By Christina Radish
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Garrett, Zeke, and Kim Lerner at the 2005 Bowl-a-Thon |
A graduate of the USC Film School producing program, Garrett Lerner had been working as a scriptwriter in Hollywood, since almost directly after graduation. Originally having set his sights on being the next Spike Lee, Lerner soon realized he just didn’t have the stamina to be a director, but knew he wanted to give writing a try.
“I met Russel Friend, who is now my writing partner, at USC,” Lerner tells MediaBlvd Magazine in an exclusive interview. “Despite the fact that we were in a producing program, we both wanted to be writers. A lot of writers, oddly, came out of that program. We partnered up and had a lot of success, right out of the gate, very fortunately. We wrote our very first script together, which got us an agent and a lawyer, and that helped land us our first job.”
That first job was a movie for Mandalay Studios, called Gravy Train, that was adapted from a James Ellroy short story, although it never actually got made. After some other scripts that also never reached the production stage, Lerner says that TV suddenly became very attractive.
“With TV, things actually get made, and you have to make 22 episodes a year. Whereas, in the movie business, nine out of 10 things in development don’t get made. Most studios develop about 150 scripts a year and make about 15 movies, so the chances are about 90% against whatever you’re working on, ever seeing the light of day. And so, when we got into TV, it was instantly gratifying. You write something and, two weeks later, you’re on the set filming it and, three weeks after that, you’re watching it on TV. We fell in love with the pace of television and have been doing it ever since.”
The longer Lerner has worked in television, the clearer it became to him that he wanted to stay focused on writing, and not juggle that with directing. “The more I’ve learned, the more I realized I don’t want to direct. It’s quite glamorous to be a director, but at the same time, those guys are my heroes because they’re like marathon runners. The sheer stamina it takes to push yourself through directing a movie, let alone an 8-day television show, is exhausting. It’s definitely hard to do that and be dedicated to a family, so I’ve chosen a slightly simpler career path, in terms of the hours you have to put in. It’s a goal that fades away, after you have kids, because it’s unrealistic to do both. Obviously, there are people who do both, but I couldn’t be that person, as much as I wanted to be.”
{quote_top}When Lerner and Friend met at USC, they had no idea if they would be compatible enough to write together, but they were still willing to give it a try. “I actually wrote one thing alone, while I was in film school, and I found out that I need deadlines. I need somebody to answer to, or I never finish anything. And, it was very boring for me to sit in the room alone. I couldn’t fathom doing that as a career.”
“When you have a partner, the entire process is social. Russ and I can figure out a story while shooting hoops or playing pool or throwing a beach ball back and forth with each other. It feels like I’m hanging out with a buddy of mine for a living, so it’s fantastic. It’s night and day compared to the solitary existence of being a sole writer. Russ and I like a lot of the same things and, when something’s not working, we usually agree on why it’s not working. At the end of the day, everything comes down to taste, and it would be near impossible to work with a partner who you have very different taste from. It’s a pleasure to have the experience be social and fun, and also to have somebody cover you when you’re tired or sick or having an off day, and to have the ability to do that for them.”
Over the course of the 10 years that Lerner and Friend have been writing together, the co-workers, and friends, have probably tried every possible configuration of script writing that they could think of. “We’ve done everything from splitting it up or writing together to talking out loud or writing one line per person. What seems to work best for us now is that we verbally break the story, down to the details, and outline together. And then, when we’re done outlining, we split it up. When we’re each done writing our own half, we give it to each other and rewrite each other. Then, we put it all together and go through it and beat each other up for editing each other’s lines. But, something good always comes out of that.”
Having worked on eight other television series before now, Lerner reveals that the hit Fox show House -- a medical drama that follows Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie), a maverick physician whose unconventional thinking and flawless instincts help those around him to overlook his non-existent bedside manner -- is by far his favorite. “It’s nothing against any of the other shows. My second favorite is probably Roswell, which was an incredible experience. There’s something magical that happens on very few shows, and House is one of those shows, where you’re just blessed with the perfect combination of actors. We’re allowed to tell stories that have ambiguous endings and embrace the gray areas. It’s just a magic carpet ride.”
Along with being his favorite job, thus far, Lerner says that House is also ideal because he loves the opportunity to write real world scenarios. “We wrote action stuff for a time, and there’s a certain fun to that. We wrote sci-fi for a time, and there is a magic in getting to do fantastical stuff. But, at the end of the day, I have the most fun writing real world stuff because it’s the easiest to relate to and apply your own life experience to. The thing that made Roswell so enjoyable was that the sci-fi element was small, and it was really an allegory for being an outsider, so it was relatable. As a writer, you’re delivering the best work when you’re stating something about how you experience the world.”
Although he loves being a part of the creative team for House, Lerner admits that he initially turned down the offer to write for the show. “Two years ago, Russ and I interviewed for several shows. Luckily, we got a job offer from multiple shows, and that was the first time that had ever happened to us. On a personal level, watching the pilot for House, it was so real and I found it very difficult to deal with, having gone through a diagnosis process with my son. I thought, ‘Man, this might hit too close to home. I don’t know if I could do this every week. I don’t know if I could live in this world of a person near death, desperately hoping for a diagnosis.’ I was looking at it from a patient’s point of view.”
“While we were on LAX, which lasted all of 8 episodes, I was watching House and realizing the show was so much more about this character, who is such an amazing character, and wishing we had picked that show to write for. As much fun as we had on LAX, it was gone and we’d been on a lot of shows that were gone. We saw that House was something special and, luckily enough, season two rolled around and we got another interview. Surprisingly, they didn’t hold our mistake against us and they offered us the job, once again. We did not turn them down the second time.”
{quote_middle}Not only did he accept the job offer the second time around, but he and Friend also became co-executive producers on the show. “Now we’re moving into season three, and it has been a fantastic run. Just getting another season is a very precious thing, if you look at the numbers and the statistics. Last year, there were 27 new shows, and only 8 of the 27 are getting a second year. You learn how hard it is to do a new episode every eight days. To try and turn out something good in that amount of time is one of the greatest challenges in Hollywood.”
Working for television, the turn around on scripts can be pretty fast. With the added challenge of making sure that the medical aspects of the show are accurate, Lerner says that he and Friend have to do extensive research.
“Honestly, it is the most challenging show I’ve ever worked for. I don’t even know what the diseases are to pick from, or how they got there, or what they’re pretending to be. You have to go through several doctors’ interviews and the most intensive research of any show I’ve ever been on. The scariest part is that, when you’re watching those scenes, where they’re trying to guess what the disease is, the writers now know what every one of those things mean.”
Even still, as only one of the writers on the staff is an actual doctor, mistakes can happen. “For the second episode that Russ and I wrote, where, even though we did our diligent research and took as good a notes as we could take, apparently, in the final script, we got it a little bit wrong. The ultimate diagnosis was right, but there was one little step along the way where our notes were incorrect. We got a letter from this guy, where he wasn’t too happy about that. But, we certainly try our best.”
Lerner says that one of the most satisfying aspects of writing for the show is getting to bring Dr. Gregory House to life, in all of his sarcastic glory. “There’s probably no writer on the planet that’s having more fun than those of us who get to write for Dr. House. You get to unleash your inner sarcastic ass, which I think we all have, or certainly I do. What could be more fun than calling an idiot, an idiot, in the most inventive way possible, each and every week. A lot of the attraction to this show is that people, week to week, can’t believe what House says, and what he gets away with. As writers, we get to say these incredibly obnoxious, horrible things, and there’s not much more fun you can have than that.”
Along with the major medical mysteries that make up the primary storyline of each House episode, there are the subplots that take place in the clinic. For the clinic aspect, Lerner reveals that the writers are inspired by true stories.
“Sometimes, you come up with them because you want something that ties in with what the main story is, and you kind of work backwards from there. We generally want them to be funny, so they can provide comic relief when the main story is quite serious. Sometimes, they’re inspired by our own families, but I can’t get more specific than that. We do ask doctors that we meet at parties, or friends we have that are doctors, ‘Who was the most annoying patient you ever had?’ Some stories can definitely come out of that.”
{quote_bottom}With season two complete, now is the time that the writing staff focuses on where they would like to take the characters in season three. “We are into it already, and we definitely want to keep the formula that has made the show successful while, at the same time, embracing the characters and letting them grow, much more than they have already. I think the personal lives of the characters will be a little bit more exposed, as we move through these medical mysteries in season three.”
With as dedicated as he is to House, Lerner is even more dedicated to his family. Raising a special needs child can take a lot of time, especially when that child is suffering from a rare disease.
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Roswell Cast from Season 3 |
“Zeke was diagnosed, at about a year of age, with Spinal Muscular Atrophy(a group of inherited and often fatal diseases that destroys the nerves controlling voluntary muscle movement, that is the number one genetic killer of children under the age of two), which I had never heard of. A lot of the doctors had never heard of it, which is why it took us five doctors, over a four-month period, before we got the diagnosis. That’s why, the first time I got the House pilot, I was afraid to try and write in that world. It was a very painful four months, trying to figure out what was wrong with our child. Since that time, we found a community through Families of Spinal Muscular Atrophy (www.fsma.org), and they’re doing wonderful things, raising money for research and trying to find a treatment. At the time Zeke was diagnosed, there was no treatment. Now, there are experimental drugs, and they’re moving forward.”
With the attention Lerner was receiving from his work on Roswell, Zeke’s illness was brought to light and, since then, various charity events have been organized to raise more money toward finding a cure for the debilitating disease.
“It all started off when I auctioned off, with [show creator] Jason Katims’ blessing, a visit to the set of Roswell, to raise money for Spinal Muscular Atrophy. I wrote a little thing on Kenn Gold’s website, Crashdown.com, about Zeke and the disease, and the response was overwhelming. Through Kenn, we did another small event -- a screening -- and, at that event, I was approached by Andrea Rosenthal about doing a bowl-a-thon. I couldn’t believe that she actually pulled the entire thing together. It was this incredible event that raised $20,000. We had actors on every lane, mixing with television fans, along with an auction and Q & A. It’s been a wonderful event, and we’re planning the fourth one now. (Go to www.bowl4sma.org for more details and information.) It’s such a rewarding thing for me, personally, because, as a father of a special needs child, you feel helpless and, when you get to be a part of something like this, you get to feel like you’re doing some good, not only for your child, but for all the other kids who suffer from the disease. Every year, I just feel astonished and lucky, and it’s something great to be a part of.” 
