Speaker 1: Tell me about, like, having Judd as a mentor in terms of, like, those challenges he would do. Like, I read he said something like, write 100 one-page ideas.

Speaker 2: I mean, I think about something that's valuable for writers to do at some point in their careers is just, like, to not have to put a lot of value on everything you write and to also understand that, like, sometimes you are writing for other people. That was another thing that, like, I would do for Judd. Like, I'd been writing super bad and he had been helping me with it, but he would give me notes and I didn't have to listen to them because it was my screenplay, you know what I mean? And mine and Evan's movie. So, like, if he was like, this scene, like, you're doing too much of this, we could be like, no, it's our movie, you know? But then I remember I started writing on Undeclared and he gave me a bunch of notes on a script that I had written and I was like, do I have to do all these? And he was like, yes, because now you're writing on my TV show. And I was like, oh, that changes this whole dynamic. But that was very valuable. Like, it actually, I think, is good to just be, to kind of try to bring as much as yourself into something, but know that you are not the ultimate conduit, you know? Like, it's Judd's vision on that. And then with these assignments, again, it was just something that would kind of, like, get you out of this, like, preciousness, I think. I think a lot of writers are very, like, precious with their work and don't want to actually write things. Like, they'd rather talk, like, that's something, like, just as a producer, I notice with a lot of writers is, like, they'd rather talk about something for way more time than it would take them to just write it. And they put so much on the actual writing of the thing that it's, like, it's too elevated. It's, like, too revered, you know? And what's good about having to come with 100 ideas is, like, it takes a lot of the reverence out of actually putting words on a page, which is helpful, I think, because you shouldn't be afraid to write, you know? And it takes away that fear. And a lot of people do have that fear of, like, committing. They want to talk for five hours so they can write for 10 minutes. So that was probably what he was trying to impart on us. No, I think that's fascinating. I mean, I... Or he just wanted 100 movie ideas.

Speaker 1: I wonder if that exercise helped you to be able to recognize what a good idea is.

Speaker 2: No, 100% not. I think with me and Evan, especially, like, the only thing that lets us know if an idea is good is if we keep thinking about it for a long time. Like, we come up with, you know, five times a week, one of us will turn to the other and be like, you want to make a funny movie? This. Like, oh, this would make a funny movie idea. Oh, maybe we should make a movie about this. The ones that become movies are the ones where three years later, we're still being like, oh, and then you know what else could happen in that movie? Like, they start out as lists of just ideas. Like, with something like this at the end. Like, it was just... First, it was like, we like this idea of, like, people playing themselves in a world that was supernatural. That was funny to us.

Speaker 1: So that was the initial...

Speaker 2: That was probably one of the initial ideas. Was like, what if... We would always joke about, like, Seth and Busta Rhymes versus the Ant-Men. That was like the joking... That was like the first incarnation of the idea of, like... It was probably around when we started working on the Sony lot. So, like, see all these random famous people around and, like, we would be like, oh, like, it'd be funny if we were stuck in one of these little situations with these people, you know? You know, then we just make lists of, like, ideas. Like, okay, like, what kind of apocalypse? Zombies. This. This. Christian apocalypse. Then that. We start to like that. And then it's like, okay, Christian apocalypse. And then horror movies in general. Monsters. You're trapped somewhere. You're barricading yourself. You don't have... You have limited resources. You start arguing with each other. And then just things, set pieces, fire, exorcism. And we do that for years. And then, Darwinistically, your brain of the 200 ideas, your brain starts to gravitate towards, like, 60 of them. And those are the ones that you kind of start to organize a little bit in an order. And at the same time, you're trying to think of, like, an emotional story. So, that was a thing that was happening to us at the time is, like, we had had this kind of old group of friends and our new famous friends. And there was some times conflict between those groups of friends. And that was something that, you know, we would found itself on a list one day as we were writing emotional stories. You're just like, oh, there's conflict between, like, your friends from home and your new friends in your new life. And who's the better influence? And who are you? Are you the new friends or the old friends? You know? And then again, slowly after years and years and years, that creates like an outline, basically. And then it's just adding what other external things can make it worse and bring more of that emotional stuff to the surface. All these things just turn themselves into a movie, basically. Yeah.