“I love storytelling and I think I’ve always been an observant person, when it comes to reveling in human dynamics,” says Dan Levy. “As an observer of people, writing felt like an easy outlet to express my curiosity about who people are, how they work, and the flaws and joys of who we are as people.”
In addition to growing up in the business thanks to his father Eugene Levy, Dan Levy had a teacher pull him aside and encourage him in his writing. “I really attribute so much of my feeling capable and confident to that experience. In high school, you’re at a vulnerable point in your life and teachers have the capability of inspiring and instilling a drive in you to do something.”
Eventually, the lane that felt home for Levy’s work was somewhere between comedy and drama, with the occasional moment of pathos. “I love the fine balance of comedy and drama. I love acting it, writing it. I think it’s truthful and life.” We obviously see this on Levy’s hit series Schitt’s Creek, but also in his latest film, Good Grief.
He explains, “There’s always comedy in the darkest of times. I think it’s a coping mechanism. As human beings, we have to laugh to get through things. I’ve never subscribed to the idea that you should only do one thing — only comedy or only drama — that they can’t live together. Life is both drama and comedy living together. That’s what everyday is.”
“In over eighty episodes, we got to write these tender moments, hidden in the comedy of Schitt’s Creek, which was the most exciting part. Those little emotional character reveals and moments of humanity, I think that’s what made the show successful. It had heartbeat and real emotional stakes. It was because of that I felt capable of writing my take on a drama, which was about grief, but had joy, laughter, and lightness to it. I’ll always want to live in that sweet spot of comedy and drama.”
The Origin of Good Grief
The original idea of Good Grief was to write about friendship. “Schitt’s Creek was about family. We touched on friendship, but I wanted that to be the focus [for this film]. My friends have been there for me in times of great need. I just haven’t seen enough movies where friendship is enough and it is enough.”
Levy describes the current culture, at least in cinema, as one where if the protagonist doesn’t fall in love at the end, it’s unfulfilling. “To me, friendship is the love story. To give that the time and the space that it deserves is important. At the same time, the pandemic brought on this collective grief. I lost my grandmother and lost my dog. I was grieving, wondering what it all means, and combining this curiosity around grief and a desire to tell a story about friendship. The story kind of came to me.”
Levy, who undoubtedly received countless offers for other projects thanks to the massive success of Schitt’s Creek, needed to work on something personal and would advise up-and-coming writers to do the same. “It’s a huge commitment of time,” he says of the process. “To sit down and write is an incredibly isolating experience and then to direct, to build something up from the ground up, it takes everything you have. It’s such a huge investment of time and emotional and physical energy, that if you’re not totally in love with what you’re doing, it’s going to catch up with you.”
Sophie (Ruth Negga) & Marc (Daniel Levy) Photo courtesy of Netflix
‘“In order to ride the creative beast, you have to have the love for it. That’s what stops it from feeling like work. That’s what the thrill is. After Schitt’s Creek, I had to figure out what idea I loved enough to go back into that all-consuming space and build from the ground up. Between Schitt’s Creek and this project, there’s a lot of love there. That’s the only way I can do it.”
The screenwriter isn’t a fan of the idea that creatives are put in a box once they find success in the industry. “I believe we should be able to explore any and every facet of creativity if our ideas are good enough.” For Levy, this means acting in films like Happiest Season, writing and directing Good Grief, and executive producing a chef competition series for HBO Max called The Big Brunch. “My hope is that I can continue to adhere to that philosophy and tell whatever story comes next, but you need the passion and love to stay afloat.”
Television, Movies, and Multiple Hats
When deciding if a story is best told as a movie or TV series, Levy advises writers to think of the “legs of the idea.” He continues, “A lot of times for TV, you’ll have a premise, explore the premise and realize, ‘Oh, I don’t know where this can go after Episode 3,’ so you stop or recalibrate. Can this live as a movie? Oftentimes, no, because it was intended as a TV show.”
Good Grief was always intended to be a “singular story told in 97 minutes. If you are thinking thoughtfully about it, TV has to live for seasons and seasons, and still be interesting. It’s tricky, because I’ll be excited about an idea, sit down to write Episode 1, then try to plot out the rest of the season and think, ‘Well, that was a great idea and we are putting it on hold for now,’” he jokes.
The writer-director-actor-producer gives credit to his time hosting MTV Live for his ability to wear many hats on a project. “We did a lot of scripted sketches. We had a ton of freedom to sit and edit and produce our own work. I do believe one thing leads to another, leads to another. By the time we started making Schitt’s Creek, practically speaking of how things work, it really comes down to having a really strong conviction of what you want to make, so if anyone on set has a question, you have an answer.”
Theo (Arnaud Valois) & Marc (Daniel Levy) Photo courtesy of Netflix
For Schitt’s Creek, he knew how he wanted the characters to dress, how he wanted the show to look, how the tone of the dialogue would be, and the boundaries of comedy and drama. “That clarity of focus is so important. If you have it, it allows the multiple hats to feel less overwhelming. You have to have the totality of the idea. If you’ve done that kind of work, while it’s incredibly difficult, it’s not as difficult if I didn’t know the answers to people’s questions.”
Trusted Advisors
As for tackling new projects, Levy reaches out to friends for advice quite often. “While it’s not mentorship, the advice I would give to someone new is not to let your ego stand in the way of involving friends, or people you trust to read things, and don’t let their feedback be met with hesitation. Be open as you possibly can. You, as the writer, can hear what people are thinking to figure out what means something to you and what you can adjust for an audience. They won’t understand sections that make perfect sense to you, but maybe it doesn’t to an audience. The conversation is so valuable.”
For Good Grief, he walked friends through a beat board and they immediately helped rearrange the plot to make it more clear. “It made a ton of sense and I was too in my own head, sitting in my office day in and day out. To bring people in, that’s a strength, not a weakness. To say I know what I want to make and I’m going to turn to the people I trust and be open enough to take that feedback. I still can’t believe I wrote a movie. It’s wild.”
That’s some good advice from Levy, so when asked about common bad advice, he thought about notes he has received in the past. “I don’t know if it’s bad advice, but sometimes you get notes and [it’s unclear] if it’s a note in service of the story or a note in service of the sale of the story. You have to pick and choose what you want to do. If I feel there’s adjustments that are about easing people’s understanding or softening the blow, I have little interest in that. I’m a subscriber to the idea that we have strong attachments to things we don’t understand but want to understand.”
“If we’re a half step in front of the audience, it forces a kind of active communication, active participation, to understand, question and disagree. That’s the exciting dialogue. Audiences don’t care when they’re spoon fed. They won’t walk away and think about what you’ve done. There are compromises that have to be made for a variety of reasons, but knowing what you want to say clearly enough, ‘I’ll do that but not that’ because it’s softening the edges, that’s the dance.”
“The most heartbreaking thing you can do is come up with an idea, have it filtered through a thousand different people with a thousand different agendas, prioritize getting it made over the integrity of the idea, have it come out and not represent your idea at all, because it’s somehow a different thing. You go to sleep thinking it’s a nightmare. People don’t like it or they do, but you don’t recognize it. It’s not you, not your voice, the intentions are off and you can’t ever take that back. All we can do as writers is fight for what we believe in and hope if you surround yourself with the right team of people, they will understand, appreciate, and fight for that too.”
Pitching Personal Ideas
When it comes to pitching, the advice we hear most is to compare the idea to others on the market. For Levy, who perhaps wants to do something different, he advises writers to “be thorough.” Levy adds, “From my experience, a lot of ideas come in and they’re a bit half-baked. You have to have an answer for every question someone can ask you about your pitch.”
“You have to know your characters, know their backstories, understand little pieces of information that aren’t even in your pitch. You have to be able to fill-in-the-blanks for people. You have to assure the buyers that what they’re buying is a surefire success, or that they don’t have to question that you have what it takes to follow through on the idea.”
“It’s annoying,” he jokes, “because it requires a lot of effort and a lot of time. I know as writers we want to write down great ideas and take in a hot pitch, but the minute someone says, ‘Will this B character be in the rest of the story?’ And you say, ‘We haven’t really got there yet, but I think they will…’ No one wants to hear that. They want concrete answers. My production company takes a lot of pitches and what we respond to most is specificity.”
“Writing is a hustle. I understand I’m speaking from a level of privilege where I can pick and choose. A lot of my friends can’t, but you have to believe in what you’re writing. A lot of times we hear things like, ‘This streaming service is looking for this type of programming,’ but the number of times I hear someone say ‘I just want to sell the show’ and they’re writing for someone, they’re not in it. They’re writing content, which is my least favorite word. We’re not making content! We are making beautiful stories for the world to take in.”
“All of the success stories in film and television come down to singular ideas. I know we want the job or the pay check, but success comes from people who have something specific to say and just went for it. You can’t write for someone else, because you feel it in the work. It’s been tailor-made for something or someone, where ultimately you don’t know if they want it in the first place, and it just feels hollow. Write for yourself, not for someone else.”
This interview has been condensed. Listen to the full interview here.
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