Scribal Counsel
In just a few short weeks, the material of new AMC Head Writer Charles Pratt, Jr. will begin airing. He spoke to Digest about taking on the gig and what fans can expect.
Digest: Talk us through how you joined the show.
Charles Pratt, Jr.: In my career, I’ve worked in prime-time and daytime, most recently prime-time, and as [ABC Daytime President] Brian Frons knows, occasionally the window opens and there’s an opportunity where I’m not working on something else or deeply involved in a pilot or on a series, as I was last year. We always keep in touch; we’re good friends. And he called and said, “I have needs in various places.” He once said that to me when I was a script writer a thousand years ago on GENERAL HOSPITAL and he was starting SANTA BARBARA. He said, “How about SANTA BARBARA?” And I thought, “That’s interesting.” I realized even then that I kind of gravitate toward challenges.
Digest: What attracted you to AMC?
Pratt: I’ve always been a Julie Carruthers [executive producer] fan. We’ve worked together before and I just love her, and I love what she does on the show since she’s been here. All the actors are just good actors, whether they’ve been on the show for years or they’re new.
Digest: Watching the show as a writer, do you feel like the cast is being properly utilized?
Pratt: In some cases yes and in some cases no. I won’t get specific about that, but I felt that the whole show was kind of drifting along and it needed shoring up — a strengthening of the basic formula that Agnes [Nixon, creator and story consultant] created years ago. It had kind of lost its way a little bit. I think it happens to shows and that with my experience, I kind of had the feeling, “This won’t be tough at all.” It is challenging right now, but I like a good challenge — bringing it back to the smart show that it always was, to take away the silliness and add the real humor and deepness and the ability to take characters and really make them multifaceted, to deepen the characters and tell a more sophisticated story that’s character-based and maybe reposition some of the people on the canvas so that they are with the right people and in the kind of place that made them great. A few had kind of drifted off. Lord knows I’ve done it so many times myself; there’s no blame to be tossed around, it just happens.
Digest: How cool is it to be working with Agnes Nixon?
Pratt: Oh, my goodness. Ten years with Aaron Spelling and now it’s Agnes Nixon. They’re legends in the business and I love legends! I’m not a slave to them and she knows that and so did Aaron, but at the same time, their wisdom is slowly being lost in daytime and in prime-time. She is just so open to ideas as long as you’re open to hear the foundation she built and how it came about.
Digest: How has it been getting acquainted with your new writing staff?
Pratt: They’ve got it distilled down to a really fantastic group of writers — Addie’s been here forever, some of the new young kids coming in and the ones that I’m going to bring in…. I’m a big believer in training these younger writers to give them a chance to flourish and that means simply to give them the freedom to write what they want to write about. The head writer’s job is to hear and to listen to all of that as we launch into formulating and building a real long-term story. Mark [Cherry, DH Creator/Writer] and I planned out the first year of DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES together episode to episode. We knew before we shot the pilot where this thing was going. I think that gets lost in daytime a lot and it turns into, “Well, what are we gonna do this week?” The only way to do that is to trust your writers to execute. To not change and not deviate and have a plan. And when it doesn’t work, we all know [laughs]. We’ll turn the ship together. The captain, if he’s gonna turn the ship, needs everyone on board helping. And I can’t say enough good things about these writers and their enthusiasm, despite the fact that they’re coming out of a rough patch.
Digest: Describe your first day at work.
Pratt: I didn’t get lost walking from my hotel in New York to the studio! That’s the thing I worried about. And wondering who was gonna walk my dog while I’m here. But seriously, the first day always starts a month before the first day. It’s looking at that week, that plotted week, to say, “Okay, is there anything in here that’s getting in the way of what I’m going to do?” And you start to get those writers together and tell them, “I’m not here to tell you what to do. I’m here to free you up to write what you want to write. And if that scares you, that’s okay; I’ll tell you what to do.” It’s just to instantly boost the morale. I’ve already done it with Julie and with Agnes, but now it’s time to do it with the people who are charged with the execution of this and learning about them, and learning about the actors, and listening to their frustrations, whether it be the process or the characters or the storytelling. They all have different opinions and they’re all passionate — and that’s all I need. You just don’t want a group of people who aren’t passionate, who couldn’t care less or don’t want to be there. So, really the first week is all about pulling it all together. I found myself in my first meetings suddenly turned into long story meetings. I didn’t have any resistance, no one was fighting for anything, they just wanted me to tell them, “Where are we going and what are we doing?” And I said, “Well, we’re gonna build this big umbrella story and this is what we’re building it around, and in four weeks, this is gonna happen.” I’d done my homework and I was hitting the ground running, with the support of the network behind me.
Digest: Let’s talk about some of the problem areas on the show, starting with Fusion.
Pratt: I think I looked at Fusion as, not “What do we do with Fusion?” but as an opportunity, as we do with magazine publishing on a show like UGLY BETTY. My gosh, a woman-run company, yet all they do is run around and chase after their romantic interests. These are working women; let’s put them in the work environment and give them great, funny, romantic stories under that umbrella. We’ve got the younger working women, put them up against the spoiled rich girls, Kendall and Greenlee, who are running it and seem to be so distracted by their romantic lives. There’s great fun in that and relatability. My feeling is, rather than figure out ways to use it, that can become drudgery. Let’s make it exciting! Let’s make it a world we want to see. I think all of it’s there. Without it becoming a business story, you make it Greenlee vs. Kendall, rich against poor. I personally was confused with Kendall and Greenlee. When are they friends, when are they not? Best friends have little spats and disagreements, but they also know each other better than anyone in the world. We’re going to clarify all of that.
Digest: And what about the menfolk, like Zach and Ryan?
Pratt: I’m gonna smarten them up and not have them be reactive. I think that will heighten these romances and these triangles, make them clear-cut and put real tension between the people as opposed to things coming from the outside. It’ll come from within them and who they are. As I explore them, the audience gets to re-explore them. I think they’ll see more consistent people and their dilemmas becoming bigger and bigger and life-threatening, so it won’t turn into the he said/she said storytelling that it’s kind of turned into. It’ll make it a lot more women against women, men against men, husbands against wives, as we struggle toward, “Who are the two people that really need to be together in all of this?” I’m having great fun with this. I think Annie was suffering from being a little whiny and boring and by making her deliciously desperate, not evil, but desperate and really playing that, it’s become a nice conflict. Ryan is an honorable guy; what’s he gonna do with all of this? I’m really straightening out those lines.
Conversation
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