|Sam.Meikle|
Sam Meikle. There are so many things I respect about this man. Yes, he’s amiable (built into his Aussie genes, I suppose), but he’s also incredibly savvy when it comes to storytelling. He’s smart, talented, collaborative, and he knows how to create worlds.
His show, WAKEFIELD tackles one of the most important topics of our time: mental health. When I watched the trailer, I could see a world that was created with emotional substance, style, and grace.
RS: Five words to describe yourself.
SM: Curious. Driven. Looking to laugh.
RS: When did you know that you had a career in writing?
SM: Writing my first episode of the first TV show I worked on. I’d graduated film school about eighteen months earlier and managed to get myself hired straight into the writing department of a long running medical drama called All Saints. I was the equivalent of a staff writer, taking notes in the writers’ room and getting coffees. In my second year I was assigned an episode – and it went well. It was a 1-hour credit. I was off!
Then of course the reality caught up with me… So many factors play a part. Talent, luck, personality, timing, circumstance. How well you weather your screw-ups. Nothing is actually guaranteed. In a sense, there’s a covenant that’s constantly being renewed. In return for access and opportunity, I need to stay engaged, hungry for new modes and ideas, new skills and people – and generous. For me, the essence of creativity is generosity.
RS: If a perfect place to sit down and write exists, what would that space look like for you?
SM: A home office, lots of glass, with a view of the water.
RS: Do you have any rituals when it comes to your writing?
SM: Two coffees a day – sometimes three. And first thing in the morning I skim read 10-15 news outlets from around the world.
RS: What is your strength as a writer? Your weakness?
SM: I think my strength is curiosity. And my weakness is impatience.
RS: You often hear that what makes a great writer is their voice. What does this mean to you?
SM: In specific terms, voice for me is the marriage between a writer’s world view – history, culture, values – and their sensibilities – rhythm, tone, and vernacular.
Voice for me is the marriage between a writer’s world view and their sensibilities. But there’s an intangible too.
But there’s an intangible too. The experience of a writer’s voice. It’s about what they have to say – and how entertaining they can be in saying it. Does the writer grip me, compel me forward, surprise and move me?
Sometimes it feels like every story has been told. The thing that makes a story new again is the writer’s voice. The way they tell the story. If a writer pours themselves into a script, I can’t get that anywhere else – and it’s special.
RS: Are you an auditory or visual learner?
SM: It varies. Both.
RS: What’s the difference between U.S. and Australian TV pitches?
SM: This is very general, but – in the most part, an Australian pitch starts with written material. A 1-pager, 3 pages, a 5-to-10-page outline, a look-book. That facilitates a meeting with a production company. Adjustments are made, then you go and talk to a broadcaster or streamer to see if they’re interested in developing the project further. That often leads to a writers’ room, a bible and a pilot script.
In the past, producers have done the pitching without the writer present, but that’s changing now.
In the U.S., you’ve done a good part of the development yourself, worked it up into an engaging presentation, and you’re pitching to write the pilot. It’s writer-centric. It’s also performative in a way that Australian pitches haven’t been typically. We’re more conversational.
RS: This might be a loaded question, but what do you think we (in the U.S.) get right and what might we be doing wrong?
SM: The breadth and depth of what the U.S. produces, the appetite for new ideas, new ways of doing things and approaching the creative, is genuinely thrilling. There’s an ambition to push the envelope. And so many outlets, each with their own taste and imperatives.
It feels like there’s nothing you can create that won’t have a home somewhere. Even a show with a niche audience is still viable in a way that it might not be in other places.
The great flow-on to writers is that it demands you be very specific about what you’re making and who you’re trying to talk to.
Beautiful writing is compelling and affecting in and of itself. Great acting, directing and design don’t require a book/movie/graphic novel/magazine article as a base to take your breath away.
The major question I have right now – and not just for the U.S. – is around the reliance on underlying IP. I understand the rationale regarding established audiences and risk mitigation, but I believe it’s an ever-evaporating pool.
Also, potentially great movies and shows are being strangled in their cribs simply because their creators have tended their inner gardens, rather than harvesting from someone else’s fields. A good idea is a good idea. Beautiful writing is compelling and affecting in and of itself.
Great acting, directing and design don’t require a book/movie/graphic novel/magazine article as a base to take your breath away.
I’d love to see broadcasters, streamers and studios around the world take a more agnostic view.
RS: What does an Aussie writer’s room look like?
SM: Our rooms are pretty much like writers’ rooms all over the world. When they’re working well, it’s a bunch of writers coming together to spill their guts out on the table for their friends and colleagues to pick through and cannibalize.
RS: We are making strides pertaining to diversity — in front of and behind the cameras, in writer’s rooms, etc. What does diversity look like in Australia?
SM: Like everywhere else in the world, we’re trying to address diversity in a meaningful way. Clearly, for too long, key creatives from many different backgrounds have been denied inclusion, which has meant that deserving artists have had to fight harder just to be heard, or just withered on the vine.
More than that, our stories haven’t been as representative or rich as they could’ve been. I feel like broadly, the industry here recognises that and there have been a number of initiatives launched to start the process of accelerating opportunity and inclusion. But it is a process — some things will work and some won’t. I do sense a genuine commitment though. We will get there.
RS: You constantly hear, “write what you know” — is this a frustrating question for writers? How do you embrace that question and how does it show up in your writing?
SM: If it’s taken literally – that you can only write from lived experience – then I worry it’s limiting rather than inspiring and empowering. At its best, I take it to mean, what idea, experience, or emotional truth is occupying you at this moment? What does it make you want to say to the world? What is the most entertaining and truthful way to say it?
“Write what you know” is useful in a practical way when something is not working. It’s usually because it’s not growing out of anything real. The discipline then is to go back to where it’s personal to you and re-interrogate the work.
I do think you have to know how a piece of writing, or a show, is personal to you. That holds true for something you’ve generated and something you’ve been hired on to.
‘Write what you know’ is useful in a practical way when something is not working. It’s usually because it’s not growing out of anything real. The discipline then is to go back to where it’s personal to you and re-interrogate the work.
RS: How do you approach character? What’s a comfortable amount of back story you like to give them?
SM: It’s a bit of a movable feast. At a minimum, in order to tap into a character’s world view, I need to know the basics: where they grew up, socio-economics, family dynamics, any major traumas or successes. I also have to know the contrasts at the heart of a character. These things might amount to a handful of bullet points.
It depends on the form of the work. In a feature film you’ve only got two hours, so to a degree I think you’ve got to know everything because the life of the characters outside the frame is as important as what’s on-screen. In TV, I feel like you’ve got more scope to discover along the way because invariably, the longer the story goes on, the more of the life outside the frame – and the character’s history – is going to find its way on-screen.
RS: How many characters have you created where you’ve included traits based on people you know?
SM: Every character has something of someone you’ve either met or are close to. How can they not?
RS: Are there any books that are your go-to books when you feel stuck in your writing? If so, which ones?
SM: Not so much books. I’ve read a bookshelf’s worth of screenwriting manuals – and a lot of them were great. Now it’s about process. If I get stuck, I go back on two fronts:
Creatively, I go to questions. Why did I want to write what’s in front of me? What am I trying to say? What intrigued me about a particular character when I started? What does that character want? What is the character desperate for the world not to know about them? What do I want the audience to feel in this moment? At the end of the piece? What scene or sequence was I really looking forward to writing when I set out?
Mechanically, there are ways to shake things up that can be really productive. Write this scene in an hour – good or bad – move on and come back. Reverse the status of the scene or story. Who really has the upper-hand? Change a hero to a villain and a villain to a hero. Start the story with the climax. Move the turning points around. Change a character’s vocation.
The list goes on… Most of which won’t be in your submitted draft, but they can open up possibilities – and that’s all you need to launch on again.
RS: When mapping out a series, do you ever know or imagine what your last episode will look like?
SM: If it’s a limited series, particularly a mystery of some sort, I think it’s essential.
If it’s a longer-run show, I try to have a sense of how the characters and stories could evolve across a number of seasons. It might only be a loose guess, but I think it keeps you focused on endowing the present with the potential of the future, which rewards a loyal audience over time.
RS: If a studio gave you carte blanche to remake any movie, what would it be? TV Show? Why?
SM: The West Wing. Only I wouldn’t remake it – I love the original so much – I’d love to see Aaron Sorkin reboot it as a limited series.
The West Wing: RFK. What if Robert Kennedy had survived the attack in 1968 and won the presidency? What would he have done as president? Where would the world be today? As far as why? Because I think 1968 marked the moment where the world – or certainly the west – broadly took the path of the individual’s wants and desires over the greater needs of society.
And now more than ever we need to see the alternative path lit – with all of Sorkin’s intellect, heart, and wit.
RS: What is your all time favorite comedy? Drama? Why?
SM: TV: As above – The West Wing. Because – those characters, wielded by Aaron Sorkin.
Movies: Tootsie – genius on every level. Funny, insightful, brilliantly plotted, surprising and inevitable. Also, Braveheart – anthemic devotion to the sacrifice required for true love.
RS: IF you can recall, what was the last thing that you overheard a stranger say that tickled you or was memorable?
SM: “Second-hand wedding dress shop.”
I was walking along the Esplanade on Balmoral Beach in Sydney with a buddy and two young women passed by. The only grab of their conversation that I caught was this. I didn’t get any context – before or after. It was literally a moment, but I haven’t stopped thinking about it.
I mean, it’s an ode to broken dreams in five words – or a nod to hope and resilience. I can’t decide which. Maybe both. But it’s definitely the beginning of a new show premise.
RS: What form of communication do you prefer? Email? Text? An actual voice? Zoom?
SM: Hard to go past a face-to-face conversation.
RS: Give me one word to describe each: Tik Tok. Instagram. Facebook.
SM: Frivolous. Transporting. Useful.
RS: Your description on Twitter: you write, “Soft drink aficionado.” How so?
SM: I decided at 15 that I wasn’t going to drink alcohol – so I’ve tried and tested a lot of alternatives. And I have to say Coca Cola is the greatest beverage ever invented. It is my vice.
RS: Lastly, you have kids: What’s the best lesson you’ve learned (so far) from them?
SM: No matter what you might think is important in any given moment, there’s always something genuinely more important.
There you have it. The sensational Sam Meikle.
His new show, WAKEFIELD premieres Monday, October 18th on Showtime. I know where I’ll be!
WAKEFIELD’S Official Showtime Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yo_03zhQC4
For more Q&A’s: https://rebecca-stay.com/blog
Bio:
Sam Meikle is a highly experienced writer and creator with over 200 hours of produced credits across a broad range of television dramas, comedies, animation and web series. He has worked extensively in program development for many of Australia’s leading production houses, and he’s written and interviewed for documentary works. His short films have screened at festivals around the world and he’s been engaged to develop multiple feature film projects. Sam holds a Masters in screenwriting from the AFTRS (2000), he’s a graduate of the NIDA Playwrights’ Studio (2000), a recipient of a 2009 Australian Writers’ Guild/Arts NSW Mentorship, along with the 2014 Inscription Enderby Entertainment Scholarship. He was a member of the Screen Australia Talent USA delegation in 2018, the Scripted Ink/AWG Pathways Los Angeles delegation in 2019, and he has been nominated for 11 Australian Writers’ Guild Awards and won 4.
Most recently, Sam was a writer, an Executive Producer and co-showrunner of Wakefield for the ABC, BBC Studios and Showtime, and he’s a co-creator and Executive Producer of MaveriX for the ABC and Netflix.
You can find Sam on Instagram @ sam.m.meikle