#43 - Adam Epstein: Editing The Bear's Best Episode, The Addictive Life of Saturday Night Live, Compounding Relationships & The Music of Editing

Hello and welcome to Red Carpet Rookies.

Today’s guest is a first for a the show. Someone who began his career in the world of comedy editing. With eight years at the legendary Saturday Night Live to his name, he’s been in the cutting room for skits featuring Margot Robbie as a murderous librarian, Ed Norton in a Wes Anderson themed horror movie parody, Andrew Garfield as a Beyonce Fan on the run and so many more.

Whilst there he picked up two primetime emmy nominations before moving onto more recent shows including Tina Fey’s Mr Mayor and breakout culinary hit, The Bear. My guest is Adam Epstein.

Transcript

ADAM EPSTEIN 
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[00:00:00] Mike: Every great film and TV maker began as a red carpet rookie. In this podcast, each episode you'll learn from the inspiring career journey of someone who's grown to the top of the entertainment industry, hearing how they mastered their craft with life lessons you can apply to your own creative career, business, or relationships.

My name is Mike Battle, a film crew member turned screenwriter, and I'll be your host. And this is Red Carpet Rookies.

INTRO CLIP - I was 24 years old when we went over to make Schindler's List. I didn't know what I was doing. I have that still. Everything I do, imposter syndrome. What I learned from Steven Spielberg is, um, just keep going.Push forward, you know, no matter how bad things get. And then they casted a young guy named Brad Pitt. Don't think so much. Don't take no for an answer. It was my first meeting with David about Fight Club. The day that Pixar called, I was ready. I just picked up the phone and made half a million dollars. I mean, at the beginning of every job, I kind of think, what if I don't have any ideas? Dream come true. Working on a Bond film. I was terrified because I thought, well, what if I just screw this right up? He said, you'll get a script at the end of the week.  It was Titanic. 

Mike: Hello and welcome to Red Carpet Rookies. Today's guest is a first for the show, someone who began his career in the world of comedy editing.

With eight years at the legendary Saturday Night Live to his name, he's been in the cutting room for skits featuring Margot Robbie as a murderous librarian, Ed Norton in a Wes Anderson themed horror movie. Andrew Garfield as a Beyonce fan on the run, and so many more. Whilst there, he picked up two primetime Emmy nominations before moving on to more recent shows, including Tina Fey's Mr.

Mare and breakout culinary hit, The Bear. My guest is Adam Epstein. 

[00:01:45] Adam: How are you doing today? I'm great, Mike. Thank you so much for having me. 

[00:01:48] Mike: Thank you very much for being here. Now, Adam, I ask all of my guests the same first question, and that is, what did your parents do and did it affect your career choices moving forward?

[00:01:57] Adam: So just for me, a straight job description for my parents, my father, he worked in pharmaceutical sales. His background initially was a teacher, and then he kind of transitioned into traditional sort of sales role. And my mother was a stay at home mother, which is a full time and extremely demanding job.

That being said, though, she is an artist and a painter and was an art major. And I didn't really realize that at the time, cause we would always, you know, encourage her like, Oh, you should paint, you should paint, you know, I can either fully do it. Or not do it and now is an adult i really understand that more but the great thing is you know once me and my brother grew up and we're out of the house you really in earnest started again and now is in multiple art festivals and is constantly painting and.

So from a career perspective, I wouldn't say I got any, you know, talk to this guy direct, you know, job aid, but from a mindset and an encouragement and just a music always being on and always being discussed kind of background. I think my parents were extremely influential. Well, 

[00:03:02] Mike: just as we were saying before we hit record, your brother is musician as well.

So clearly there is creative bones in the family and something was going on there. 

[00:03:10] Adam: Yeah, something like that. They planted some seeds that, you know, kind of grew in a little more of an artistic way, which is I always appreciate it. The main thing is they always encouraged both of us to kind of whatever we enjoyed from a work perspective.

It was never, you know, pressure like you have to be a doctor. You have to be a lawyer like that. It is more chase what, you know, brings you joy. And ideally that will turn into a career. And luckily it has, you know, but again, luck very, very lucky. 

[00:03:35] Mike: Your mum, you were saying, obviously was either fully in or fully out.

So in your journey along the way, growing up as a teenager or whatever, you were picking up in your own words, being a bit of a tech geek, but also creative. When did you realize that you wanted to move towards perhaps a creative field and go full 

[00:03:52] Adam: in? It wasn't, you know, a straight linear progression. I was very lucky to be exposed to a lot of great comedy, especially from a very young age.

I had aunts and uncles that were huge Monty Python fans. And our early SNL, which was kind of, you know, cool how that worked out, you know, full circle. So that really informed a lot of my early sensibility to that. And I was extremely obsessed with the Simpsons from a young age. So, you know, the very 90s kid touchstones as far as comedy goes.

And then I was in Southern California when I was a child and it was constantly skateboarding and going to the beach and a lot of my friends were creatively minded from a skateboarder perspective. And so we were, you know, making short skate videos and that's where I really kind of started like making my own stuff was, you know, skate videos were still shooting on like VHS at the time.

This is like pre mini DV. So VHS to VHS and learning how to put, you know, text on screen, which blew my mind. The first time I saw it, we had like a TV station at the high school I went to also, and me and one of my friends were the communications directors for like the student government. So we had access to all this gear and we would go on and, you know, make little kind of short sketches.

And that sort of led to like, Oh, you can come up with something and then you can actually make it. And then in college, I helped start a sketch comedy show, uh, UCLA. And that was another, you know, you're going to write something and then you're also going to shoot it and then you're also going to make it as opposed to, you know, you're going to hire this person and do that.

So that's sort of really understanding as many steps of the process as possible really informed a lot of my kind of early sensibilities and what I was interested in. 

[00:05:24] Mike: Wow, so did you go into it wanting to become an all round director, writer, or how is it that you found yourself as an editor 

[00:05:30] Adam: ultimately, I guess?

I don't think there was a real conscious decision at that time. You know, I feel like a lot of times when I look back, anything that I kind of placed on my younger self is almost, you know, some retrospective self lies, truthfully. Like, oh, I always wanted to do this. I really don't think that was the case.

I think it was more chasing what I was interested in at the moment, which then led to, Working with like minded people, which I think that's the most important thing is you find people who are into the same stuff and driven in the same way that you are and you guys kind of work together and raise up together.

Yeah, I think my be as far as like what did I initially want to be if there was such a thing, probably a writer more than anything. But then, you know, working on things like the TV show at school, I saw that it was all kind of, you know, everything was sort of interconnected. So you might necessarily not be the writer on that.

But, you know, when you're editing the piece, you're then oftentimes, you know, doing kind of, you know, a rewrite to an extent, or you're taking something that was already written and then adding more to it and elevating it and, you know, just taking everyone else's work and raising that up. Sorry, I like the fact that it was all kind of interconnected.

I really like the team aspect of it. So that was a long winded way of saying, I don't think there was a, a set plan from the get 

[00:06:39] Mike: go. No, it makes sense because there's that famous line that films and TV are made three times. They're made, well, they're written in script, they're written on the set and then they're written in the edit.

So I guess you did find your way to writing in a way. It's 

[00:06:51] Adam: just a different kind. Yeah. And, and, you know, one of the things, especially working in comedy is that I still like is you're always kind of, you can still be, you know, be pitching on top of it, you know, whether or not it's, you know, a piece of sound design that kind of helps heighten the joke or, you know, using a piece of footage in a way that wasn't intended that then, you know, elevates what was already there.

It's great because it's always kind of a living document, which I find really fulfilling and it's kind of scratches, you know, a bit of left brain and right brain at the same time, which I think is a unique job, which I really enjoy. Yeah, I like that 

[00:07:23] Mike: phrase, living document. That's cool. And I read somewhere you were saying that you see your job in part as an attitude to make things better.

So is there any way you kind of first start with that when you're sitting there on a new project and are there certain places that you always feel that you can add value I guess 

[00:07:38] Adam: more than others? I mean, I think it varies so much and that being said, you know, you're only as good, good as kind of, you know, what you're given and who you're working with, so you can always take something and, you know, ideally lift it up and make it the best version of what it is, but you know, that being said, if you're given, you know, you know, great performances or if the script isn't, you know, really compelling, it's, it's going to be that much harder.

You know, I've been very lucky to work with a lot of great actors and comedy, really funny people, and a lot of incredible writers. And when it's that, you know, what I try to do is. Combination of kind of getting out of the way of what's already good and not putting too much of a stamp on it that would torpedo it, but at the same time, you know, trying to hone in on the things that on first read or on first performance hit me as something special and then try to, you know, remember what those are and lift those up a bit to make it, you know, the best version of what it is and whether or not that's, you know, specific type of rhythm or like really honing in on performance or using sound design to heighten what's already good.

That's what I'm always thinking about is how do you take something that's ideally good and just make it the best version of what it is. And, you know, one of the great things with editorial, there's, it's not a set path. There's not like you do this and that and this, and then it's better. It varies every time, day to day, scene to scene.

So it's constantly kind of keeping you on your toes and forcing you to think. 

[00:08:57] Mike: It's a difficult balance. And you mentioned getting good material or the material you get depends on the edit that comes out. And I imagine when you were working on SNL, you were having the top comedians in the world performing and sent into your edit.

I'd love to talk about your job there. But could you explain first to the audience what your job was there as an editor and how it worked in the process, if that makes any sense, that a layman could 

[00:09:19] Adam: understand? Yeah, so I was the editor or the film unit at SNL. Obviously the majority of the show and it's in the name is a live television show.

I think people sometimes forget that, but it is a, it is a show. They are, the cameras are rolling and what they are shooting, you are seeing on air. If you know, if someone jumped out of the audience, right on stage. That would be C. So that's the heart of the show. And then since the beginning of the show, there have been film pieces.

Oftentimes they were used, you know, specifically to allow wardrobe changes or to allow sets to be moved. And it uses like a buffer in the flow of the show. And so when I first started, um, There was the film unit, which was run by this guy, Jim Signorelli, legendary director who had been there since the show started.

And back then, we were, it was a much smaller operation, we were, maybe have a piece a week, usually one every like few weeks. But the timeline was still always crazy, and the timeline is the hardest thing at SNL, because they would write everything Tuesday night. And they read through everything wednesday pick what's gonna be happening wednesday afternoon that's when we would kind of have an idea of like what we would maybe be doing thursday would be all pre production locations permits wardrobe everything it would shoot usually friday, Usually starting at per in a perfect world by friday morning but usually starting pretty late and going until you know.

Saturday morning, pretty much. So I would start the actual edit usually midday Friday and then work up until dress rehearsal Saturday, eight o'clock that would play for the live audience. We would get notes back and then try to, you know, a very quick shuffle to, you know, remix, refinish, get in final color and deliver to air usually like 10, 15 minutes before it was on TV.

And that was like that every week. So the 24 hour film festival kind of every week. And from the time that I started to where it is now, You know, especially with the rise of, you know, like YouTube and streaming clips and the way that just people, you know, consume shows. Now, the film pieces became a little more involved and there's now like a huge T I've been there for a few seasons, but there's now a huge team, like a full graphics department and three individual units that are constantly doing stuff is usually three a week.

So it's kind of kept up with technology and with the pace of, um, I hate saying the word content with the pace of online content. It's been cool to kind of see that evolution, uh, since I started. Well, that is 

[00:11:27] Mike: madness. Creatives often talk about the idea. You never finished your project. You just let it go.

And I feel like SNL is the ultimate version of that where you literally every week just forced to, what do you think of that? 

[00:11:38] Adam: Yeah, I think it does a handful of things. I mean, there's a Lorne Michaels quote. He's the creator and the executive producer of SNL that, you know, the show doesn't go on because it's ready.

It goes on because it's 1130. It's like we could always be messing with it and making it better, but it's time to air. And so, you know, from that type of mentality and that sort of system, some of the lessons that I've kind of taken from that are maybe don't be too precious about things obviously don't, you know, be haphazard and not care, but at the same time, you know, be kind of looking at the bigger picture as far as, you know, it's always about the details, but at the same time, I've gotten stuck in other projects where.

You're constantly kind of like bashing your head against the wall over like in micro moments that in the end by not necessarily make a difference also, you know, really trust first instincts a lot and try to remember those. That's the thing at the show, because there was never enough time we'd be, you know, working something.

If that was working great, it's working, move on, move on, move on, continue to kind of be moving forward. And then more than anything, it's, you know, have a solid team that you trust and that you ideally have, you know, almost like a shared language with because you've been through so many paces together.

The more reps that you put in together, the more kind of common. Back story you have, the more shared knowledge you have, and that's why people tend to, you know, work with the same people over and over again, whether or not it's on TV or features. It's not so much a nepotism thing. It's more of a, I can talk with a director that I've worked with for eight years and they can say something like, Hey, you remember when we did the thing that was kind of like that?

And you'd be like, yeah. And you have that common reference and that type of thing, especially in high speed production or high speed filmmaking is just invaluable. So. Go with your gut, quick but not sloppy, and, uh, good people, is the main things. 

[00:13:24] Mike: That's awesome. It's almost like the compound interest of relationships and collaboration, I 

[00:13:28] Adam: guess.

Yeah, it's true. And then, you know, it becomes like a married couple oftentimes or, you know, when the same things that you've been kind of arguing about for years are still around, but that, but it's all, you know, all out of love and then working towards a shared goal. 

[00:13:41] Mike: Did you ever get used to the speed of it?

Or is it one of those things where every single week you're all going, Oh my God, Jesus Christ, we're never going to get 

[00:13:47] Adam: this done. I mean, I got used to it in the sense that I had done it enough. So I knew sort of innately kind of when things had to hit, or then you could sort of feel like if you were in the weeds on things, I ended up getting in a pretty good rhythm on it.

That being said, it was crazy every single time. And, you know, every Sunday morning, you'd wake up with the worst headache in the world from, you know, the kind of the sprint that you were on. Also, I was a lot younger. My body could recover. I don't know if I could, I couldn't not. I don't know. I, there's no way I could do it anymore.

I would just turn into a pile of dust, but yeah, it was always, uh, the way that I always described it was, it was sort of like drugs in the good and the bad. It's like you understand why it's addictive. It's a rush. It's, you know, and when it goes well, it's an extremely rewarding. You're getting feedback from a live audience and from a television audience on something that you finished like literally 10 minutes ago, and there's nowhere in the world that can happen.

Yeah. Usually, you know, work on a show or a feature and it comes out months, if not more later, but also like drugs, you know, it's not good for you and, uh, it tears your body to shreds. And then the next day you're like, Oh, I'm never going to do that again. But then the next week comes and you do it again. 

[00:14:54] Mike: I imagine it was also a really great education in the sense that, unlike a lot of people in the arts and film and TV, you were making so many different things every different week.

You were doing different genres, commercials, trailers, parody, all these different things. Were there any particular ones you remember as favorites or also something fun, something quite weird? I imagine you were sitting in that edit bay looking at a skit again and again and again of some sort of celebrity in a weird position or something, 

[00:15:20] Adam: you know.

I agree a hundred percent with what you're saying. As far as one of the best parts of that job was the variety of tones and styles. You can be working on a show and even if it's a great show, oftentimes there's a language that's established and then you're kind of adhering to that language. And the nice thing about SNL was it forced you to jump genres, to jump styles, to jump formats.

That really kind of forced us to do in myself, especially from like a construction standpoint, is you really look at the nitty gritty about why things feel a certain way as opposed to just like, oh, that was cool, or that was funny, okay, but like to to the molecular level, like, well, why was that cool? And then you really start kind of breaking down, you know, if You're doing a trailer parody, you know, what is the rhythm of a trailer that they're doing in a certain way as far as a buildup and a breakdown and a pause and a cut to black and then a fade back up and then the music kicks in, like literally just breaking things down very kind of clinically.

And then once you have the framework of whatever you're working on, then you can go in and start tweaking, especially if it's comedy, kind of make it its own thing and get kind of reflexive to the thing that it's in theory, parroting. It would be so hard for me to pick, you know, specific ones. The Wes Anderson piece I think is really fun.

And that's kind of, you know, lived for a while. We did a piece with Christmas Tarantino style sort of thing called Santa baby, which was fun because we got to get lynchy and weird, which on the show is kind of harder to do. Really easy to call the farewell. Mr. Bunting just kind of, you know, traditional scene construction that then turned into like splatter core violence, which was great.

And, um, yeah, that was the cool thing. You have to do really, you know, different styles, different cameras, parroting a bunch of things. And, um, yeah, just flex a lot of different muscles. It was great. 

[00:17:02] Mike: Awesome. One of the things you mentioned there was really watching things to see how they're put together, which I noticed you've spoken about in some of your writing about copying or stealing, but looking at things with an aesthetic eye.

And moving on to talking about one of your more recent projects, The Bear, it's very musical in its influence. And I guess you have to listen aesthetically as well. Could you talk about creating the tone of The Bear and your part on the project? 

[00:17:26] Adam: Yeah, I was also really lucky. I was brought on to the show once it got picked up for series and one of my good friends, uh, Joanna Noggle.

She cut the pilot. She's a genius in my opinion. Just such an incredible editor. Just very lucky to work with her. But so she they had set. A kind of a template, the pilot sort of stood alone from the rest of the episodes as far as like how paced up and how manic and how overlapping and how much like music was going on top of itself.

And it was probably like, you know, the most heightened version of what that show is, but that was great to have a jumping off point to then be able to, like you're saying, not actually copy, but use and inform on. What was happening moving forward when we started to very pace a bit and, you know, have some slower scenes and, and find those moments that were still in the language of the show, but didn't start to feel repetitive.

Cause if it was just constant, you know, chaos and screaming or the whole series, people would be like, well, this is kind of, you know, starting to get a little boring or I'm getting a headache and I can't do this anymore. So it, especially with the music, I think we found kind of a middle ground between straight montage, which, you know, sometimes we would do and kind of music video style, which had never gotten like that far and also just straight, like, you know, scene construction.

And we found this sort of middle ground where. It was a little bit of all of that kind of combined at times. So you would have scenes that might have been shot as traditional scenes. So you could play as just like a normal, you know, over the shoulder coverage scene or like a two shot, you could play it out.

But then we would often be intercutting with other scenes that were happening with kind of textural montage. You know, to hit, like, peaks of the music as it was going. We found this sort of, like, middle ground in, in feel. And even with the way that the music played in the mix, when we were, like, finishing it, one of the questions that we kind of went back and forth on was, is this diegetic music?

Is this playing in the scene? Or is this, is this score that, you know, we're hearing on top of it? And sometimes we're like, it's, Neither it's maybe kind of playing there, but it's not full score. So we settled on this kind of level and EQ of this place where it's a bit of both almost, which I felt was kind of unique.

So yeah, it was just, I don't know if this really answered your question, but being informed by what Joanna and Chris store had done with the pilot and then, you know, kind of being influenced and growing off of that. And they use movies like a lot of kind of Scorsese sequences as far as like the way music punctuates that and the way quick cutting and sound design and, you know, sort of sharp outs on dialogue give you sort of like a feeling of ideally what the internal kind of thinking of the character is.

And that's what we were always going for. Do you 

[00:20:00] Mike: find that editors, I say this looking at your zoom room with lots of guitars on the wall, are inherently somewhat musical? I guess a lot of it is rhythm, isn't it? 

[00:20:10] Adam: Yeah, I don't think necessarily, you know, that you have to be able to read music or play an instrument per se, but I think you have to have an understanding of, like you're saying, A rhythmic sensibility, as far as like why something feels off or why something is flowing correctly or how to be kind of, you know, syncopated and interesting as opposed to being kind of predictable with your cuts and just have a feel for it.

But yeah, I think a lot of it, I don't think it's, you know, a prescriptive thing where this is the right way and this is the correct rhythm and these are the beats to hit. It's much more of a sort of in the moment feel. Very kind of reactive to what you're working on a lot of times i've talked to people either you know about scenes label what were you thinking here and you can go back and start almost like retroactively break it down but in the moment it my answer normally like oh that just kind of felt right and then went to the next part no that felt interesting and they went to the next part like oh that felt cool so it's i feel like it's much more instinctual in the moment and then you can kind of get.

Scientific about it if you want to be like, well, you know, we punched in here to the close up. We really wanted to see that glint in his eye when she said the line to show what he's thinking. But yeah, it's a I guess a combination of art and science in the moment when you're working. Do you think 

[00:21:23] Mike: that can be cultivated or it's literally just this is what I think is good.

You know? 

[00:21:28] Adam: I think it can be cultivated in the sense that the more paces you put in, the more you start to establish things that work and make sense for you and the more that you watch and read and just kind of take in, you know, art and things that you find interesting. I'm constantly trying to seek out.

Like new music, but, you know, stuff I haven't heard before and I'm lucky to have, you know, friends that are kind of introducing me to things all the time. And that I find to be, you know, very kind of like eyeopening and expanding your horizons about the way you think about sound and rhythm and texture.

And I try to watch as much as I can and, you know, kind of. See the way that other people are conceptualizing construction and then, you know, try to have some of that rub off and then yeah, but more than anything, it's put in the paces. It work on as much stuff as you possibly can and make as much stuff as you can and start to find what works for you.

The more you do it. Amazing. 

[00:22:17] Mike: My favorite episode of The Bear was definitely series two, Forks, that you edited with Chris Stora as the director. And it's the sort of reason which makes you realize why you do TV, even on the dark days. And I'd love to ask, how did you and Chris Stora go about crafting the episode?

I guess the conversations you had, because it was a real moment for, spoiler alert, Richie's chrysalis, wasn't it? Coming into himself. Yeah 

[00:22:40] Adam: again i'm very lucky that i read the script and it was all there this show in general wasn't one where there was you know a ton of inter episode okay well this might go here this might be in the third act or maybe we'll move it up you know there's some stuff here and there but they're such great writers and so much of it was just really on the page.

And then, you know, Eben is such an incredible actor. I was saying it before about, you know, kind of like get out of the way of what's good and sort of let that be. And that was a lot of it. And then talking with Chris about kind of tone and vibe was really important. He basically kind of started off by saying, like, all right, the beginning of this should feel almost a little kind of.

He's so out of his element it's almost like he's walking into the death star and give it this kind of like rich is also you know i'm big ridley scott and kind of like sci fi fan so you know i kind of like leaned on as much as i could do with sound design to make it feel like he's walking on to like you know a spaceship is this maybe working with like some dream logic the way it was.

Kind of shot versus when like the backend, when he's now more, you know, awake and focus and comfortable in the situation. So it was like balancing tone and vibe that way. And then, you know, they had shot a ton of like clock inserts to show progress of time. And it was figuring out the best way to show, you know, what could be a whole season arc truthfully, as far as like, some people have said, is it even feasible that someone could have this big of a turnaround, you know, within this amount of time, which is sort of beside the point.

It's it's how do we show progress and feel real growth and transformation in a way that's quick because it's a 34 minute episode without feeling completely insane. So it's, you know, utilizing montage and leaning on like some, some good songs to kind of help pull us through and some transitional elements that we would use to kind of like jump a lot of time.

Yeah, a lot of it was the main thing was like, you know, kind of total discussions if that makes any sense. 

[00:24:38] Mike: Absolutely. Thank you very much for answering that one. Now, Adam, finally on Red Carpet Rookies, I do my own little quickfire questionnaire, which is my own ode to in the active studio. So if you could think of the first things that come into your head, that would be amazing.

The first one is, what is one of the best pieces of advice you've ever been given? 

[00:24:54] Adam: Probably i'd say surround yourself with good people that has been the thing that's kind of carry me along the most and apart from just from like a pragmatic standpoint and a career perspective it just makes your life more pleasurable to because then ideally.

You're working and you're spending your time with people that you want to be with. To me, that's kind of, that's peak humanity is being around other good people, you know, enjoying the company of each other in a perfect world, you know, having a cool output from that. Yeah. That's, that's the sweet spot for me.

That's my favorite part of, I guess, filmmaking and life in general. So yeah. 

[00:25:28] Mike: Lovely number two do you have a favorite film or one that's impacted you particularly 

[00:25:34] Adam: the answer is no as far as the thing that kind of I guess hit me from a young age and it's not cliche but it's definitely not like a cool pick anymore but when I first saw Ghostbusters as a kid the looseness of it the New York aspect of it.

The combination of like really light, almost like improv style comedy, but also with, you know, very cutting edge effects at the time, it's an, a Leonard Bernstein score. So it's like, it's, you know, elevated musically it's shot great. It's just funny now that that's now, you know, like an, an IP piece, but the original ghostbusters, the vibes from that really kind of stuck with and informed a lot of.

Kind of my early sensibility, but as far as like favorite film, that's that stuff. I couldn't tell you like my favorite Kubrick film It's an impossible question. Let's go with the Ghostbusters as far as like influential 

[00:26:21] Mike: number three irrelevant of talent Which job in the industry would you do if you weren't doing yours?

[00:26:26] Adam: I'd like the aspect of directing and producing to an extent where you're kind of party to every aspect of what's happening with it. You might not be the one that's making it, but you're, you're looking at the real big picture and, you know, there's a hundred million decisions that are being made. And I find that pretty appealing.

[00:26:46] Mike: Number four, you're going to hate me for this one. If you could work with one person living or dead, who would it be? 

[00:26:51] Adam: Say a Charlie Kaufman script, or no, I take that back. That would be cool. But Steven Soderbergh and the Coens to me are like the, as good as it gets. Steven Soderbergh, probably. Let's, let's say that.

Yeah. 

[00:27:03] Mike: Number five. What is a book, ideally career focused, but doesn't have to be, that everyone should read? 

[00:27:08] Adam: Hmm. I won't say that this is something that everyone should read, but a book recently that really kind of like blew my mind is a three body problem. I don't know if you've read it before. It's currently 

[00:27:19] Mike: being made into a show, I believe, 

[00:27:20] Adam: or a film.

It's incredible sci fi book sort of about, um, hyper intelligence, you know, coming to earth and what our response would look like, but it's about much more than that. But, you know, shared humanity and, uh, banding together and threat mitigation, not the best, maybe not the best book for me to actually, I should probably think more on that staring at screens too long.

My literary brain is 

[00:27:44] Mike: fading. Finally, if you want an Oscar, Adam, who do you think? 

[00:27:48] Adam: I would thank my wife, my son and my parents because without them, I am nothing and wouldn't be here and wouldn't be able to do anything that I do or wouldn't have had the drive to even put myself forward to do it to begin with.

So yeah, that's the rock. Perfect 

[00:28:04] Mike: answer. Thank you very much for your time today, Adam. It was fantastic. 

[00:28:07] Adam: Thanks so much, man.

[00:28:11] Mike: Thank you for listening to another episode of Red Carpet Rookies. To help us grow and be able to interview more amazing film and TV professionals, please do subscribe and drop us a rating on the Apple Podcast store, on your iPhone or online if you're an Android user. If you're interested in regular updates, the best thing you can do is to join our mailing list@redcarpetrookies.com or alternatively.

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