L.A. Storyteller
Playwright and television writer Julia Cho talks about her craft, the mysteries of Los Angeles and her latest project for HBO.
story by MONICA Y. HONG
photographs by JENNIE WARREN
Julia Cho may be an award-winning playwright (The Language Archive, The Piano Teacher, Durango), but she is no stranger to TV, having written for HBO?s Big Love and Fox?s Fringe. Now, she?s been tapped to pen and serve as co-executive producer for a potential new HBO series based on the critically-acclaimed novel The Madonnas of Echo Park by Brando Skyhorse.? Despite being under deadline, Cho took time out to speak to KoreAm about her latest project, how she feels about adapting a Mexican American male novelist?s work, and why she thinks Los Angeles is a series of hidden doors.
What did you think when you first read the book, The Madonnas of Echo Park?
I loved the book. It was one of those things where I picked it up and I couldn?t put it down. I just think it was beautifully written, and the world is really vivid and the characters are very real.
It sounds like a lot of work just to develop a show?to come up with the treatment, the arc, the characters, the pilot ?
It definitely was a lot of work, but it?s the kind of work that anyone has to do if they want to pitch a show, and do a lot of it on spec, where you just kind of work on the treatment, work on the world, and hope that somebody will buy it. What made it easier for this particular project was that the book was like a touchstone for it. I had this amazing resource in that I didn?t have to come up with the characters from scratch. I knew their voices, I knew how they looked, I knew how they sounded, I knew how they thought. Brando had really provided this incredible, rich vein of material. So I really can?t complain because, even though it was a lot of work, a lot of the heavy lifting in creating the world had already been done.?
What my job really became was figuring out how to take these characters from the book and give the kind of dramatic arc that could propel an entire series. It just requires a lot more of the characters? actions and wants than were in the book. Don?t get me wrong the book is full of action and want and yearning. It was figuring out how we can create four to five seasons worth of action because, with any show that you pitch, you?re going to have to convince someone that what you?re setting out can actually sustain for years. Nobody?s going to buy a one-season show.
You had been looking for something to adapt, but how is that different for you, working with characters that you didn?t create yourself as you have in the past with your plays?
What?s funny is that I think I wanted to do an adaptation, not because I felt like that would be easier, but because I just felt like then I wouldn?t have to create everything myself and I could just jump in and be more like a conduit for the story.
So the funny thing has been that, when I write plays, what often ends up happening, if the play works, is that the characters feel very real to me. They feel like people who exist in the world and they actually existed before I even wrote the play, if that makes any sense.? I know who they are the same way I know people, like anyone in my life. So there?s a feeling when I write a play that I?m just sort of working with these people who are real and just trying to tell their story.
What?s been very surprising to me is that, when I?m working on Madonnas, it actually feels more like a play because the characters that Brando created are so real to me. I feel like I?m not really making them do things. They?re in the world, and I just have to keep up with them.
What is at the core of this story or one of the main themes of the series?
Well, that?s a really good question.? I think right now the theme seems to be about home and just what is home and how do we get back home, because the series is based in Echo Park, which itself is almost a character. It?s about the characters who are from there and struggle with where they?re from, while also trying to figure out how to embrace where they?re from.
Speaking of home, you?re from Los Angeles, but did you grow up here the whole time?
I was born in L.A., then grew up in L.A. County, but then I moved to Arizona and came of age there. So when I think of where I?m from, I guess I think of L.A. and Arizona.
So how do you feel about writing about an L.A.-based community?
I love it, actually, even though I spent most of my adulthood away from L.A. I have memories of L.A. from when I was a kid. So for me it was really fun reading Brando?s book because I could relate to that sense of knowing a place as a kid and then having it change, but also stay the same as you revisit it as a teenager and as an adult.? And I love the idea of L.A. as this city that has these layers to it because I think that L.A. is very unusual in that it?s hidden. You can?t see L.A. at first because anything good in L.A. is always tucked away (laughs) behind a strip mall or behind a fa?ade.
I think one of the things that the book illustrates?and I hope the series will do?is show how you can open a door in L.A. and find yourself in a place that hasn?t changed in 40 years, you know? But you can also open the door and find a place that?s completely new. It?s just very surprising to me that L.A. is sort of like all these hidden doors. This book and the series seem to be about what?s behind them.
That?s a nice, enchanted way of talking about L.A.
As opposed to the reality? (Laughs.) I talk about this series like it exists, but in actuality, we?re at the very early stages, anything could happen. It may or may not ever really exist as a series, but at least for now, it exists in our heads and our imaginations.
Have you been able to speak to the author, Brando Skyhorse?
Brando?s been incredibly open and wonderful. One of my first concerns going into the project was that I wasn?t Mexican American, you know?? (Laughs.) It just seemed like maybe I?m not the person for this project, but talking to Brando really helped me be more comfortable with it because he was so open and didn?t necessarily want somebody who was Mexican American. I think he felt that wasn?t a prerequisite.
He actually really liked the fact that I wasn?t Latina and wasn?t a man, so in that sense, he was looking at it like a Venn diagram. He didn?t want somebody whose circle was right on top of his circle. He wanted somebody who had their own circle and we could just overlap. What we found is that we did overlap, but we also had these totally other realms. I think he liked that because he felt, between the two of us, we could cover more ground and make the series bigger.
So when he was talking about it like that, I really was like, ?Oh, maybe I could write this show because I can respect the work he made and do my best to tell these stories authentically.? I felt like my not being all those things could be good in a sense that the series could go from being rooted in a Mexican American community in L.A., but then grow to be as big as L.A. itself.
How will being a co-executive producer be different from your roles in the past as a writer on other shows?
It would be a huge difference. ?Again, the likelihood of the show going to series is pretty small. A very small number of shows actually make it to air. The difference between being a writer on the staff of a show as opposed to one of the executive producers or co-executive producers is basically like the difference between being a vice president of a company and the CEO of the company. Because when you?re a showrunner or a high-level exec producer or co-exec on a show, you are basically running the show and not just writing for it. You?re actually shaping it.
I guess the difference would be that as one of the lower-level writers on a show, your job is to pitch and generate ideas for the higher-level writers because they?re so busy and have so much going on that they can?t actually come up with every idea. I feel like that?s the main practical difference.? It?s like, ?Are you one of the cogs or are you one of the ones that has the big picture, where you?re overseeing the entire machinery??
That?s great that you have more creative freedom then to explore what you want to explore.
I think that is the case. If you?re creating your own show, then I think as a creator, you have more leeway and more freedom to pursue your own vision, whereas I think when you?re writing for someone else?s show, you?re really just helping them to pursue their vision. It?s not your own.
Thank you so much, Julia. I enjoyed hearing about your process and getting a peek into your world.
Oh well, pretty boring world, actually!
This article was published in the May 2012 issue of KoreAm. Subscribe today!
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