After-Lost Thoughts and Nick Santora, part 2!

After-Lost thoughts.

So after all my grumbling about the Lost finale, I re-watched it with ABC’s “annotations.” Those are the informative subtitles that explain what the hell is going on. It had been sitting on my DVR and I thought I'd give it one more whirl. Not only did I like the finale much better the second time around, but like many series endings, it played much better without the sky-high expectations that had dogged it since day one. In fact, I actually had a new appreciation of it and found myself both moved and thankful it wasn't just an answer to every question the series ever posed.

Rather than a mythology defining episode that tried to address every question, the finale frankly left many, if not most burning questions unanswered. Instead the show went for the emotional jugular. In retrospect, I don’t know what I expected, but re-watching, while it certainly contained an endless amount of logic and storytelling flaws, it still worked profoundly well.

In the end, there might have been one too many intrigues for the show to answer anyway. Ultimately, I think people, myself included, wanted to see our core characters happy and resolved. And in that sense, this was satisfying.

But, since this is most likely the last time I’ll ever talk about LOST on this blog, here were my quibbles with the finale:

1.) Why did Michael seem to be the only one not happy with the news that he was dead? (Everybody else seemed to know it and be thrilled about it the moment they were told.)

2.) How in God’s name would Sayid end up for eternity with Shannon when Nadia was his clear love? (This seemed to be just a way to cram in an elder cast member.)

3.) The agonizing final shot over the credits seemed to go a long way in suggesting that the whole thing never happened and that the purgatory was not just for a time, but existed the entire time. Then came news that ABC execs just chose that shot for the Lost to News transition? I’m sorry, I actually don’t believe the very final shot of the show was left to chance. There is something more to this story that we’ll probably never find out. That said, if this were true, why re-run the shot during the repeat after they had declared…ah forget it.

Jimmy Kimmel did an excellent job hosting the post-Lost finale show. He did a great question and answer section with Mathew Fox, and the parodies were right on the money all month long leading to the finale. Particularly excellent: the commercial parody of Connect Four with the Man in Black and Jacob, and the final scene that parodied The Sopranos.

LOST: Finale re-graded: B +

Jimmy Kimmel Live: Aloha to LOST: A

Jimmy Kimmel Live has been on fire this season. From the Twitter Rap bit to the brilliantly inspired Mac-Book episode, to the recent Expendables spoof, Kimmel is the best reason to stay up late these days.
Jimmy Kimmel Live (ABC)
Grade: A

Endings and Network Television
That particular two-week period of television had an interesting impact on the future of network television.

In the same week, you had the Lost ending, the 24 ending and the final episode of American Idol to feature Simon Cowell as a judge. At the same time, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, True Blood and The Closer are all example of off-network programming that has become the talk of the town. Even after all the spectacular web failures, programming online will persist and expand beyond viral videos. Old fucks like me don’t like watching a movie on the computer, but my 11 year old niece doesn’t do it any other way.

What does this all mean for the big 4 networks? Frankly, I think there will always be a place for network television and event programming that cable simply can’t do and the internet doesn’t have the setup for. I think it’s entirely possible that 2 of the 4 major networks might someday fold into one, and if that happens you can say you read it here first. But it would make me sad as I like the idea of network television and grew up on it. When I was a kid, ABC, CBS, NBC and even FOX - those names meant something to me and each network had a very specific identity.

The big task now is to have a non-reality scripted programming hit. Modern Family is a great show, but it’s still no Seinfeld. And the great hour dramas seem to keep coming from cable and pay-tv (The Sopranos, Damages, The Shield, Nip/Tuck, The Wire, Deadwood, Oz.) Lost and 24 were unique in that way, too.

I guess we’ll see what happens. I just can’t believe there are no great serialized dramas on network television anymore. With all the re-boots in the movies, why not re-start Wiseguy, Hill Street Blues or even Twin Peaks?

I guess at this point those shows would be on HBO.

These are interesting times.


George A. Romero's Survival Of The Dead (In theaters and PS2)
Wow. The distribution says it all I guess. Who would've thought that perhaps the very final chapter of Romero's zombie saga would premiere on PS2? Maybe that's a sign of the times, but readers of this blog know just how much of a zombie fan, particularly a George A. Romero Zombie fan I am, so writing this review is nothing short of heartbreaking. But it must be said. This man has lost his mojo. If you’re at all into these movies, you know that the new zombie trilogy is like the new Star Wars for zombieheads. Who did it worse? That’s a question best left for others, but I will say this. Land Of The Dead was a misguided if at least worthy film. It was more DAY than DAWN, but it had some kind of plot and point of view. In truth, it was pretty much some great nuggets and moments in a sea of shit, but someone out there did a fan-edit that nearly saved the entire film. I prefer the fan-edited version that does away with all the groaning humor and erases money as a motivating factor. Still, at its core its still the same shitty Land Of The Dead. Then came Diary Of The Dead. This seemed promising. It was the first time in 30 years Romero was doing an indie zombie film and one had high hopes for this, in the way of his original masterpiece Night Of The Living Dead.

After a particularly rousing opening, the kids with the camera POV didn’t work very well due to some bad acting, some really bad dialogue and Romero’s deep misunderstanding of “those crazy kids on the net!” Lastly, (although I hear he’s making yet another) we have “Survival Of The Dead.” Which, for the first time is almost a sequel in that characters who made a brief appearance in DIARY are given the leads here.

What to say about this movie? I don't know. I think if you took the central story out, a take on the Hatfields and the McCoy's (I swear I'm not making this up) this could've been cool. Reviewing this almost makes no sense. It is what it is. And that isn't much. That said, I will probably watch any Romero zombie film that he shoots till the day I die. Maybe he'll rediscover himself at some point but....I don't know. I don't even know what to make of this film, much less the ridiculously pretentious final shot.

Still, Romero is the master, and just as Bob Dylan puts out some really shit CDs in between the good ones, I'm still hoping for Romero to knock one of these out of the park.


The Seth McFarlane 1 1/2 Animated Sunday Show (American Dad, Family Guy, The Cleveland Show)(Fox)
What better way to enjoy a Sunday evening with The Simpsons, followed by 90 minutes of Seth McFarlane's hijacking of Sunday night. American Dad, Family Guy and The Cleveland Show are all such reliable laugh getters that I'm starting to wish Seth could take over as showrunner on The Simpsons and maybe pump some new life into that veteran show. While The Simpsons can still come up with a great episode here and there, these days it plays more like an appetizer to the real Sunday night main course.

Losing It with Jillian (NBC)
Jillian, the lithe, angry trainer from The Biggest Loser, gets her own hour here in which she travels to new cities to scream at and belittle mostly minorities about their eating habits. After everybody cries, she comes back in 5 weeks to find the people who were yelled out lost 25 pounds because NBC told them to. Despite all this, I love it. Fat people losing weight never gets old.
Grade: B


88 Minutes (HBO)
Truly ludicrous. I could go on about the insane plot twists, the first-rate cast reduced to acting this out, Pacino's hammy performance, the insanity of the last ten minutes, the fact that this is called 88 minutes but lasts almost 2 hours, but then, you haven't quite lived till you've seen this film.
Grade: It's so bad it's good.

Face/Off (DVD)
A highly over-looked and slightly over-cooked piece of cinema from the late 90s when Travolta was still super-interesting after his Pulp Fiction turn. Nicholas Cage is terrific largely playing Travolta, and while the plot might be ludicrous, it somehow works as long as you don't ask too many questions. Overlong by about 20 minutes, this John Woo directed wannabe epic has a mighty score, some dynamite scenes, echoes of every film he's ever done, and stands as the sole project he's directed in America that comes close to the kind of films he made in Hong Kong.
Grade: B +

Big Brother (CBS – summer 2010)
A lot of fun this summer. I loved the mean redhead, can't get enough of the intelligence-challenged Enzo, and think they got it right this year casting-wise. Who will win? Tough to say since they got rid of Rachel who was my first bet, but Brendon seems to have been coated in Teflon. We'll see, but for the moment I'll go with Brendon if he can turn things around. Some might say he's playing like a chump, others might recognize he's playing a brilliant game.
Grade: B

Drawn Together Movie:The Movie! (DVD)
After 3 increasingly funny and outrageously profane seasons, Comedy Central mysteriously and quietly cancelled this animated half hour. I loved this show, and I liked the wrap-up movie that we never thought was coming. While not as fun as the series, this is a nice way to get some closure, and the DVD is chock full of extras that answer almost every question about the movie, the future, and the actors playing the roles. (Is that innocent Cree Summers from "A Different World" voicing the dirtiest character on TV, Foxxxy Brown?)

And the extras, including the 3D controversy, is plenty reason to check out this disc and say goodbye forever to these strange, disgusting and mostly hilarious characters
Series Grade: A
Finale Grade: B +

NICK SANTORA interview: part 2!
We talk about The Sopranos "Watching Too Much Television."

When we first started our interview with Nick, we covered how he went from being a Brooklyn lawyer to someone trying to break into TV writing. This time around, I get a very somber Nick as his great pilot, Breakout Kings, was not picked up for pilot season for an order. (Things have since changed, but at the time of this article, things for Breakout Kings seemed very dim.)

We pick up the story and dive right into one of this blog's favorite subjects: The Sopranos. Nick penned the very popular 4th season episode "Watching too much television" which had Adrianna planning to marry Chris so she could have an excuse not to testify against him, Tony & Co. planning a major HUD related scam to cheat the lower-income neighborhood out of housing money, but this episode is easily best known for the beat-down that occurred when Tony finally extrapolated from the news that his politico buddy, Zelman, was living with his ex-girlfriend, Irena. The scene that ended that episode is still one of the most talked about moments from the series and I got a chance to discuss the episode in detail with Nick, who was nice enough to give me the time even though he had many things going on. As usual, our conversation took place while Nick was driving around to various meetings and commitments.

Digital Couch: Welcome back, Nick. My readers enjoyed your last interview very much and I thought it was a nice buildup to talk about what went into you getting to write on one of this blog's all time favorite shows, and one of the best episodes to boot. Thanks for submitting to this again.

Nick Santora: No problem. My pleasure. If your readers want some Sopranos talk, I'm happy to provide it.

DC: Great. So, I know you're a busy man. Let's dive right in. Last we left off, you get a call and it's your agent telling you that you're meeting with David Chase, who had read your screenplay Slip & Fall, which later became your best-selling novel. What happens next?

Nick: I had to take this meeting with David Chase. I was practicing law in Brooklyn at the time. Around the corner from Silvercup Studios in Queens, where they filmed the show, was a parking lot and I remember sitting in that parking lot and being so nervous to get out of the car. Eventually I get out and start walking around to get to Chase’s office and I remember having this exact specific thought “Whatever happens in the next hour will dictate the rest of my life.”

I knew writing a Sopranos would change my life as I knew it. I also knew there were a million ways to not get the job, so I decided going in to 100 percent be myself and not pretend to be some slick writer because at the time I wasn’t really a writer; I was a lawyer with an office over a pizza place in Brooklyn. And I knew that Chase probably liked me as a writer because he enjoyed the screenplay's subject of a man who was naïve, who was essentially me.

DC: What was that day like, knowing you had a meeting with David Chase?

Nick: A stressful element was that the day I was supposed to meet with David I was supposed to be in court. I was told by one of the partners that I couldn’t get out of court. And I just said “I’m going.” He said “No, you’re going to court.” I stood my ground, and said “I quit.” So I left work that day thinking I no longer had a legal career. I called my wife and said “I no longer have a job anymore.” After the meeting with David, I called my office the next day and they gruffly said “come back to work.”

DC: Good thing. But let's get back to the meeting with David Chase.

Nick: The offices for The Sopranos were so much cooler and hipper than the pizza joint. I was led into a large writer’s room at a huge table where I met David Chase and Terry Winter, who later became a friend. Winter really is the nicest guy ever. Mitch Burgess and Robin Greene were in the room. And David Chase was in the room.

I sat across from David. There's this huge table but David sat right next to me. We started talking and it was crazy because it was the height of Sopranos popularity and he was telling me how much he loved my script. He asked me what I felt about The Sopranos. I told him the truth, that is was the best show on TV. He said “I hope you don’t like the characters because these guys are sociopaths. You have to write them as bad guys and killers, don’t get tricked into romanticizing them.” I told him “I won’t if I get the job.”

He smiles and said “in your screenplay there’s a character whose smile is real but then turns on the hero on a dime, and that's the world of the Sopranos.” We talked for a while. He was very concerned as to whether I would have the time to write the script with my legal practice. I said I will have more than enough time because I had a couple of weeks off for Christmas, but the truth was I just didn’t know if I had even had a job left for me. But I was scared to tell him about that because I didn’t want him to think I was a flake who quits a job over a meeting.

DC: So then what happens?

Nick: He thanks me for my time. They all said goodbye. During the meeting Terry didn’t say too much but we talked later and I found out that what we had in common is that he, in a past life, was a personal injury defense attorney and we knew a lot of the same people and I admired Terry because the only thing more horrible and boring than being a plaintiff’s personal injury lawyer was working for the insurance companies like he did and he found a way out too.

I left that meeting and went back home to my apt. in New York that I shared with my wife, but I wasn’t confident about the job because I couldn’t see Chase hiring an attorney who hadn't written television before. I started getting depressed because I thought I should’ve done something different in the meeting. I started getting into a dark, depressed place that night. My wife and I took a walk that night in the freezing cold. When we got back my agents called. I said “what’s up guys?” They said “Congrats. You got the job!"

I lost it. I pumped my fist in the air, my dog went nuts, my wife and I got in the car and drove to my parents house and went in and told them I didn’t get the job to goof with them, then I told them the good news. Called a few of my friends – everyone was so happy for me. That was one of the best feelings about the whole experience. True happiness for me from people who cared about me.

A few days later I was supposed to go through the beat sheet with the staff about what the episode would be. At this point, I’m back at work at my law firm like George Costanza – all was forgotten and forgiven. Then I was at court with all these motions and later that afternoon I was supposed to leave for David Chase. The judge showed up late and now it was time to go to Silvercup. So I pulled the judge’s court clerk aside and said “look man, you gotta help me and call my case.’ He said “I can’t play favorites.” I told him I had a big thing – he didn’t care. I begged him. He couldn’t do anything for me. I said “I’ll be completely honest with you: I have a meeting with the creator of the Sopranos." He says “are you lying? That's my favorite show." Next thing I know, they call my case, I rush from Brooklyn to Queens and next thing you know – I'm at Silvercup Studios.

Now I’m with the rest of the team. That was very interesting to me because it was the first time I had actually seen a beat sheet and I was surprised how lean it was. It was just bullet points like “Tony and the gang welcome Paulie back from prison,” “guys sit in the steam room and talk about the Hud scam,” etc. Then we talked in depth about the scenes and where the characters were headed and they gave me those episodes that hadn't aired yet. It was very top secret – signed disclosure forms. I just couldn’t wait to hand those scripts back to Silvercup so they knew I didn’t lose them.

Then I went off to write, and that weekend I started writing the script in my in-laws basement in NJ – my wife wanted to spend the weekend with her parents and my father in law had a nice quiet basement office.

DC: At this point, and for readers of this blog, it’s time for Sopranos geek-out time:
Okay, you said you had a basic beat sheet. One of the most memorable things about the episode is the way Tony beat Zelman with that belt. Where did that idea come from?

Nick: The idea of Tony going after Zelman at the end of the episode was in the beat sheet, and later in the day the idea was floated in the room but 10 years ago, not sure who came up with the belt idea specifically. But the idea of Tony going after Zelman was not my idea – all the credit goes to the Sopranos team. But when I wrote the script, I wanted Zelman to be naked, and the actor refused to be naked.

Writing it was exhilarating but halfway though the first scene when I typed in the name TONY and hit ENTER, I realized I was about to start putting words in Tony’s mouth, and I remember thinking “holy shit, I’m a guy with no produced writing credits in his in-laws basement and I’m about to start writing dialog for one of the most famous characters in television history." Then I took a deep breath, exhaled and started pounding the keys.

DC: Tony always walked the line between being likable and monstrous. But we'd never seen him be quite that petty and horrible before (that I could think of.) How did you feel about him beating Zelman?

Nick: My feeling is that it was in character with what Tony would do…when I was in my meeting with Chase, and he told me Tony would go after Zelman, I remember I said out loud, to myself: “this is going to be cool.” Chase mimicked me and laughed. He was getting a kick out if the excited kid lawyer.

DC: Was it the song "oh, girl" that set Tony off?

Nick: I don’t think it was only the song. One way or another, Tony would’ve found another reason to beat the shit out of the guy. But the song was the trigger.

DC: In Sopranos mythology, everyone always talks about the fact that when Zelman first talked about Irena, we saw some shots of him putting on his belt. The same belt he'd later beat Zelman with over this very issue. Was that in the script?

Nick: It wasn't. John Patterson directed the episode, but he’s unfortunately since passed and I'm not sure about the evolution of that sequence.

DC: I always thought after the beating that Irena wanted to leave with Tony. It looked like she wasn't sure what to do at the end.

Nick: That was performance and the director. I just had Tony leave them.

DC: How did you feel about the doomed romance between Furio and Carmella?

Nick: That was fun because it was a slow build but it had a great payoff in the season finale when it all came out.

DC: Anything big in the script that didn't get filmed?

Nick: The original C story was AJ having a crush on a girl at school and he gets a big sty in his eye and he gets teased for it and there was this whole parallel story about how Tony deals with Irena not being his – but Chase decided not to do that AJ storyline. I was already working on The Guardian when he made this decision so they came up with a new C story that dealt with Adrianna and that lead to one of the biggest honors of my career, sharing screen credit with Terry Winter.

DC: Do you remember some of your lines that made you happy to watch play out?

Nick: Oh, it was so long ago. I liked the line about Paulie getting laid in prison all the time. I also remember writing “Buy land, ‘cause God ain’t makin’ any more of it,” and Tony’s toast to the federal government, amongst others.

DC: What was one of the most surprising things about the experience for you?

Nick: The thing that really came across to me is how great the show's writers and producers are because every day they had created these underlying subliminal themes in the episode: no matter how hard you try 2you can’t get out of this world once you’ve made that choice. I thought that was all over my episode. That idea, that theme. You see with Irena, with Zelman and especially with Adrianna. But even Tony can’t get out of this world if you look at what he eventually did…..you can’t get away from the nature of that business.

DC: Was there anything very differently shot from your original intention?

Nick: No. The director did such a great job, I was just really honored. And writing that type of material was great. That HUD thing, the circle of corruption has so many victims. People don’t even realize that they’re victims of organized crime. People don't think that every slice of pizza you buy is jacked up 20 percent because the owner has to give something for protection. Details like that are what made The Sopranos such a great show. Because we liked these guys, but they were absolutely corrupt.

DC: So you finish the script, hand it in - then what?

Nick: After writing it and being done, right before Christmas 2001, that’s when I decided to give full time writing a chance. I got my bonus check from my law firm that Christmas and as soon as it cleared, I quit. It was so liberating. Then I went out to L.A. to look for writing work while my wife stayed in New York to finish up her job.

I was out here 16 days and the day my wife flew out to L.A. to spend a few days with me, I got the call that I'd been hired by the CBS show The Guardian, so me and my wife got to celebrate that together.

DC: So how long after you handed in your Sopranos script did it air?

Nick: Nine months later or so; I was working on The Guardian when it aired. We were in L.A. My wife and I invited our new friends in LA to our apartment for a huge Italian dinner for our Sopranos episode. We invited 12 people to sit in the tiny apartment to watch it. My wife cooked all day; pasta and meatballs, red wine. We were planning on watching the West Coast feed with our friends, but we had DIRECT TV and it just came on via the East Coast feed as we were getting ready for the party. So we just said "oh, crap, we can watch this earlier than everyone else," so my wife and I sat on the couch and we watched the episode by ourselves before everyone came over.

It was weird. The moment the credit came up and I saw my name on the screen, I started crying. So many people thought it was insane to leave a steady job and even though it turned out well, so many people told me I was crazy, stupid. People told me it was impossible to break into this business when you didn’t know anybody. I just felt this complete and utter release of pressure – after that aired I felt like I had proven to myself that I could do it. Just an incredibly emotional release. My wife was asking me what was wrong – I said “I’m just so damn happy.” It was such a cathartic moment – I’m so thankful to David Chase and Terry Winter, who was so great during the whole episode – just a prince. During the writing he had given me his home number, cell, etc. He said, “call if you have questions. I want this to be a good experience for you.”

The Guardian was a great situation, full 22 episodes were ordered but we wound up doing 23 and as a staff writer I wrote a whole bunch of scripts scripts and they wound up promoting me in a year to co-producer.

After The Sopranos aired, a lot of people who hadn’t been in touch with me for a long time saw my credit and reached out and expressed congratulations. I got a huge boost of confidence. I’ll always be able to say that I had a tiny tiny part/membership card to an exclusive club for a brief moment of time and that’s something I’ll always be proud of.

DC: What was James Gandolfini like?

Nick: He’s larger than life, he’s a physical presence and I’m not a small guy. He just kind of grumbled past and Terry says “Hey Jim, this is Nick Santora. He was the writer on the episode.” He goes “how you doing Nicky?” That was it. But I got to write for one of the great American actors of our generation.

DC: When's the last time you saw the episode?

Nick: Maybe nine years? I rarely get to go back and see my old work.

DC: Thanks again for the time. I thought it was one of the best episodes of the series and it was great to hear about it. Thanks again.

Next up: Prison Break and beyond!

Howard Stern, 24, and Nick Santora (Sopranos, Prison Break) interview.

The Howard Stern Radio Show (Sirius Satellite Radio)
Has been better than ever. Without the sorely missed Artie, Howard has somehow brought the show to another level, and he and Robin are now center stage again. It's certainly a different show from the one he and Artie were doing, but the last few weeks of shows have been as good as they've ever been. The Willie Nelson interview was a standout. The couple that won the million bucks was also superb. If only Fred would talk a bit more and am I the only one that thinks bringing back Jackie Martling would not be the worst thing to ever happen?

Conan O'Brien was kind of great on 60 MINUTES.

FACES (DVD)
I love John Casavetes films. I watched over an hour of this and needed aspirin. I'm sure at the time (the 60s) this made a lot of sense. I didn't get it.

SNL: Betty White (NBC)
Not only did Betty White come through, but SNL came through with one of its better episodes of the season. Bringing back a lot of the past female players was a great idea, but Betty stole the show. Truly.
Grade: A


FAMILY GUY 150th (Fox)
A full half hour of just Stewie and Brian in a locked vault. No cutaways, no gimicks, almost like a 28 minute stage play. That said, some of this was as absolutely profane and vile as the show ever gets. I loved every minute of it. I hope this runs forever. The dance numbers that followed were fun, but that original episode was a real winner.
Grade: A


24 (Fox)
The clock is ticking and with every episode, this gains more and more momentum. What started out as routine as become one of the best seasons of the entire run. This last episode that had Jack deciding on Dana's fate was completely gripping and
suprising. The stuff between Jack and Chloe is superb and I even have to say - Freddie Prinze Jr. is terrific in this. Wow, I said it.
Grade: A


MEET NICK SANTORA:
Nick Santora is a writer who’s written some of this blog’s favorite subjects. His first produced work was the great 4th season Sopranos episode “Watching too much television” which had Tony & Co. subverting HUD funds and ended with Tony giving Assemblyman Zelman a beat down with his belt for having the audacity to date Tony’s ex-girlfriend. It was one of the great 4th season episodes. From there Nick went on to write and produce The Guardian and Law & Order. He also created and executive produced the reality show Beauty & The Geek. He then began on season 1 of one of this blog’s favorite all time shows “Prison Break” and stayed on all the way through all four seasons. He even penned the series swan song “The Final Break.”

Along the way he wrote a National best-selling novel and – oh yeah – he used to be a lawyer in Brooklyn. He’s also a great guy and a friend of mine, so I asked him if he wouldn’t mind me barraging him with questions about his life and career. The following is part one of a four part interview. I caught up with Nick as he was getting lost between the 101 and 405 trying to get to Burbank to do a final mix on the edit of his brand new pilot “Breakout Kings” which he co-created with Prison Break showrunner, Matt Olmstead.

These are heady times for Nick as he awaits word from Fox over his pilot, but despite the stress and anxiety of prepping a pilot, Nick was nice enough to grant these interviews and I thought the shows he worked on were of particular interest to readers of this blog:

NICK SANTORA INTERVIEW PART I

Digital Couch: So, where do we start? Sly Stallone said that before Rocky, he was as low as one could be in this business and you kind of weren’t even in the business when you started. Can you take us through that as best you can?

Nick: I was a lawyer in Manhattan. I worked for Sullivan and Cromwell, one of the most prominent law firms in the world. I was doing so much paper pushing I knew I’d never get into a courtroom and actually litigate, so I switched my place of business, and went from a huge high-end firm to a firm with five lawyers literally located above a pizza place in Brooklyn. I went from dealing with Fortune 500 companies to guys who got hurt on construction sites or slipped and fell in supermarkets.

On the whole, I was a very unhappy person. I was in my mid-20s, I was a lawyer, and by the time I got to my late 20s and saw 30 approaching I was miserable. My wife one morning comes out of the bathroom - she saw me in my boxers and wearing a shirt sitting on the edge of the bed, not getting ready for work – I had been there for an hour. I looked at her and said “it’ll get better.” I was talking about my depression over this existence I had chosen and felt stuck in. My wife answered “it better.”

The truth is, I was in a constant cloud of misery. I was looking down the barrel of 30 more years of practicing law, which is the last thing I wanted to do. I wanted to write.
When I was 6 years old, I wrote a poem and I remember what it felt like to put words together and see how they “fit” in place…to me that was an electrifying experience and to this day I remember that poem:

I Would Like To Be An Orange
By Nick Santora (at 6 years old)

I would like to be an orange.
To have some orange skin.
I would like to be an orange.
To have a lovely grin.

I would like to be an orange.
To be washed and to be dried.
I’m always an orange.
I’m an orange inside.

DC: Nick, that was beautiful.

Nick: Dude, I don’t even like fucking oranges. But it started the idea of putting words together for me. I remember it so well because I still get that feeling everyday where you think you pick the right word…it’s a chemical release in my brain. It feels like you’re high – a natural high. All through my life I would write stories. Back when I was dating my wife and I was broke, (Law School and the loans added up to being poor) I would write novellas for her as gifts. But even though I wanted to write, I felt that I owed my family a law degree since they had put up the funds to get me a very expensive education. In fact, I was the first male Santora to graduate college.

DC: Sounds great, but also sounds like a bit of a burden.

Nick: A heavy burden. Anyway, so now I’m in law for a living, I’m hating it and miserable and I felt like she’d (my wife) eventually catch my misery and leave me because I’m such a sad-sack bastard. And I wouldn’t blame her.

A few days later, I’m in Manhattan and I’m covering a few motions that are being dealt with at he same time. I’m running from courthouse to courthouse. I’m worried that one of my cases would get marked off the court calendar because maybe I’d be late. And while I’m running , this blind woman on the corner says “would somebody help me cross the street?” So, I blow past this woman like she’s a statue, I’m half-way across the street…now this becomes a major moment in my life. Here I am, running around, literally ignoring a disabled person who’s asking for help to get to a job I fucking hate. I wondered what my mom would think if she could see me right now? So go back, grab the woman, and she keeps thanking me and I’m thinking “I have to make a change.”

My wife and I were planning a vacation. I asked her if I could take the last week of my time off and just stay home and try my hand at writing a screenplay. My wife said “Absolutely! Stop talking about it and finally write something.”

So I had that last week off. Took out my wife to dinner that Friday night, went to bed early, then Saturday morning, I sat down at our shitty kitchen table and really shitty computer in our completely shitty apartment, and I started to write. I started Saturday morning and finished around midnight the next Sunday. Nine straight days of writing and I finished a script called “Slip & Fall.”

I was so naïve. I figured I finished a script, now some agent’s going to want to represent me. See, the thing is, in California, everyone has a script. From the taxi driver to the doorman to the executives, everybody has a script. New York is a little different (at the time.) Back then in New York, nobody wrote screenplays at that time. So I went online thinking I’ll search for an agent. I typed in “screenplay agent.” What came up was a screenplay competition that had agents showing up at it.

There was also a film festival portion, and then a competition for unproduced screenplays. The directions on the contest were not to send a script but rather a synopsis. So I did. A few days later I got a call saying they’d like to read the script. But the guy from the contest said “we get hundreds and we only pick about 20 or so.” So I send it and figure that’s the end of it.

A few weeks later, I get a call saying “you’re in the competition.” I’m such a rube, I go out to Nordstroms with my wife and buy a new suit and tie that I couldn’t afford, so I can make a spiffy showing at the competition. I get there, all the other writers are dressed like slobs and now because of my suit, they think I’m an agent. So I’m getting scripts handed to me by writers, I’m getting cornered by writers, but eventually I get to pitch the judges my script and by the time I realized what was going on I realized I had somehow blown this opportunity to mix it up with agents all over this fucking suit I had worn.

A few weeks later, I’m alone in the office working on a motion and my phone rings. It’s the film festival. “Congats, we’re going to announce tomorrow that you won best screenplay.” I say “great, what do I win?” The person says to me “You win your life is going to change.”

Sure enough, I started getting calls from agencies. I signed with United Talent Agency and within a few months they got me a job writing for a show that had a 13 episode script order for a show called AT END OF DAY which was an original series for A&E. I remember the day I was supposed to start writing it. September 11, 2001.

The guy who hired me, the showrunner, Mark Rosner, called and said “you don’t have to worry. I can find someone else. I don’t expect you to finish this script with what’s going on in New York.” My response was “I want to do this more than ever.” The tragedy pointed out that any day could be your last, and I wanted this. The show didn’t get picked up, but that script did two things for me, it showed my agents that I could do the job and got me into the Writer’s Guild.

The showrunner called my agent and said “he did a great job! You should work for this guy.” A few months later I’m still doing law, and the agents call and say I have to take a meeting. I say “I can’t just pick up and take off to LA anytime there’s a possible job.” The agent said “Trust me, you want to take this meeting, and it’s in New York.”

I though a minute and said “It’s not…”

My agent replied “Yes, the meeting is with David Chase. The show is The Sopranos.”

To be continued: