Danny Strong – Empire

By starrymag | March 16, 2015

Q) Your body of work as a writer is pretty impressive.  You’ve done some pretty serious, you did Recount, Game Change, The Butler, they are kind of more heavy and serious things, what inspired you to write, what is, basically a 1980s soap-opera; which I love, by the way?

Danny Strong: It was really just driven by the idea.  When I came up with the idea, it was as a movie, and I thought it could be this really cool hip-hop movie musical that I pitched to Lee Daniels.  Then he called me the next day and said, “I can’t stop thinking about it, but I think it’s a TV show.”  And, I instantly knew he was right, because it was about a family, and great TV shows are about families. And then we instantly started talking about Dallas and Dynasty.  So it was this, it just kind of, organically come from the concept; as opposed to me setting out wanting to do “something different,” I, kind of really don’t work that way.  I don’t thing about—I’m just idea driven.  So, whatever the idea is, so what’s the best genre for that idea, what’s the best place to do it, etc., kind of how I work.

Q) Danny, today we yet again, saw record viewership for Empire.  You guys had a slight dip in the 18-49, but again, very strong and we’ll probably see some adjustment.  Danny, you guys have broken all the rules in terms of ratings and viewership with this show.  Why do you think that is, especially in today’s TV landscape?

A) I think it’s hard to say.  I think people just—I think there are a few factors.  I think at the end of the day it’s good old-fashioned word-of-mouth, and if people seem to really like the show and they tell other people, and they like the show, and it just keeps moving forward. And then the third element is also serving an audience that has been grossly underrepresented in TV for several years, which is an African-American audience.  And I remember when we premiered, and I saw our ratings, and we premiered and the ratings were terrific, and our numbers in African-American households were huge, and our numbers in white households were good, I mean, they were what is now considered very respectable, opening premiere ratings. And I just remember reading those numbers thinking, “We could actually grow because we could really grow in white households,” and I believed that to be the case because I believe the show could have a real crossover appeal.  What I didn’t realize is not only would we grow in white households, but we would grow more than 60% in African-American households too.  So, combining those two, it’s just, the show just kept growing and growing, and it’s still growing.  It’s quite exciting.

Q) What was it like working with, Debbie Allen, directing part of the finale?

A) Debbie was so cool.  I grew up watching Fame, and I co-wrote with Ilene Chaiken that episode that Debbie directed, so I was on set for a bit, and she’s sort of everything you’d imagine her to be.  She’s just super cool, super hip, really smart, really talented, and I remember there was this cat fight that she was directing, and at one point she yelled out this direction, “Now toss the b***,” and I just remember thinking “That is, I think, the greatest piece of direction I’ve ever heard in my career.”

Q) Any talk of bringing Jennifer Hudson on as more than a guest star?  She had really good chemistry with Andre, or Trai, and there are some other family members who could also use some therapy, I think.

A) They could use a lot of therapy on this show, and I think we can use some of the therapy behind the scenes, too, I know I could use it.  I think that Jennifer, I can’t say what’s going to happen with her character because, to be honest with you, I don’t know, we’re just starting to talk about Season 2 now.  I know we loved her and think she did a fantastic job, and she has this song in the finale that I just love, I think it’s one of the coolest of the season.  So, you know, it’s certainly a possibility and she was lovely on set, so it could definitely happen, but I have no clue yet what we’re doing as of right now.

Q) Well, just talking to you and then the people you’ve worked with, especially on this show, it’s got such a plethora of superstars – Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henson, and I can’t imagine what the dynamic is like working with them and, Lee Daniels, and then you have next week coming up, all these amazing super musical stars.  I imagine that was like an even bigger jump, in terms of the energy on the stage.  What was that like filming that?

A) Yes, it was crazy cool.  Because when the show first premiered, I mean, before the first show premiered, we had shot, I think, nine or ten episodes, and getting guest stars was not so easy, I mean, we were getting passed on all over the place, all of the time, and we ended up with some really cool guest stars during that period.  Courtney Love, is a perfect example of someone who just kind of stepped up, leap of faith for having not seen the show, who joined us, right; but there were many people that wouldn’t. So, after the show premiered is when we started casting the season finale, and it was a very different, very exciting situation, where, when it was just tons of “no’s,” it turned into not only lots of yes’s, but incoming calls of people who wanted to be on the show.  So, that’s when we ended up with the season finale with all of these amazing performers, and it’s really cool.  I mean it’s really, really cool; there’s just going to be a ton of great musical numbers in the finale.

Q) I know you can’t give any spoilers in terms of the season finale next week, and I wouldn’t want you to because we all want to be surprised.  But in the span of a few months it seems like everyone in this show has been burned and then had salt poured on the wounds, and then rose up again, and then it’s a cycle.  Can you say, maybe committing at the end of the finale, but what can you say about, maybe which character is in a position at the season finale, do you think, people will be most surprised at in terms of where they end up?

A) Do you want me to tell you who gets the empire?  What the he**, I’ll just tell you.  No, I’m not going to tell you.  What should I say about it; it’s a very explosive finale, not surprising, right, given the nature of our story telling, and many things go down, many things will be resolved, alliances will shift, and yet, it may or may not, be completely resolved by the time it’s over.

Q) If any supporting character of the show were to get a spinoff series, which one would you pick, and why?

A) Wow, that is a great question.  Which character, I mean, don’t you think Porsha?  Maybe Porsha? A Porsha spinoff, because she is a comic genius, she’s hilarious, and I believe it’s her first acting job. So, I think that could be an absolutely hilarious, maybe it’ll be like a buddy-cop show and I’ll play her sidekick.

Q) I saw that you live tweeted with a lot of the cast last night, how was that experience for you?

A) Oh, it was a blast.  I’ve been live tweeting every episode.  You know, I didn’t start Twitter until a week before Empire premiered, and I just realized that I’m tragically unhip and I need to catch up to world society; so I just started doing it and now I’m completely addicted to it.  I really love it and I’ve been live tweeting every episode, but it was really fun having everyone in the room together like that.  We had a big celebration last night and Fox took us all out to dinner to Nobu, and it was one of those very special nights, so to start it off with the entire company live tweeting the show together was a blast.  And, Taraji is just hilarious and just watching the show, with Taraji, is a priceless memory on its own.

Q) So, something I’ve been so impressed by with this show is that, yeah, it’s like soapy and crazy and fun, but you’ve also addressed a lot of very serious issues – homophobia, and the mental health hotline we had with Andre.  So how as a writer and executive producer, do you approach, kind of balancing those two elements; the fact that’s is soapy and over the top, and there’s cat fights, but also treating these issues seriously, which you do?

A) Well, it was very much in the DNA of the show from the very get-go that we knew we were going to be doing a nighttime soap, that that was going to be the genre we were going to be working in, but that we would be subverting the genre by tackling serious social issues head-on.  And, I think it was just a key element of what we thought would make the show interesting and dynamic, and it’s also very representation of just who, Lee Daniels and I are as writers and directors, and storytellers in general, which is we both always work on material that has some sort of social justice, social commentary component to it. I mean for me, and it’s one of the reasons why we are now doing a second project together, because we both share that spirit.  I mean, for me, I find that it’s also time consuming and so much work to do any kind of  project, and so if I’m going to invest that amount of time in something, I want to be able to work on material that I can talk about issues that are important to me, where for me, part of writing is to write about things that matter, I want to talk about, and I want to say things that I think matter and explore subject matter that is beyond just entertainment. But, I think simultaneously what that does is I think it makes the entertainment even richer.  I don’t think it’s medicine, being like, “okay, so we’re going to entertain you, but then also we have to teach you a lesson, too.”  I think it elevates everything and I think it makes drama and comedy more powerful, more layered, and just more interesting overall.  It’s what I value as an audience member, and it’s what I love to do as a writer. So, even working on the Hunger Games, was, there’s Mockingjay was all about propaganda and war and totalitarianism, and there were all these themes that made me want to do that project when it came up.

Q) Do you have a favorite storyline, or one that you’re particularly proud of how it’s played out this season?

A) Yeah, I mean the Jamal/Lucius storyline.  The homophobic father and his gay son and that relationship, to me, that was one, and it was in my original pitch to Lee, when I pitched it to him as a movie.  I said the heart of this movie is going to be about this father who won’t accept his son who’s gay.  When we decided to turn it into a TV show, I thought it was even more exciting to me, to explore homophobia in a way that was so brutal and so non-flinching, just right in your face, and to do that on network television, I thought it could be incredibly cool and maybe impactful. I never know if things are going to be impactful or not, I just kind of go for it, and Fox has been, they just got it right away, they never tried to pull that back from us or hold it back.  They knew it was a really important storyline, and it was extremely important to Lee because it very much reflects his own relationship with his father.

Q) With so much social media now, I know you were still in production when the show began and it became a big hit, has the audience feedback influenced the way you approach the show or give the characters a plotline in anyway, or do try to sort of block that out?

A) I, personally, try and block it out.  I’m not the only person here writing the show, I mean we have, Ilene Chaiken, who’s our showrunner, who is just fantastic, I mean so lucky to have her, and we have a killer writing staff.  Everyone just brings their “A” game every day because they are so passionate about the show.  And so, I’m not sure if they’re ever influenced or not, I don’t think so, but I mean, you just never know.  People are pitching ideas, and you just never know if they’ve just seen something. I remember with the bib exploding to the way it did in the second episode, and everyone going nuts over the bib, there was some talk of, “Let’s find another bib moment,” what’s a bib moment?  I actually cringed when that came up of, “Let’s find a bib moment,” because it’s just not how I work.  And then someone came up with a great bib moment, and I was like, “That’s brilliant, we have to do it.”  So sometimes, these things can be, you just never know what’s going to inspire an idea or not. I have to say, on the whole, it’s not choose your own adventure, the show got to this point by me and Lee and Ilene and our writers, and our executives at Fox, and 20^th, because they have a lot of influence, too.  Everyone just kind of rolling up their sleeves and everyone just trying to do the best job that we all can, and so that’s going to be the mindset going into Season 2.  We’ll stick to our guns of what made these stories great, that we tried to make them great.  I’ll let other people decide if they think they were, and we’ll just keep trying to do the best we can.

Q) How do you feel about doing 22 next year?

A) I don’t think we are. Yes.  I don’t know what we are doing at this point, it hasn’t been decided, but I don’t think 22 is a discussion.

Q) When you were putting together the season finale, was there an added pressure to outdo everything you had done the first twelve episodes, and how long did it take for it to come together?

A) Yes, season finale, I mean, we kept re-breaking it.  I wouldn’t say, I don’t know, I bet some people felt that pressure, I didn’t because I never think that coming up with stories to try and outdo something is a way that you’re going to come up with a good story.  That it just needs to come from the characters and the conflict and just the fundamentals of what makes a good story, and if you’re trying to outdo something or be specifically explosive, just for the sake of just outdoing it, I think that’s when things can get hacky. So, it was really just a matter of how can we conclude the season that we’ve set up and have been playing out in a way that was exciting and powerful and fun, but then also kept the door open to go into Season 2.  And it was tough, I mean, Ilene and I wrote the final episode together, and man, there were a lot of re-writes you know, it was pretty tense, and I think that, you know who felt the pressure was, I think  the network and the studio because the show had already hit, and so they were pounding us with notes.  But I have to say that the notes made it better, the notes were really good. Here’s the crazy thing about television, it’s just how fast it goes, and how it just moves so fast, and by the time we got to the season finale, by the time we got to writing it, we just ran out of time because of just everything else, finishing production and writing all the previous episodes.  So, it was one of the faster written episodes of the season, but at the end of the day, I think we really pulled it off, I think people are going to dig it.

 

 

*CONFERENCE CALL*