Glenn Ficarra
Appearances
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
Yes, it was. We begged. Sorry. We were in Toronto, so we weren't able to do it.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
You know, this is an interesting story. Do you mind if I tell the story? Sure. We had just dropped out of them. I went on vacation with my five-year-old six-year-old son. And the phone was ringing off the hook. And I was on the phone just constantly. And the whole trip, and I wasn't able to engage with my son. I feel like I'm missing my son's childhood. And we were booked to go do a movie.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
And I said, you know what? We got to drop out of this movie because I just can't. I can't leave my son. I can't, you know, I can't just not be part of him being raised, you know? And we quit the movie and a lot of people very angry with us. And Dan's script landed on our desk the next day.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
Cats and Dogs. I saw Cats and Dogs. Glenn Ficarra was the voice of the Russian kitty. Stop it. Wait a minute. Breaking news, hot take. I think about the baby puppy.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
And it was shooting in LA. I mean, it's just like sometimes that's, and we wouldn't have been able to do it if we had kept that movie. So it was just...
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
And by the way, you can ask Dan about this. Can you say we said this? Okay. More than anything Dan's ever written, the pilot of This Is Us is a real reflection of his whole life.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
And you should pin him down about that. Because I read it, and I'm like, Dan, this is not a script. This is you. Because so much of his back story, and he won't want to talk about a lot of it. But it was a beautiful thing. It came straight from inside him and his heart. We knew him well enough at that point to really feel it. It was really great.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
dropping in on a conversation in the family. Right. And so two eyes, always trying to do two eyes over and always trying to crowd the frame. So like you're holding a piece of, like the camera's over here, you're shooting over someone's shoulder and you want to hold a piece of that person in the shot. So there's always two people in the shot.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
And also in the cutting pattern, staying on the listener,
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
more than than you normally would okay so you see people reacting to dialogue as opposed to just and as you know that was a big thing yes and then in the exact opposite for paradise paradise is oftentimes you'll know two one eye like profile because so you're not inside this is a mystery yeah like you're not in you're not in you're not invited in you're outside of this thing
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
And you want in, you want more information. And this is like, we want to give you too much information. We want to make the audience feel uncomfortable that they're dropping in on this comic.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
Yeah, uncomfortable that they're being brought into this family and getting the secrets that they shouldn't be getting. And that's that voyeuristic thing. I think it worked. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, you know, remember, we would always put the camera and you'd be, we were eventually told not to do that anymore, but we would let the actors drive. Yeah. Remember this?
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
And we would sit, we'd be in the backseat with a camera.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
And we would just shoot you in the backseat like that. Like, like you would a documentary or something. Yeah.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
Yeah, yeah. They were not happy.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
yeah that's a good point i mean that's a good point because dan and and glenn and i were doing mixed tone and we sort of found each other right and we were like oh wow we're doing the same thing yeah and that and the show was mixed tone right yeah definitely yeah and i think probably that earlier seasons were a little
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
And then as the seasons roll by, everybody goes to a funeral and they're talking to a friend they haven't seen in a long time and then they laugh and they look around, they're like, oh, I just laughed at a funeral, but that's life. Life is like crying and laughing at the same time. And mechanistically, storytelling, it's the rents. We call it the rents.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
Like you're telling a story, because this show was about surprises, always was about big surprises. That was part of the dynamic of the show, was we're trying to hide things from the very beginning and conceal things and then surprise people. We're in a different timeframe, whatever it is. And so what you do is you make people laugh and they stop. investigating the show.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
They stop, they just kind of roll with it. They laugh and they forget about it and they forget that maybe they would have, if you wouldn't have gone for that laugh, they would have kind of made it, figured out what you were doing. Figured out the tricks. But the laugh, we would call it the rinse. It would give you like a restart.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
And then, and then so like a couple of laughs and then suddenly you reveal it's, You know, Randall's an old man and it's the future.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
Yeah, that was like, and that was the rents, you know, it's like the rents, they call it. Interesting. We call it.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
The house is made completely out of fire-resistant material. And then they pipe it like a barbecue. It's just all these pipes. The whole thing is all these things. And they turn it on and light them up just like your barbecue kind of thing. And that's what it is. So it's like, turn it on, turn it off. And nothing will keep burning. Nothing.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
Board means storyboard. We storyboarded. So every shot was a picture and a storyboard that we could reference. Those art classes were coming back now.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
Well, it's just interesting. We went to art school, and we liked to complain about we were the worst kids in the class. But those lessons we learned in our foundation classes, which were drawing, light color design, and 3D, we use every day when we direct. So it's a good thing to learn about that.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
But mainly it was about building that set and making it really safe and making it filled with gas elements, just like you have at the bottom of your barbecue, a gas pipe with all these holes in it that just starts pumping out gas.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
So the gas would come as a clean flame like gas does. It burns clean. And then the smoke would come from a smoke machine. So you have two separate things. And the smoke isn't smoke. It's that kind of oil-based stuff. It's not really smoke. It's like Roscoe Fogger. Bodega incense.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
Yeah, there's no, so there's no, you can never build up carbon dioxide or whatever. It is so much fun. It was like those kinds of things, like the White House set in Paradise. It's just like, it's just like, it's just a thrill. A kid in a candy store, yeah.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
You sign a contract, and they make you do it. I got you. You know how it is. I do indeed. We would have loved to come back. We would have loved to come back every season, but it just didn't work out.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
Because we came up with some tricky little directory shot. You remember that? Yeah. Yes. We put a blue screen behind you so that we would shoot the people running to the emergency room to save Jack in slow motion.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
So that you would be talking on the phone and you'd see these people running in slow motion behind you. The shot is dope. It's so cool. You're spilling your guts. So you wanted like, you know, so we felt bad about that.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
Just like Memphis. By the way, we talked about that making the pilot. We talked about Like, well, what are we gonna do? How are we gonna reveal the actual death? And we were sort of on the pilot. Dan was like, what am I gonna do? And we're sort of like trying to figure it out. And so like the kind of the beginnings of it were happening while we were shooting the pilot on the set.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
The rumination is long. Yeah. But then, yeah, I mean, I have to, and then Memphis.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
That was, and then dear old Ron, you know, I mean, and just like so many great, remember like the improv scenes.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
continuity or anything you just have to because we were we went there on a location scout and we were talking to the memphis film board person and we're like um was the the big hotel where the the ducks play body part the body hotel there's they bring the ducks down and there's a guy right yeah sorry and that's part of the story of the episode we said was it restricted back
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
when this would have happened, would black people have been allowed in here? And she said, well, I know they had a colored day at the zoo. And it just hit me like a ton of bricks. I'm like, they kept black kids away from the zoo. And it just hit me.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
like a ton of bread and i'm like we need to address this we need to make this part of the show because it's like kids want to see animals and it's depressing sure you know god bless you yeah and we just made it it was great and to do that with ron ron was sick at the time yeah yeah and it was it was all very loaded the podcast
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
Speaking of crying in the podcast, my Aunt Rita, remember you did that video for me for my Aunt Rita? She was very sick on death's door. Sully did a video for her. She just had her 92nd birthday. She showed that video to all her friends. Look at you. That's amazing. She did a turnaround when that video came out. It was the video?
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
It was the video. She's the biggest This Is Us fan.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
Yeah, yeah. And we try to get the show up on its feet. And then the show has a life of its own. Because creating the world is the fun part, the style. For me, at least. But we were, you know, Parenthood was going off the air. Right. And we were like, oh, well, we were doing our pilot. Maybe we can get that little slot of the family show. Yeah.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
And Dan and Glenn and I were making jokes on set about dramedy con. Like, oh, this show's going to be a giant hit. It's going to be drama. Like, making fun of the fact that nobody watches dramedy in large numbers. It's not going to be a thing. Right. And then, and we were like, and then the show came out and it was very successful. And we're like, what, who knew?
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
No, no, we thought we were going to get our, we wanted our little corner of TV to do our, the things that we love, which is dramedy, you know, dramatic comedy. And, and we were like, oh, we just want our little corner of Hollywood to do our thing with Dan and Dan and us. And then, and then it came out and America was hungry for this show. We didn't even know.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
I mean, because the joke about Dramedy Con was that it was like, because that's like, you know, all the only thing that's popular is things that have like conventions like Marvel and like, you know, they're like and like there's going to we're going to do Dramedy Con because that's such a ridiculous concept. It's a really good idea.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
Yeah. We were like, and this is just stuff we were doing.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
Cameron Crow-a-thon. Yeah. And so we were joking about it. And then Dan had to leave town. And he says, can you guys take over? We're going to do, what is that? Paley Fest. The Paley Fest.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
at the theater where they do the Oscars, at the Kodak Theater. And we walk out with the cast and it's packed with thousands of people and they're all on their feet. And I'm like, and I'm texting with Dan. I'm like, Dan, it's dramedy con.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
That's his love language. He's excellent at it.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
It is his love language. I'll come in. I came in the other day, or this is a while ago, and I was crying about how much I love my wife. And most people would be like, any of you would go, oh, that's so sweet. And he was just like, oh, you. Wimp. He came after me so hard. And you just love him for it. Yeah, that's him. I mean, he's got this unbelievable reservoir of emotion. He does.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
And his stuff, it's just so lovely and warm. But even when we're doing a thriller, you know what I mean? Yeah. But it's just like he likes that.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
Well, he just likes it. You know, I remember one, it's just something funny. I don't know if you'll think this is funny. I remember once we were like, oh, we're working with Tina Fey. Yeah. She's really great. She's probably the funniest person I've ever met. And he was like, what?
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
Well, that's the thing about him. We'll see about that.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
There was a stiff wind blowing behind Sterling. And Dan was like, okay, I never really heard of him.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
And then I have a different answer. Well, my answer is, you know, everything we do is collaboration. We're a team. And so we don't get coffee without collaborating. You know what I mean? So that, we just try to open,
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
that world of collaboration and bring people in and join us in the collaboration and try to find the strength of the collaboration, you know, and make people feel welcome to share their ideas. And I mean, cause I just think things get better.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
Somebody has to be there to, the buck has to stop somewhere, obviously, otherwise you're never going to make your day, you know, but, but you, but you know, that's just, that's everybody bring your ideas, you know, let's play, let's play.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
You're like a strong, lovable guy.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
In fact, at this location in Glendale, California, we were picked up by a van to go location scout for season two. This is true.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
You're like, oh, there it is. Yeah. Remember on Paradise? I said, that's as positive as you get. Yeah. You remember that?
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
And so when we're trying to create a new character, we're just...
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
You once told me a fascinating story that I think is maybe germane here, which is you once told me a story where you were in Chicago, on the play Chicago, the musical Chicago, on Broadway. And you were taking over for somebody who had been there. And you were like, you had two. You came in for rehearsals one day, you said, and you were able to watch it as much.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
You could come and get a free ticket and watch it as much as you want. But basically, all these people who have been doing this play forever and ever, you just come on one day. And you're there, and you're singing and dancing in front of thousands of people. And I'm like, that's how those directors feel.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
Yeah, we always said one thing before I go. We always said the great thing about being a director for Glenn and I and why I think we were inclusive and make people collaborate, help make people feel free to collaborate, is because when actors are in it, for me and Glenn, it's like we're like a kid at a magic show. And you guys were the best magic show of all. Those early days. Oh, gosh.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
Well, you know, it's an interesting thing. In college, you make movies about death that are morbid and depressing and you think you're going to be a serious filmmaker. Then we would have little side projects that were funny and not emotional but character-based. And everybody loved those and everybody hated their serious films about death.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
Back when we had to shoot on film and you'd spend a fortune on getting the film and then you do some stupid thing on the video and everybody's like, I saw that, that was amazing, all across the campus at our school. We have a clip. And we were, if we have any intelligence about us, we were like, well, maybe we should just go with the thing that people like. What was the campus?
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
It was Pratt in Brooklyn, very near Susan. Oh, cool.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
So Susan grew up in the neighborhood. We must have bumped into her. Of course, she was young. Yes. Yeah. But anyway, we were smart enough to go, OK, well, we seem to be good at this. So let's just follow that. And instead of the thing, the highfalutin stuff we thought we were going to do.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
Directing in more ways than one. No, it was our first directing. But we've been working together as writers and making short films since college.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
And we were also the guys who... You know, I mean, it wasn't a serious film class. We went film one class. They were like, what was the film that got you here? I'm not, this is not a joke. Everybody said Empire Strikes Back. I said Lawrence of Arabia and he said Clockwork Orange. We were the only two guys in the entire class who didn't say Empire Strikes Back.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
Yeah, we were the only guys who actually knew about other movies besides Star Wars. Sure. So we were like, I think we should hang out.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
Yeah, we were just making short films that tickled us. And then we made a bunch of short film collections and they were, they did the circuit.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
The New York Underground Film Festival. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The New York Underground Film Festival. They were there. Which Tom Phillips was on them. Yeah, Todd Phillips was on the board. He was running that.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
We've known Todd since when we were just like pimply-faced college kids. We've known Todd. Pour a pitcher of beer over his head, too. And so that got a lot of interest. And then somebody paid us to write a screenplay. They paid us $7,000.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
That's huge. To write a screenplay. And we wrote a screenplay. And then he loved that. Gabe Sachs, who's still working in the business out there. And hey, Gabe, if you're listening, And then Gabe then paid us $10,000 to write another screenplay. And just basically whatever, we would just pitch it to him and we weren't union. So we had these things and these things became our calling card. Yeah.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
Never got made. Yeah, never got made, but we built our career on just people passed them around and loved the scripts.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
We check with each other real quick. We usually, one of us has a better idea of what they want and we can kind of sense that like one's more passionate than the other and we back down. Okay. Yeah. And we, early on, we were really conscientious about like not talking over each other.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
Because directing teams are so rare in our early career. They were so rare and people were weirded out by it. But now there's lots of directing teams and we have a bit of a reputation. So now we just, you know how it is now. We just come down and like, shut up guys, shut up. I mean, we used to have just one of you talk.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
The DGA, the Director's Guild of America, is OK with it now. But if you, for example, Joel and Ethan Coen, their first five movies, I think, are produced by Ethan, directed by Joel, because they would not give them shared credit, even though they directed them together. They were brothers. And they were brothers. They had worked together their whole life.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
And so the DGA was sort of, and when we joined as a team, we had to make a movie independently in order to qualify to be a team. And we were grilled. We were like brought in and like, it was like the interrogation scene. About your knowledge of directing? Just about like, you guys are gonna divide the work.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
What's interesting about when we write stuff, one of the reasons we bonded with Dan so strongly when we made Crazy Stupid Love was he was just like, oh, if the scene wasn't working, he goes, oh, it's the writing. Just change it. And that's our attitude, too. When it's our writing, we're just like, oh, this writing is terrible. Just change it.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
Anything you can come up with is going to be better than this. And we have that attitude about our writing. Most writers are like, they missed a comma. Very precious about it, sure. And they just want to, they feel like they're being robbed. We're just like, obviously, it's a disaster. The script is a disaster. And you actors are going to come along and save us. That's just our attitude.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
And Dan was the same way. And we were like, oh, god, we thought we were the only ones who were like that. And he's like, no, clearly there's got to be something better. So we shoot scripted, and then we like just to goof around.
That Was Us
John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Us | Directors & Producers
And it's nice to be a writer when you're directing, and if the scene's not working, you get the scripted scene and then you're like, okay guys, you guys, you know, let's figure it out. Let's figure it out. You know, let's just sit down and figure out how to make this scene work. And then you just go back and you sort of improv and do a little thing and fix the scene.