel protagonists
10:58in this version, in a way.
10:59Yeah, I like to look at it that way, too.
11:01Mm-hmm.
11:02Yeah.
11:03Yeah.
11:04Yeah.
11:05Well, the reason I bring that up is
11:07because I'm curious about in future installments,
11:10what more would you want to see her get a chance to do?
11:14Oh, my god.
11:15I mean, I would be lucky.
11:17I mean, that would be nice.
11:19I don't know.
11:19I mean, I think it's such an interesting framework,
11:23as you said, to have real stories from Los Angeles,
11:25but with these fictional characters,
11:28to personalize them and open it up.
11:30And I think LA, compared to most cities,
11:32has some crazy stories, some very upsetting ones,
11:37from this kind of Black Dolly world to this one.
11:39I mean, there's just so many, like Hollywood
11:41and everything in between.
11:43But yeah, what could Aggie Walker get into?
11:46I mean, she's kind of building her confidence in this season
11:49and trying to show that she could keep up
11:51and how good a writer she is.
11:52So I don't know.
11:53Maybe her head gets a little big,
11:55and she has to fall and learn again.
11:57Or I'm not sure.
11:58Yeah, maybe.
11:59I mean, listen.
12:00We already saw.
12:02I mean, it's not that Jack's head gets big.
12:04It still fits all of those different hats.
12:08But you know, it is exciting to get a chance,
12:11as you were saying, in a detective story,
12:14to see your hero challenged in ways where he is now
12:19kind of on the back foot.
12:20What is interesting for you
12:23with this installment's narrative, John?
12:27I mean, in any story, there has to be setbacks, right?
12:30If it was just a story where the protagonist
12:35succeeds repeatedly, that's a pretty boring story.
12:39Honestly, I mean, there's a reason
12:41there's a three-act structure and a second-act fallback
12:43and a third-act recoup.
12:46And that's how we tell stories, right?
12:50And John is a tremendous writer and knows structure
12:54and knows how to build those characters
12:57and those storylines to reflect that.
13:00So that is kind of baked in, which is great.
13:05And that's what makes, when you combine that
13:07with the detective genre
13:10and then the historical element to it,
13:12that adds up to a pretty compelling story.
13:15And I think that's the result, right?
13:17So that's what makes the Bergen character, I think,
13:22rootable, for want of a better word,
13:24or relatable or followable or however you want to put it,
13:29to an audience, compelling.
13:31That's what you want.
13:32You ideally want the audience
13:34to go along on this ride with you
13:37and meet the people that he meets and bumps into
13:40and has relationships with and has feelings about
13:43and opinions on.
13:46And they feel those feelings, too.
13:49That's the fun of the art of this, right?
13:54And that's what I think was successful in the first story
13:58and is equally as successful in this one.
14:01Anna, I will ask you something similar,
14:05really to follow up on what you mentioned
14:06about how these are strong, independent women,
14:10which is not unusual for the time,
14:12because they existed,
14:13but we don't usually get a chance to hear their stories.
14:16What has it been like to play Lala
14:19and really exert that independence?
14:23Well, yeah, it's, especially for me,
14:28being a Latina actress in Hollywood,
14:30you don't get this chance that often
14:33to play a role like this.
14:36I've got those chances,
14:39but this one is a beautiful role.
14:44That I wish I can have those more opportunities
14:49also on screen, but I love this story so much.
14:55And also, for me, it's like giving back a lot
14:59to the Latino community through this story
15:02and through my voice,
15:03so this story won't be forgotten, you know?
15:08I was doing some research for all this Chavez-Rabin,
15:12and there's not that much out there.
15:15So, or, you know, when you read about it,
15:18it's not, like, the way it tells the story
15:24with the big fix, it's so compelling,
15:26and you really wanna, you can't believe that happened.
15:30I was reading that Fernando Valenzuela,
15:32you know, the baseball player,
15:35which for us, for Mexicans, is like a hero.
15:40He didn't know about this.
15:41They ask him about Chavez-Rabin,
15:43and he had no idea that, you know,
15:46in the Dodger Stadium, all these Mexican families
15:49where they suffer so much for losing their homes,
15:54you know, like just what happened right now in L.A.
15:57So imagine, you know, it's same situation.
15:59It's devastating, you know, as what people are living,
16:03and just people didn't care, no one listened to them,
16:05like no one even knows about this story,
16:08and when they go and see, go to the Dodger Stadiums,
16:11they don't know that these families,
16:13how much they suffer, and also, you know,
16:16that was Mexico, you know, that was Mexico,
16:19and I was thinking maybe they've been there
16:23their whole life, maybe they were not even immigrants.
16:26They were there, you know?
16:28Sometimes I feel that, so it was for sure
16:31more painful to them, so I'm very, very excited
16:34and happy that this story got made, yeah.
16:37Absolutely, and I mean, you all are almost,
16:41I mean, as close as we have to experts
16:43on the audio storytelling genre at this point.
16:47You've seen what makes it so successful,
16:49so I am very curious, the idea of what you see
16:52as the future for this medium.
16:55Aaron, I'll start with you.
16:58I think it can only get better, because
17:04the idea of storytelling is very, very basic,
17:08and what we have now is the technology
17:12to really get much more sophisticated
17:14about how we create, I mean, I think one thing
17:17that was important for me on these two shows
17:20was it's creating someplace where you can,
17:25and I literally listen to these shows over and over
17:27with my eyes closed, and I want to feel like
17:30if a door opens, I want to know what's in that room.
17:32I want to be able to hear what's in that room,
17:34and if I hear a voice from 15 feet away.
17:38Now, because the technology, what our team can do,
17:43the sound designers and the sound editors,
17:45in creating this space, it really makes it
17:49just that much more sophisticated
17:51and that much more immersive, and I think about it
17:54in film terms, actually.
17:56I think, okay, so now we're on Jack's close-up,
17:59and now Anna's across the room, so she's over there,
18:02and she walks forward, we hear her footsteps,
18:04we hear her voice get louder, we hear her presence.
18:06All that stuff, I don't know if you could do that
18:08in the golden age of radio drama 50 years ago,
18:1170 years ago, but now you can, and even if I'm listening,
18:16and this is something I learned on the first time,
18:19our sound designer, Peter Bovich, said,
18:21just go for a drive and turn it on,
18:23because that's how a lot of people listen to it.
18:24Put it on your car stereo, and you listen to it,
18:26and you hear the door open over there,
18:28and you hear somebody walk across,
18:30and it's like, yeah, this is something.
18:32So I think, to answer your question
18:34about what the future is, I think the sophistication
18:37of the sound that we're getting, accepting and assuming,
18:42makes it even more possible to tell these stories
18:44in a way that's more enveloping,
18:45and so beyond the charisma of the voices that we have,
18:51we can create a geography in your mind
18:56more easily and more completely, so I like that idea.
19:01Yeah, yeah.
19:02I mean, there's a way specific sounds,
19:04you don't have to replicate what it would be like
19:08in real life, you suggest through specifics,
19:12and the audience kind of extrapolates what should be there.
19:17You're just giving them enough to imagine it
19:21in their own minds, and I think everyone who listens to it
19:27has a different imagination, but as long as it comes
19:30to life for them, we've done our job, and I think the...
19:33At the same time, I mean, I've listened to some really,
19:36like, literally, Sherlock Holmes on BBC from the 30s,
19:41and you can almost imagine the guy with the coconuts
19:43in the studio for the horse's boobs, you know,
19:45and it's like, that's all you need, really,
19:47so what we're doing is just sort of gilding the lily,
19:50but it's about the story and the characters
19:52that tell the story, so it's amazing how powerful it is
19:57to listen to it.
19:59Yeah, yeah, any ideas, John, Alia, Ani?
20:03To your point, I think it's just limitless.
20:04I think that what's been proven over the course of the rise
20:08of kind of podcasts, and especially narrative podcasts,
20:11is that there's a market for it, right?
20:12That's really what drives it, so the proof of concept
20:17has worked, and people are consuming it.
20:22They're paying attention, so the future is limitless.
20:26It's what people can dream up and think up,
20:28and that's exciting, especially to be on our side of it.
20:33I look forward to reading the next script I get
20:35that's gonna be some new writer who's got an idea
20:38about a story that he wants to tell
20:39in whatever format they want to do,
20:41whether it's film entertainment or podcast, or.
20:45Could be an old writer.
20:46Yeah, could be.
20:47All ages can do it.