[lounge music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - The best response you can have to a payoff in a thriller is someone goes, "Oh, right, I forgot, of course..." [multiple voices chattering] [Narrator] "On Story" offers a look inside the creative process from today's leading writers, creators, and filmmakers.

All of our content is recorded live at Austin Film Festival and at our year-round events.

To view previous episodes, visit OnStory.tv.

"On Story" is brought to you in part by the Alice Kleberg Reynolds Foundation, a Texas family providing innovative funding since 1979.

Support for "On Story" comes from Bogle Family Vineyards, six generation farmers and third generation winemakers based in Clarksburg, California.

Makers of sustainably grown wines that are a reflection of the their family values since 1968.

[waves] [kids screaming] [wind] [witch cackling] [sirens wail] [gunshots] [dripping] [suspenseful music] [telegraph beeping, typing] [piano gliss] From Austin Film Festival, this is "On Story."

A look inside the creative process from today's leading writers, creators, and filmmakers.

This week's "On Story," "Mayans M.C."

co-creator and executive producer, Elgin James.

- I played music first.

And so everything becomes like, rhythmic.

Like you want to live with the character.

You need to have like, for that crescendo, you need to have that silence.

And so everything's always music to me.

[paper crumples] [typing] [typewriter ding] [Narrator] In this episode, filmmaker Elgin James discusses his personal process when directing, writing, and scoring films.

And where he pulls his inspiration from when creating his hit television shows.

[typewriter ding] - One of the biggest things that people say from the stage at the festival about writing is, "Write what you know."

And I feel like you have taken that advice to heart.

Gang life, your music career, prison experience.

It's all in your stuff.

But it's more infused in your stuff and it seems like you've been able to distance yourself from your personal experience in a way that makes it really relatable to an audience.

Is that a conscious part for you?

- I had like no interest in telling those stories.

'Cause it's just like, I grew up surrounded by these amazing women.

Like my Mom, my sisters.

My aunt's like a barrel racer.

Like my Grandma Youni, my like, aunts, they're all just like complex, crazy, out of their minds.

Like, so strong and vital.

And I was so fascinated by that, right?

And my Dad was just this man who'd come around, once a week or every few days, and just bully and push and torment and throw tantrums, even though he's this big 300-and-something pound man.

So I had no fascination with dudes.

I was, you know, horrified to be thrown into the world of boys.

I guess, mastered that, for better or worse.

Much for worse, in a way, being in a gang and going to prison, et cetera.

But I had no interest in trying to tell that story.

So, even when I did "Little Birds," right?

That's a story about me and my best friend, from, we were from these two small New England towns.

And we went away to the city and we joined this street gang that became this international street gang now.

But I turned us into two fifteen-year-old girls leaving the Salton Sea and going to LA 'Cause I felt like I could be more honest then.

So I think what we tried to do with "Mayans" and with "Outlaws" in a way, and with anything we've done, is try to still infuse that.

It's almost like subversively.

Because even in "Mayans," which is a show about, if you guys aren't aware, it's about basically, a Mexican-American motorcycle club.

And how we've made the show, it's all about the consequences.

'Cause I understand the consequences of violence.

And I have this body bag of shame of all the things that I've done that have happened to me in my life.

So that's how we try to tell that story, as opposed to glorifying it and making it sort of like wish fulfillment.

- In "Little Birds," the, I mean there were two really interesting pieces that struck me that were, [A] The vulnerability of these girls that you've captured.

And then you set it in this place that I think, in the Salton Sea.

- You know what happened is I moved to LA, like, I always had the dream of making movies and TV.

And I think for all of us, it's just like, that's so unreachable.

That's so impossible.

And at the time, I was in a gang in Boston.

And so I'd always, like, sneak away from my friends.

I'd be like, "Yo dude, I gotta go hang with this girl I met last night."

And he's like, "You didn't meet anyone, what are you talking about?"

I'm like, "No, bro, just trust me, I met this girl."

And then I'd go to these art house theaters.

The coolest corner theater.

And, my Mom got sick.

And that was a big difference is that, so I got to spend the last few weeks with her in the hospice care.

And you know, I made all these promises to her.

And then, my girlfriend at the time, who is now my wife, we just left Boston.

We just packed all our stuff in a van with our dog, Myra, and just drove out to LA.

We were like, "We're going to make this happen."

Got to LA and because of the gang, and because of all these other things, this project about my life story came up really quickly.

Or it felt quickly.

And I was like, "Oh, making movies is easy.

Like, what's the big deal?"

But I wasn't going to write or direct, I was just like the dumb gang dude they brought in the room, right?

And I'd always come home so sick to my stomach.

And it was my wife who was just like, "Yo, like, don't do that.

It's okay, we'll figure it out.

Like, don't do it.

I see how this is killing you already."

So I'm like a'ight, you know what, I'm just going to write it myself.

And then I tried to write it.

I'm like, how do I do this and not make it this sort of like, "Robin Hood"?

How do I capture all of this?

How do I capture loving my friend, but also feeling like we're stealing each other's oxygen?

Like, how do I capture that?

And then I'm like, we went to go to the Salton Sea, because it's this wild place in Southern California that, in the 1950's, was sort of like this resort town.

And then there, it's not a resort town anymore.

Let's just say, it's not a resort town.

[gravel crunching] [footsteps] - You're ugly.

- So?

- So don't go walking around acting like you better than everybody else.

- I don't.

- You told my brother you was gonna burn down my house?

- No.

- Liar.

- I'm a ask your [beep] again.

Did you tell my brother you was gonna burn down my house?

Don't look at that [bleep], look at me.

Look at me.

- No, I didn't say that.

[forceful spit]] [girl snickers] - Next time I see you, I'm a stab you in your little frizzled head.

[thud] [girl gasps] - And then we roll up there, and there was this girl who was on the back of her boyfriend's BMX bike.

Like, standing on the pegs.

And she had a cigarette pack rolled up in her sleeve.

And with her arms around him, they're riding by and I'm like, "Oh, I know that.

Like, she's never gonna leave here.

She's daydreaming about being anywhere else."

And she's, like, I know that feeling.

And the Salton Sea is just like, the beaches are literally, I mean there's sand there, but it's also like, dead fish, fish scales, like, bird bones.

And that's how, even though I grew up in beautiful New England, that's how it felt.

Like I felt like I was dying, and the people around me were dying.

And so that's why I was like, "I'm going to make us into two 15-year-old girls, this is brilliant."

I had an agent at William Morris, and so I told him this and then I no longer had an agent at William Morris.

They dropped me immediately.

[audience laughs] So I just wrote it myself.

[typewriter ding] - So you go from writing this script, though, to actually directing the actors.

How did, like, did you have any of those past experiences that you had that really helped you do that?

- Being in a gang and dealing with all these, like, I guess alpha males, who are also very emotionally bruised, [laughs] you know what I mean?

And also very fragile and tender, for all their violence.

I think that, it just seemed pretty natural to go to that.

I think there's just, I think what's interesting about filmmaking is there's an intimacy that you can have that sometimes, like, it's hard to have in real life.

And, like, you can get the camera close.

And if you've ever seen anything that I've done, I use a lot of like long lens close-ups.

So you're just like, right with the person, right?

I also think it's 'cause I'm partly blind.

But also I just like wanna be right with them.

'Cause emotionally, I have trouble doing that.

[typewriter ding] - So I do want to talk about "Mayans" and just this, interesting way [laughs] you came into that project, which is exactly the kind of project you didn't want to do, right?

- This was exactly the last kind of story that I want to tell.

And I had shot "Little Birds," we shot in like, 17 days.

And then it premiered at Sundance in January, then I went to prison in March.

Which is actually a good time, 'cause I would just sit there and I'd write.

And I'd be like, "Oh, this is what I did wrong."

Like, it became, like, a much better story.

Like, it sucked, prison sucks.

So, don't go if you can, if you have a choice.

[laughs] - But I was able to just actually become a better storyteller.

I read like 101 books.

Like, I was just like, very, tried to just like work on the craft.

And when I got out, you have all these big ideas of what you want to do.

But I'd already, you'd already be in story for a minute.

And then this came up, that Kurt Sutter was looking for a partner.

And I'm like, "That is exactly the last kind of stories that I want to tell."

And then I went to go meet him and I was telling him that.

I'm like, "The reason why I joined a gang is 'cause I was terrified of the world."

A lot of, most of us, not all of us, but most of us, were boys who had either bad dads or no dads.

So really, a lot of us mostly, had really strong Moms.

And so we didn't know what it was like to be a man, so we thought just like, hurting people would be a man.

We wanted to be [bleep] great, we wanted to shape the world.

And if we couldn't shake the world up, we wanted to burn it down.

And I had that conversation with Kurt and he was like, well that's the show that we should make.

And I was like, "Oh [bleep]."

I'm like, "I really don't want to tell these stories."

And he was like, "That's why you should tell these stories."

And that's what started the partnership.

And I think for two seasons, we didn't get to tell that story, right?

And it was Kurt, understandably, because Kurt's an amazing storyteller.

He's just like, he was very protective of the mythology of "Sons of Anarchy," which we are a spinoff of.

And even though we were never allowed to say "spinoff," it actually, we are.

And so, he wanted to create that bridge over.

And so, I think the first two scenes, it's almost like crossing a bridge.

You're still kind of in, the first two seasons, rather, you're still kind of in that territory, you're still in that town.

And then by the town you get over to season three, you're in a completely different town.

And the ratings showed that.

'Cause as soon as in season three, when I sort of became the sole showrunner, which had always been Kurt's plan, like, there was an exodus.

Like our ratings got cut in half in the beginning, 'cause like, "This is not what we signed up for."

And then, what ended up happening is, again, because women always come to save the day, is, like, women started watching our show.

'Cause we started dealing with the characters, and showing who the characters were.

Like in season two, one of our actors, one of our lead actors, had come up and been like, "Do I have a family?

Do I have kids?

Like where do I live?

I don't know any of this stuff."

[audience laughs] And then in season three, he was about to have a son, no, he was about to have a child.

So he went through a loss of a child with his story.

Because I was so terrified of having a child and what that could mean.

So long story short, women came, they started watching the show, so our ratings went back up to where they were, and then actually, for the first time, Latinx people started watching the show.

Because they didn't really watch the show for the first two seasons.

So we equaled that, which is awesome.

- Let's talk about that, because I think that's a really interesting, you know, unexpected turn, right?

You're on a show, and it's successful, you know, so.

And then all of a sudden, you screw with the mix.

- Yeah.

- Talk about how you went into that room, and changed the storytelling.

- I just went in, even before season three, and I was like, "Yo, this isn't TV, like, this is poetry."

Like I have, TV just feels so disposable to me.

It's different.

It's just like, like with a film can change your life.

It's like, a song can change your life.

It's like, a poem, you take these few words, you put them together and somebody describes something you couldn't, you feel in your bones, you could never try to articulate.

And with TV, there's just so many fingers in the mix.

You know what I mean?

It takes so long, and it's done so fast, that it feels so disposable.

I kind of hate it.

And I'm like, we have to make poetry.

This has to be poetry.

And so I made this, like, kind of a manifesto, like, "This isn't TV, this is [bleep] poetry."

And I gave it to Disney, who loved it.

And I gave it to FX, and I gave it to all the writers and the actors.

But it takes a while, it took until about episode six, where we finally got to, no, slam on the brakes, this is what we're doing.

We're going to brake.

"You guys are just trying to make better television?

We're not trying to make television.

We are now a 10-hour movie.

We're no longer a TV show.

- It did feel like network television in those first two seasons.

And then, it was like you went "Sopranos" and "Godfather," you know?

And it definitely, it became, some of the characters became much richer and more interesting, especially the main one.

EZ feels like Michael Corleone a little bit, you know.

I mean, he's kind of taken this route.

But how does that affect a writer's room?

- It was what everybody wanted, but then it was like, you gotta put up.

Like now the obstacles that everyone wants to rail against, like we all want to.

It's so easy to sit back and like, "Oh, I want to do that.

They won't let me do this."

And it was like, "[bleep] it, now you can.

And now you have to."

So it was a lot of, with all the actors.

So JD Pardo, who's the lead, is sort of like, I mean he was like, "My dude, this is like, our show.

'Cause we have the most to lose."

After season three, it was like, "If this fails..." this was the first time he's like really carrying a show, so we're just like, "This is ours to lose."

I remember him like calling me, 'cause we talk every few days, even in the hiatus, and he's like, "We have to fail.

Like we have to not be afraid to just fall on our faces."

And I'm like, "Dude, that sounds terrifying.

[laughs] That sounds like a terrible plan."

And he was like, "This is what we have to do."

And so, we talked to all the actors.

I'm like, "You guys, the train is running.

You're either going to be one the train, or it's gonna roll right the [bleep] over you.

Like you have no choice.

And if you're not on it, we have this big thing that's happening at the end of the season, and, where lots of people can die.

And so, this is it."

And then, for better or worse, everybody stepped up.

Everybody stepped, it was incredible.

Like everybody was on their A game.

Everyone had their chance.

And we have a lot of, not particularly professional actors on this show, it's kind of their first shot.

And everyone went to such great lengths, it was amazing.

But then, no one could die at the end of the, that was the hardest part.

We had to manufacture people to die.

Although season four, then people start dying.

- That didn't last.

- It didn't last.

'Cause Coco broke my heart.

- And that's a perfect, so Richard Cabral, who plays Coco, and Coco's a perfect example.

In season one, he kills his Mom.

And then there's no repercussions about it.

And Richie and I, we met, we've both been to prison before, so we met at prison reform panel.

And I'm like, "Yo, bro, I just got this show.

You gotta be on my show.

Come be on my show."

So he did and so for season one, we're like, "Yo, man, like, that's not it.

Like we did it, yeah, we're on TV, but that's not it."

And then season two, he's like "That was even less it."

[audience laughs] That was it.

I'm like, "Dude, season three, this'll be it, I promise."

And then he had a deal.

Also our, so, spoiler alert, but these guys also traffic in heroin.

And our country, obviously, for many years now, has been going through this opioid crisis.

And it's destroying people and destroying families, and it's disgusting and awful, and there's never been any repercussions and consequences.

So we took our favorite character, and we made it all go through, and which is why Richie was so excited, we put it all on that character to show the consequences.

- So last night was fun.

- I'm [bleep] up, Leticia.

I need help.

I don't think I can do this by myself.

We've been talking and, we're gonna get clean.

- You also turned this other character on her ear, and I think it's, she's become a really interesting character to me, really complex, is Adelita.

You have a couple of female characters that, in the first two seasons, seem very traditional, what you would expect.

But by season three, she goes, you know, really ape [bleep].

- When I created that character for the pilot, it was just like, that was everything.

Like, I knew going into this world, there's going to be this one character that's going to turn everything on its ear, like you said, just this one subversive character who we've never seen before, that's [bleep] up and complicated and complex and not just a woman, that there's a lazy screenwriter thing where you just give her male characteristics so she seems strong, you know, or aspirational, I think that sometimes happens with other screenwriters.

There's like, "Oh, she's perfect."

Especially like season one, she had interesting stuff, but it just felt network-y, right?

So, season three, once those chains came off, we just went.

And Carla was another one who's just so ready for it.

And she was just ready to show, 'cause that's what it is, when you write, for all of us who are writers, you basically take everything that's [bleep] up about you, you know, and you put it on the page, like all of your heartbreak and agony and hopefully joy, if there's some, and everything else.

And then you give it to your actors, who make it like flesh and blood, and bring in this whole other level we can never imagine.

And that's what Carla did.

And she just took off.

- One of those things I think has become, especially in television these days, and in the cable world, has become really prevalent, is that anti-hero.

You know, they've turned this anti-hero into somebody that we're all supposed to love, right, because they're complicated, but they're horrible.

They're making these bad choices, and they just keep making these bad choices.

In this case, like, you have, you see them making bad choices, but you also see them trying not to make these bad choices.

- Yeah.

- I think that's what happened in season three and four that I find so interesting about the characters, 'cause it's like, even Coco tried.

Tried.

And it makes me feel like those characters are people I can stick with, you know.

That I want to actually see what they're gonna do next time, because maybe they're not gonna do what I think they're gonna do.

- I think you're totally right about seeing the character do the bad thing over and over again, they become sort of numb to it, right?

It becomes like, even though we're in the golden age of television, it now starts to sort of cannibalize itself.

Like we've seen all these things.

And like, but now it's placed here, and now it's set here.

And I think with EZ, some of the choices that he makes are like, really tough, but for him, in some ways, they're the right choice.

JD Pardo, if anyone's aware, is like probably one of the most handsome human beings on the planet, right?

And he could get by with that.

He could get, he has this great smile, this killer smile.

But he's also, like, he's an artist.

And that's what he has the ability to show.

And so this goes off, and this will seem like it's a very, I apologize in advance, very diagonal answer.

But it all comes down to music, right.

Because I played music first, and so everything becomes, like, rhythmic.

And that's why it drives me crazy with network's notes all the time.

It's just like, "Can't we just cut out, like, why does this girl have to walk all the way down the aisle and check in, in this scene in the grocery store, and then go bring her tray to the cash register?

Why can't we just get to when she explodes and smashes this stuff and throw eggs at the lady?

Let's get to that."

And I'm like, "Because then you haven't earned all those other moments."

Like, you want to live with a character, you need to have like, for that crescendo, you need to have that silence.

And so everything's always music to me.

I'm like, "Guys, this is gonna be like Bruce Springsteen's 'Back Streets' off the 'Born to Run' album, right?"

'Cause what happens if you hear it, it comes in strong, and there's a piano line that becomes a chorus.

What you don't understand is that in the post-chorus, right after, there's this other little piano line, a few notes, like no big deal, "Hey, I'm just here, I'm just this little line, to bring you to this bridge into the verse."

And they keep doing it.

And then it pops up again underneath a guitar solo.

Like, "Hey, don't pay attention to me.

Check out that sick guitar solo.

I'm just back here in the background."

[audience laughs] And then, what ends up happening, at the end, the whole thing, the whole song flips and turns on itself, and that piano line becomes the theme.

And it's been there the whole time.

So it's epic, but it's also like, "This is inevitable."

And I think that's what we've done with JD.

It's the same sort of thing, I was like, trying to explain, it was just like, it's the same way off like, Oh, this seems, yeah, he was like the good boy, he was supposed to go to Stanford and all these things.

But this darkness that's inside him, once you start to go back, this was here the whole time.

There's no way we could not end up here with this moment with this woman, with the love of his life, and what ends up happening when they get reunited in season four.

- What the [bleep] do you want?

[smack] [woman screaming] [thud] [smack] [smack] [thud] [smack, smack] [smack, smack, smack] - JD!

Stop!

[smack] - Gabby?

- Oh!

- Gabby?

Gabby?

[doorbell dings] Are you okay?

Gabby?

- Hey!

Hey!

Hey!

Come on.

- Are you okay?

- You gotta relax.

- Gabby!

[smack] - So that's hopefully what we try to achieve, is just like, the inevitability, I think is the right word.

[typewriter ding] - So we've talked about the darkness, now we're going to go to the light.

"Outlaws."

- Yeah, must be a different show, then.

[audience laughs] - You know this odd pairing of you and Stephen Merchant.

But just sort of the, you know, first of all, the fact that nobody had done a comedy around community service is just kind of strange, it just seems like, really, something, people missed that?

Like, how did that happen?

- Steve had seen "Little Birds," and he'd had this idea because his parents had both run a community service thing in Bristol, England.

And so it was always kind of in the back of his mind.

So he saw the film and was like, "I think I can maybe do something with this dude."

And then, I had, I love, obviously we all knew the British "Office," but he has a show called "Hello Ladies" that he did on HBO that is, nails LA, and he captured it so perfectly, and I was such a fan.

And then we met, and it was just like, it was like, love at first sight.

I just learned so much from collaborating with him, and the two of us.

And I think it was hard for people, 'cause they're like, "Oh I understand.

You're going to be like the dark guy who's going to bring like, the crime element, and then he's like the funny guy."

And we're both just so much more of all those things.

Like we did "The Outlaws" first as a feature, and then it was like, "Oh, I guess we're done, like, let's keep hanging out.

So maybe, we can just make it into a television show, and then we can be with the characters a lot longer."

And then that's what ended up happening.

And so we started this maybe six years ago.

- I love episode one.

I just love episode one from a craft perspective.

[elevator music] - Excuse me, Miss.

I need to look in your bag.

- Why?

- Can I look in your bag, please?

- Ugh!

- You just set so much up beautifully, the way you start off with her stealing and then the chase.

♪ I fell into the burning ring of fire ♪ ♪ I went down, down, down ♪ ♪ And the flames went higher ♪ - Sorry!

♪ And it burns, burns, burns ♪ ♪ The ring of fire, the ring of fire ♪ ♪ The ring of fire, the ring of fire ♪ ♪ ♪ [sneakers screech] [music stops] - Rani?

[heels clicking] - What's going on?

- It sets up a tone for that first episode.

- It was really just a mix of everything that we love.

And that's really what it was.

We got to kind of throw everything against the wall, hopefully in an organic way.

And especially 'cause we had the feature, and all of that was sort of happened into the feature, it was just packed into 90 pages.

And then we got to sort of got to extend it all.

But it really, again, comes, it's two things.

One, it comes down again to rhythm, of like, "Where are we going?"

And you're trying to get that rhythm right, and you can't really tell, it has to be in your gut.

We have our own rhythm and our own cadence.

And that's really all voices.

Like all your voices is, like one, maybe a little dark, maybe this and this.

But it comes down to, just like, what do those words look like?

What's the syllables?

I actually, since I have a learning disability, I don't read a script.

Even after I write, I listen back to it all the time.

So then it's like, "Oh, this is really musical here."

I'm like, "Oh, I have to take out the 'the', there's too many 'the's there."

But it also comes down in a bigger way of just like, "Oh [bleep], yeah, here it is, now I want to go here."

Like when are you craving and when do you want to get out?

Like, when's the right time to get out?

You want to get out before you give too much.

So there's like a real western vibe in there.

I mean, even like, with the score.

It's was like, even though these are suburban people living in suburban Bristol, England, like for all of us, all of our stakes are really high.

And how do you capture that?

- I think one thing that I noticed between "Little Birds" and "Mayans" in particular, and even in "The Outlaws," is that it feels like a lot of the characters that you're involved with are familially disenfranchised and they're searching and creating another family.

- Yeah, 100%.

It is that journey of trying to find those people and find your people and find your family.

'Cause you're not, see that comes from not being safe in your own home.

I have to deal with that emotion too, I think, which we do as, like, filmmakers and storytellers, like, it's not, we're not documentarians, or I'm not a documentarian.

You have to tell, maybe not a physical truth, but an emotional truth.

So that yeah, my emotional truth is that I was trying to find where I, and I was much safer with my gang.

That's the thing.

I was safer with my brothers.

And that was the whole reason why you join a gang.

'Cause it's just like, "You're my brother in that gang.

And someone has a problem with you, it's not your problem.

Just stay here, you're safe.

I'm going to go take care of it."

And then vice-a versa.

And if you grew up unsafe, that's the most beautiful feeling in the world, like I said before, it's intoxicating.

So that's what I think, the characters are still trying to find that.

[typewriter ding] [Narrator] You've been watching, "On Creating Mayans M.C.

: A Conversation with Elgin James" on "On Story".

"On Story" is part of a growing number of programs in Austin Film Festival's On Story project.

That also includes the On Story radio program, podcast, book series, and the On Story archive, accessible through the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University.

To find out more about On Story and Austin Film Festival, visit onstory.tv or austinfilmfestival.com.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [projector clicking] [typing] [typewriter ding] [projector dies]