Will Forte, John Ridley and 'Lego Movie' directors talk evolving television landscape at SXSW

On paper, a panel with American Crime writer John Ridley and Last Man On Earth producers Will Forte, Chris Miller and Phil Lord seems a bit crazy. Ridley is known for his super-serious projects about important subjects in American life. Miller and Lord directed The LEGO Movie and Forte just created Last Man On Earth with the duo. But it was an insightful panel on Monday that went into the nitty gritty world that is today’s television landscape.

The topic of the panel was creating their shows, which are vastly different. But it was clear that SXSW organizers wanted to show that there were actually behind-the-scenes similarities between creating a comedy and a drama. Eugene Hernandez of the Film Society of Lincoln Center did a great job moderating the panel and bringing the similarities out.

Ridley started off by going over the origins of American Crime, a new series that just started on ABC and airs Thursday nights. While it would seem that ABC didn’t approach Ridley until after he scored a big success with the script for 12 Years A Slave, he said that he was approached before. While ABC is known for lighter, soapier fare, it was actually the network’s idea to do a series on crime in our modern society. He was certainly interested in looking at crime through the eyes of the families, not through police or prosecutors.

When asked what case really affected him during his youth, Ridley recalled the Central Park Jogger case, in which five young men were wrongly convicted. There was a “rush to judgement and rush to justice” there. He added that his show is “not about the crime, but the people.”

As for Last Man on Earth, Lord, Miller and Forte said it was created after they signed a deal with Fox to come up with something new. There were plenty of ideas, but near the end of the meeting, they came back to Last Man. (One of the discarded ideas was going to be based on Forte’s experiences with Val Kilmer as a roommate after the making of MacGruber.)

Both projects were certainly risky for broadcast networks. They also both have short seasons, with Crime only running 11 episodes. Forte, Miller and Lord said they refused to commit to Last Man unless Fox only ordered 13 episodes. They had “no disrespect” for anyone working on a show with 22-24 episodes per season, but it just makes things easier.

For Forte, the shorter season is great because otherwise it would be too much. As it is now, “My head is going to explode,” Forte said. He not only created the show and is always in the writers’ room, but also stars in it. Ridley enjoys the shorter seasons because it allows him to sign bigger stars, who might not be interested in signing long-term deals.

All four guys had some wise advice for the hopefuls in the audience who want to break into television. Lord and Miller spent 10 years failing before finding success, while Ridley joked that he’d spent twice as long before doing the same. When they finally decided to make what was important to them, they finally started finding an audience. For example, Ridley was really interested in slavery and, sure, he didn’t think many people wanted to see a movie about slavery, but he adapted 12 Years A Slave anyway.

They also went over how they each broke into Hollywood and got their first jobs. Forte’s past was pretty hilarious, as he sang a song he performed with The Groundlings in Los Angeles. He later said it was the song that got him hired by Saturday Night Live.

Warning: Video is a bit NSFW

Just before the panel had to break off, Forte did give a quick update on MacGruber 2. He’s “lightly deep” into that project.

photos by Daniel S Levine

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