Written Interview: Norman Lear

Today’s interview is with famed TV writer-producer Norman Lear taken from a great WGA series conducted by Dennis Faye:

In 1971, after Lear filmed his “All in the Family” pilot three separate times, CBS picked up the controversial look at an American working class home. The show took off, leading to a string of topical, controversial hits for the veteran writer, including “The Jeffersons”; “Sanford and Son”; “Maude”; “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman” and “One Day at a Time”.

The imprint these shows made on American culture is undeniable. According to “Everybody Loves Raymond” creator Phil Rosenthal, “I was learning about the world through “All in the Family”. I guess “The Daily Show” and Colbert, they’ve taken that place today, but as a kid I learned through him.”

As impressive as his accomplishments are, Lear boils his success down to one, simple rule. “Everything starts with great characters,” he explains. “It’s telling the story through the characters. Great characters in situations that draw from those characters.”

An excerpt of the interview:

How has the writers’ room changed over the years?

Well, the question assumes I’ve been in a writers’ room recently and I’ve not. I understand that it was true then too, a lot of writers’ room, six to eight, sit together and write. We never did that. We could have been four, five, six writers in a room, and we talked with a tape recorder going and long before we were concluded, someone down the hall was already typing. So before the writers were finished, a dozen pages were already typed. And then one or two writers would go off and do a draft. We didn’t sit around the room going from page one to page 40.

Writers would do a draft, then someone else would re-write it or they’d rewrite it themselves after talking about the draft.

So it was less of a collaborative process?

It was a collaborative process as we discussed the thrust of an episode. It was an individual process as the actual drafts were written.

 — — 

Did you ever reach a point with your shows that the networks said, “He’s Norman Lear, just let him do whatever he wants?”

It was much more “Nobody fucks with success.” That’s an old American adage. That’s the way that worked.

“Everything starts with great characters.” Ain’t that the truth?

For more of the interview, go here.