My disillusionment had begun at my very first writing job but was momentarily staved off by a positive experience at Freaks and Geeks. Then came Friends. When my agent told me the Friends team wanted to meet with me, I was stunned. It was America's most popular sitcom-and I had been writing for only two years. But somehow, after a grueling, eight-person interview, I got the job.
MY FIRST DAY, in July 2000, was a nerve-racking blur. The staff had 14 writers, which was large, but this show had a big budget and high expectations. Five of the writers were women. I was the only minority. (NBC had just launched a diversity program, and the network was making efforts to hire more writers of color. On principle, I support affirmative-action policies. But in practice? It's a major mindf-ck. You can't tell if they want you for your talent or your race.) The creators, Marta Kauffman and David Crane, took us all to an Italian restaurant for the "annual welcome lunch," which had the forced feeling of Thanksgiving dinner with relatives you don't like. In all of my fears about the new job, I never predicted the writing staff would be so cliquey. They reminded me of the rich kids in my high school who drove brand-new convertibles.
Each 12-hour day started in a giant conference room. At 10 a.m. people would trickle in, then we'd break into two teams to work on separate episodes. David would always lead one room and Marta the other. I was scared of them both, for different reasons. David, an impossible-to-please workaholic, was always looking for a better line or joke. Marta had a booming voice and would rest her bare feet on the table while we worked. Our chitchat was always tense.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der September 04, 2023-Ausgabe von Time.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent ? Anmelden
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der September 04, 2023-Ausgabe von Time.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent? Anmelden
A timely thriller for a mad, mad world
A’70s-style paranoid thriller grounded in the partisan polarization of today
Freshwater reserves
A troubling dip
An exuberant ode to human possibility
VERY RARELY DOES THE RIGHT MOVIE ARRIVE AT precisely the right time, at a moment when compassion is in short supply and the collective human imagination has come to feel shrunken and desiccated.
Broadcasting a crisis for the world to see
ON SEPT. 5, 1972, A 32-YEAR-OLD PRODUCER NAMED Geoffrey S. Mason was working in a control room for ABC Sports in Munich while 12 hostages, including several members of the Israeli Olympic delegation, were being held in a building nearby.
The Power of the Peer
WITH MENTAL-HEALTH CARE IN SHORT SUPPLY, CAN REGULAR PEOPLE FILL THE GAP?
QUEERING THE STORY
Luca Guadagnino directs Daniel Craig in an adaptation of William S. Burroughs' 1985 novella Queer
Shopping under the influence
LTK CO-FOUNDER AMBER VENZ BOX SAW THE FUTURE OF RETAIL. IT TOOK YEARS FOR THE REST OF THE WORLD TO CATCH UP
The Kingmaker
Elon Musk's partnership with the President-elect
Turkey's Erdogan plots his next power grab
RECEP TAYYIP Erdogan is a political survivor.
Why maiden names matter in the age of AI and identity
IN THE DIGITAL AGE, A NAME IS MORE THAN JUST A label. It's tied to our professional history and social media presence.