THR Emmy Roundtable Includes Alan Ball
THR’s Ray Richmond and Matthew Belloni rounded up six of the top showrunners in the bizz to talk about what makes them tick, and naturally, that included Alan Ball. Read on!
Katie Jacobs, left, Jenji Kohan, Alan Ball, Shonda Rhimes, Matthew Weiner and Greg Daniels (Photo by Dan Busta/Danbusta.com)
The showrunner is the workhorse of the television business, acting as the head writer, producer, casting director, editor, sound mixer, studio liaison, network communicator, hand-holder and surrogate parent. The Hollywood Reporter’s Ray Richmond and Matthew Belloni recently gathered six of the best in the business — Alan Ball (HBO’s “True Blood”); Greg Daniels (NBC’s “The Office,” “Parks and Recreation”); Katie Jacobs (Fox’s “House”); Jenji Kohan (Showtime’s “Weeds”); Shonda Rhimes (ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Private Practice”); and Matthew Weiner (AMC’s “Mad Men”) — to explain how they wear so many different hats.
THR: There are a lot of people out there who think they know what’s best for your characters. Does that ever influence you?
Alan Ball: There are times when I find out that people have posted audition sides (online), and it’s freaked me out a little bit. It’s left me thinking I should maybe craft audition sides that are totally misleading. What it tells me is how rabid the fans of this vampire genre are. It’s the first time I’ve ever worked on any sort of genre show, so it’s quite an eye-opener. But anything that can spoil our element of surprise is greatly upsetting to me.
It’s a great article, and an interesting trip into the minds of these brilliant people. What did you think?
