![]() ![]() Thankfully, my partner Mike Robin shoulders many of these burdens. Shephard: I don’t enjoy dealing with budget issues. The one aspect of my job as showrunner that I’d rather delegate: We finally resorted to the shorthand: “no pink, no fuzz” to avoid further embarrassment. ![]() I remember thinking the notes were more pornographic than the film itself, with elaborate descriptions of thrusting and side nipples that had us all blushing. Shephard: Somewhere in my boxes is a framed copy of the Standards and Practices notes we got from FX after delivering the pilot of Nip/Tuck. It was challenging to figure out how to crack open such a stoic character and show his pain and heartbreak without slipping into melodrama. Shephard: My fellow Longmire executive producers Hunt Baldwin and John Coveny and I toiled over the climactic emotional showdown between Walt and his daughter Cady when she confronts him for concealing the circumstances surrounding her mother’s death. Shephard: I was able to juggle being a single mother of a 2-year-old while producing Longmire out of state. To this day, he maintains a standard of excellence and an intellectual rigor that I try to emulate. He taught me the value of theme in storytelling, and reinforced the importance of never settling for a solution that “feels like TV.” He constantly sought out the best artists for every department, even if they were not conventional choices. He instinctively knew when to deconstruct a story, and when to keep building upon it. He knew how to harness the strengths of very different personality types and manage differing creative processes. I watched him run the writers’ room on a show called Nothing Sacred with Solomon-like grace. Shephard: Popular, a teen dramedy for The WB that I worked on with Ryan Murphy and my partner Mike Robin. THR’s Top 50 Showrunners 2012 - the Complete List I also have to admit he introduced me to Bo and Luke Duke when I was 13. I saw the social importance of his contributions, and I wanted to be part of that legacy and continue that tradition. Throughout his career, he provided some great role models and opportunities for women by developing shows like Cagney and Lacey, Murphy Brown and China Beach. It was a synthesis of art, intellectualism and psychology in a very social context with a parade of personalities. The electricity and creativity surrounding his job was very alluring. He had been the head of programming at CBS during my childhood, and then became the president of Warner Bros. Shephard: My inspiration wasn’t a show - it was my dad, Harvey Shephard. From their obsessive rituals (Peppermint Patties! Oatmeal! Bruce Springsteen!) to the parts of their jobs they hate most (killing characters off, dealing with agents), TV’s most influential writer-producers featured on The Hollywood Reporter‘s annual list of the Top 50 Showrunners come clean about the people, things and quirky habits that keep them - and their shows - alive. ![]()
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