Life Lessons from the creator of True Detective, Nic Pizzolatto
I’m extremely tardy to the party on this, I know, but I just recently binge-watched True Detective. Binge-watched it, loved it, have been brooding about the show, and its wunderkind creator, Nic Pizzolatto. (Before you laugh, you should know that for years I deliberately have chose not to own a TV. Don’t own one, don’t miss it. Not to mention, films and TV shows that get a lot of hype tend to immediately make me suspicious, so it wasn’t until earlier this month, that I noticed the show on Amazon, and thought I’d give it a shot. Of course, I was immediately hooked.)
In hindsight, of course, I’m deeply irritated at how badly the otherwise extremely talented Nic Pizzolatto writes for women–his female characters being, on the whole, either whores or boring, or both–and don’t even get me started on how horribly he underused his masterful, hypnotic, repugnant villain, Errol (the astonishing Glenn Fleshler). Do not even get me started. I have to sit through seemingly unending scenes of tedium with Michelle Monaghan’s Maggie, when I could be watching Errol? Are you serious? (I read somewhere that Pizzolatto created a 150 page bio for Errol, and I thought, “Yes, come on, give us ALL of that.”)
Anyhoo, whatever you thought of True Detective, I personally think Nic Pizzolatto’s journey, from obscure college professor to HBO stardom, is just as riveting. Therefore, I’m sharing this interview he gave to the Daily Beast: Daily Beast interviews Nic Pizzolatto
Let’s face it: for many of us, “just” writing and publishing a few books, and becoming a university professor would be pretty damn huge. But Nic wanted more. And not only did he want more, he was ready to find out how he could make that “more” happen. And once he knew what he needed to do, he went to work and did it. Maybe that blows my mind, because the more I coach, the more I meet people who have perfectly realistic, valuable goals who seem invested in doing everything possible to destroy their own dreams. Very depressing.
Check out the part of the interview when Nic talks about understanding that he wanted to write and create films, and he ends up writing six scripts in the summer of 2010:
Beast: You were doing a lot of writing.
N.P.: I guess. But a lot of it was desperate. I really wanted to change my life.
When Nic’s agents, casually, tell him to send them some scripts, if he’s truly that serious about breaking into TV, he sits down and in a day or two, writes some scripts. I love that: he saw what he wanted, and he did the hard work necessary to bring it about. How many people do you think would have said, “…who the hell am I to think I can create a TV show…?” How many people ruin their own opportunities before they even allow them to happen. Drives me crazy.
Not interested in the show? Don’t worry about it! But if nothing else, read the interview to get inspired…and then, get to work. #wakeuphungry