Pilot Error: Jeff Astrof's "King John" (2014)
Starring: John Leguizamo, Andrea Savage, Elizabeth Peña, Ariela Barer, Luke Ganalon, and Troy Garity
I first found myself in social-media communication with Jeff Astrof when I began reviewing his delightful NBC series Trial & Error for the A.V. Club, and although the series ended up getting axed after only two seasons, the online acquaintanceship we forged during its run has continued. As such, when I started looking for new topics to tackle for this Pilot Error feature of mine, I spotted a pilot with a notable star on his IMDb page—King John, starring John Lequizamo—and I thought, “I should ask Jeff if there’s anything regarding the experience that’s worth talking about.” So I did.
The first word of his response: “Wow.”
Suffice it to say that there was plenty to talk about…like, to the point where you will notice that I say very, very little for an extended period during the proceedings. What can I say? I wanted to let the man maintain his flow. Besides, why would I get in the way of a comedy writer weaving a tale of frustration and annoyance that ultimately comes to a satisfying conclusion?
Not for King John, of course. Oh, God, no. But Jeff’s been doing great—Shining Vale, anyone?—and Mr. Leguizamo provided the voice of Bruno in Encanto, so he’s only been the subject of the most talking-about song of the past six months or so.
That said, you’ll soon realize just how happy Jeff is to have the King John experience in his rear view mirror…and that’s fair, considering that we’re talking about a story that at one point leads him to start a sentence with the words, “It’s like the scene in Schindler’s List…”
In closing, I’ll just say that the WTF look on Jeff’s face in this photo from our Zoom conversation recurred throughout the duration of his story…and rightfully so.
Well, as I say to everyone when I do an interview for this feature, I'm very happy that you're willing to talk about something as obscure as this.
I have to tell you, this is probably the first time. This is the equivalent of when people meet me and ask me about The Wild Thornberrys. It's, like, the first thing that comes up in my IMDb, that I created that, and that's a long story where the punchline is, I didn't. [Laughs.] When people ask about that... There are so many things that I've actually done, and people want to talk about that. Somebody else recently asked me about Hangin' with Mr. Cooper [for which Astrof co-wrote three episodes with Mike Sikowitz), and it's just...weird. Of all the things I've done! So this is my first King John interview.
And I could not be happier to be the first.
Me, too! Because it's a very important story in my career and in my life. It was really the low point. And I know it was the low point, because it just went up from there. The sad thing about low points is that you don't know they're low points until you look back. You just think, "Oh, shit, there's another floor beneath this basement I thought I'd hit!" [Laughs.] "I didn't know I had a sub-basement!" But this was it. It was just... It was brutal. But I'll let you ask your questions and guide the conversation.
Well, from what I'm finding online, it seems as though this series started a year before you ever got involved. I guess it was originally supposed to be a single-camera comedy, and then John had a couple of other things that got in the way, things that he had nothing to do with except as an actor.
Right.
And then he circled back to this one when the opportunity presented itself, at which point it was transformed from a single-camera show to a multi-cam.
Yeah, so my part in the story, and I don't know how much you want of the back story, but it's my story, so...
As much as you feel like giving, I'm fine, so have at it.
Okay, so I had written a pilot—as I do every year—at Warner Brothers, and this one was called Fat, Forty, and Fired. And it was based on a book, and it was kind of based on a blog I had done, and it was really a very good multi-camera script, to the point where Peter Roth, the erstwhile head of Warner Brothers, called me from his vacation in Bimini and said, "I just read your script, and I want to tell you, not only are we making this, but it's our next hit." And it makes me feel good when you hear that. And it also... [Hesitates.] At this point, this is eight years ago, so I'd been in the business 22 years, and I should know that this is a sure sign of death when the head of the studio guarantees it. [Laughs.]
I was told emphatically and with no hesitation that every year Peter Roth picks one pilot that he is going to make sure gets picked up, and he's going to use all his chips on that. And it reminds me on this scene that I'm sure you're familiar with, in Take the Money and Run where Woody Allen goes up to the guy in the chain gang and says, "I heard you can knock off any shackles with this sledgehammer," and the guy goes, "Never missed yet!" And he just flings...and then Woody Allen limps away, and the guy's, like, "Sorry, man, first time." It's the perfect set-up, and this was the perfect set-up for that not going. It was guaranteed, and then... [Trails off.] It was just one of these things in pilot season, which is awful, where it all plays out on deadline, and this story—the beginning and end—was sandwiched by that, and instead of picking up my pilot, [ABC President of Entertainment] Paul Lee picked up a second pilot by my former partner, which was just salt in the wound. I was just done. I was, like, "What am I doing anymore?"
And not even as a coda, just as part of this mix, we were trying to figure out, "Okay, Paul Lee clearly didn't like it, but why?" And it was about me, so it was not about a super-masculine man. It wasn't, like, an alpha male. But whatever. I've been told that my entire career: I write characters based on me, and they're, like, "The guy's a weenie!" [Laughs.] So I was, like, "Well, what if we got Matt LeBlanc?" Who was doing Episodes, but Episodes was wrapping up. So Peter Roth was, like, "Yes! We'll send the script to Matt LeBlanc!"
So he has lunch with Matt LeBlanc, and even though we shared a manager at that point—that's another terrible story—apparently Matt had never read the script, and he thought he was just having lunch with Peter Roth. And Peter's, like, "I have your next project!" And he passes the script, and it says Fat, Forty and Fired, and Matt LeBlanc goes, "Are you fucking kidding me?" And Peter had to backtrack that whole thing, to the point where two weeks later on the show Episodes, Matt LeBlanc's character comes in and says, "My career has hit a low: someone just pitched me a script called Fat, Forty and Fucked." And I was just, like, "I can't go lower than this! I'm done! Episodes is doing jokes about me!"
And then I get a call from my agent saying, "ABC wants to meet you for a John Leguizamo show." I was, like, "Okay, what is that?" They said, "Well, they don't have a show, but they have John Leguizamo under contract, and they want someone to come in and write a pilot for him." This is February. You know when pilot season is. The upfronts are in May. Most pilots are being screened at this point, so most everything is picked dry. The carcasses... The vultures and the hyenas are done, the dung beetles are wrapping things up. [Laughs.] And I said, "So they just have John/" "Yes." "So what's the pilot?" "Well, they want you to figure it out." "So I've got the job?" "No, they want you to pitch." And I'm even more done at this point. I'm, like, "How much more can I be humiliated?"
Anyway, I went to pitch, and my manager at the time, because it was going to be multi-camera, because everybody wants to do multi-cameras, he said, "Just make sure you tell them you're the best in the business at multi-cams." So I had a great meeting with John and David Hoberman, who was the guy who was producing it and the guy who'd done Monk. It was really fun meeting with John...and John, by the way, is an absolutely, absolute delight. Like, really one of the best, hardest-working people I've ever worked with. I just loved him. Instantly loved him in the meeting. And then I get up to leave, and I had forgotten what my manager had said, so I turned around and said [Deadpan.] "By the way... I'm the best in the business." Just like that. [Laughs.] And everyone... The air just left. It's like when a bounce house gets unplugged and the kids are inside. That was it. That was the last thing I left 'em with. Everyone was just shocked.
And I got a call on the way home: "Hey, good news! You came in second!" I was, like, "Fuck this, man! I'm done with this! I can't do this anymore!" And they're, like, "Wait, we're getting an email: 'Don't tell Jeff.'" [Laughs.] I'm, like, "Well, you just told me!" And apparently they couldn't make the deal—it was with Don Todd—so they asked me to come and do it. So I'm, like, "So if I had a better agent, I wouldn't get this?" And they're, like, "Yes." Because he wanted more money to do it. He wanted an overall deal. Anyway, I got it, and they're, like, "Just come up with a story and come in to pitch Monday."
Now, meanwhile, you know the development process takes months and months and months. This is on Friday. They wanted me to come in and pitch a story to the studio on Monday and then to pitch the actual pilot to ABC on Tuesday. So I meet up with John at the Chateau Marmont on Saturday, we sit down, and I'm just, like, "You know I love your work, let's just talk about our lives." And he talks about his wife, and... You know, he has a Jewish wife, and the Puerto-Rican / Jewish thing, it was a nice mixed thing. And I loved his show... I can't remember which one of his shows had just come out, but I was, like, "Let's do kind of like your stage show. Kind of like the Seinfeld model, where he'd do the standup. Let's just have you do your story. You're a storyteller. And half of it will just be you doing your story, and you'll be narrating it that way." I thought, "It'll be fun, he'll be on the green screen and we'll show images from his life and stuff." He was, like, "I love it!" We hit it off famously. We talked for hours and hours and hours.
And then the next day I pitched that to ABC Studios and they're, like, "Yeah, we like it." And then I pitched it to ABC, the network, on Tuesday, and they're, like, "Yeah, let's do it!" And they're, like, "What's the story?" I said, "I have no idea what the story is." So they gave me a director and a producer that had already been hired, and they said, "We're gonna start building sets on Thursday." So I was, like, "Well, I don't know what the sets are." They're, like, "Just come up with a set!" So I had to write the sets. [Laughs.] And they said, "Also, because the wives and the kids take the longest to cast, we'll also need sides by Friday, and then Monday we'll do some video casting." I'm, like, "Wait, I have to write sides? First I have to create sets and then write sides for characters I don't know, just that fit in the sets?" They're, like, "Exactly." I'm, like, "Okey-doke!"
It was so bizarre. I basically wrote the pilot in, like, eight days. And it was so fraught along the way, because I just wrote it based on John's character. And John's not a sitcom actor. John's a performer...and, by the way, does some of his best work in Encanto, I believe. But just such a nice guy and a generous guy, throws himself into anything. So I'm just writing pages and pages to cast, and sides are really, really hard to write, and I'm just writing sides not even for a script, I'm just writing sides for characters and based on him and his wife's relationship. Then they called me down to Casting—I wasn't involved in any of it—and they're, like, "There's a little problem." I'm, like, "Why?" "These scenes... John's playing them like love scenes. Not as, like, the sitcom dad, but the Latin Lothario...and everyone's really uncomfortable!" [Laughs.] And they were going way too long. They were, like, nine-minute scenes, like an independent movie! I'm, like, "Oh, my God..." So I had to just write scenes with jokes, which never work.
We wound up casting Andrea Savage as John's wife, who is great, but who was just not right for this. There was no time to do any of it, but I had to cast her, and I cast Elizabeth Peña his mom, who was Sofia Vergara's mom on Modern Family, but it was all just a mess. It was all so hard. Oh, and during the casting process... So I said to David Hoberman, "Can I ask you something? It's insane. It's the end of February. There's no one left. Why don't we just push it and develop it, so that I can write a real script and we can get our choice? We'll just cast it after casting season." And he said, "Don't ever say that again. Don't ever mention that in public." I'm, like, "What the hell?" And it turned out that they only had John until, like, April. They had signed him to three consecutive deals, and they had sunk, like, three million dollars into this pilot before even going to film, because they kept John under contract. So all anyone cared about was getting a show with John in it. And I understand that.
So we finally put together a show which he liked and which I liked, and the process was terrible, terrible, terrible for me. I mean, I got really sick after I wrote it, because it's just, like, you can't write a pilot in eight days. And everybody also said that if I did this, if I was able to create and write a pilot from start to finish in three weeks, it would've destroyed development. [Laughs.] It's like the scene in Schindler's List with the hinge. "Well, if you can make a hinge like this in 45 seconds, then you should be making 70 of these an hour!" But we shot something. The set was the world's thinnest brownstone, which he lived in, because he'd really lived in a skinny brownstone. And that was fun. That was a really skinny set. And the best thing I can say about it is that it got shot, y'know? And none of the people were my choice except for John, who I would cast, and he was with me every step of the way.
I have a shorthand with my sister now because of pilot season, because there was one night when we were doing a rewrite... Because the table read went way too long. I'm very good at patter, and I gave this great introduction to it, and I was much funnier than the table read was. It was a fucking disaster. And all my friends who were there were, like, 'You can't do this, man." Everybody saw the writing on the wall, that I was going to be better and more engaging than the show. And sure enough, I was.
Although I thought it went well. It was just very long. It was, like, a 45-minute thing. Because none of them were sitcom actors. None of them had done, like, classic sitcoms. And then Paul Lee afterwards had notes, which took, like, an hour. And that's never a good sign. They're never, like, "Well, this is what I love about it, and this, and this..." And he comes back, and he goes, "Well, first of all, John, you're amazing...and it's amazing that you were even able to elevate this material." I was, like, 'Holy shit, this is not a good start." [Laughs.] He was, like, "I would watch you in anything...but not this." To me, he said, "You're going to have to do a major rewrite of this. I don't know how you're going to do it, but then again, I don't know how you wrote it in eight days. Good luck. But I suggest you get every funny friend you have."
So I got every funny friend I had, which is a recipe for disaster, because it's all showrunners, and all showrunners in a writers room... It's terrible. Because either no one gives a shit, or they want to put their own mark on it. And one of the guys I was working with was Max Mutchnick, who I'd worked with before. Max and David [Kohan]. And Max's go-to—just because he can—he said, "Here's what we do: we shut down, and we take a helicopter to David Geffen's boat for the weekend." [Laughs.] I was, like, "Max, I don't think you understand that you and I do not live the same lives. I did not create Will & Grace. I do not have access to a helicopter. I do not know David Geffen. I cannot shut down." And there was this one night I was there, and I went into my bathroom - the only good part of that job was that I had an office with a bathroom - and I looked in the mirror and did what I call the Sad Clown Cry. It was like a Norman Rockwell painting. I had no tears. So when my sister and I are having trouble in the business, we just do the emoticons of a clown and a tear.
So somehow we shot it. The very first run-through went great. And then one of the ABC executives—by the way, none of these people are there anymore—said, "Okay, so you need all new jokes." I said, "Okay, excuse me, I'm looking at your script, and I see check marks, and I heard you laugh, so...maybe you were being polite to John? I don't imagine you were being polite to me. But you were laughing." He said, "No, no, I thought it was funny. But Paul will see that these are some of the same jokes from the table read...and he hated the table read. So just put in new jokes." I said, "You can't just put in new jokes! What the fuck? I can't just put in new jokes!" He's, like, "Then just put asterisks next to them." So that's what I did. [Laughs.] I put asterisks in. And Paul's, like, "Yes! This is what I was looking for!"
And there was another thing that I finally did, and it was really good for me as a writer and a showrunner. There was one episode where I just stripped out all the jokes. Because John's not a joke teller. John's an emotional character, an actor, and he's a performer. So I did a pass where I stripped out almost all the jokes, and it really, really helped build me as a writer...and I'm just realizing this as I'm saying this now, but it really prepared me for the show I'm doing now [Shining Vale], which is not a joke-y show. But once I stripped out all the joke-y jokes, it actually was really good. And John was great and he was winning, and I was, like, "Yes! We've got it!"
So then it was, okay, what's the title? And John's, like, "I need to come up with a good one. A title's a really important thing." Because at this point it's just The John Leguizamo Project. And he's, like, "I want it to be, like, Nine Inches In. Or Nine Inches Deep." I'm, like, "What does that mean?" He's, like, "You know, in from behind!" [Laughs.] He's giving me all these really dirty titles. Like, his wife's name in the thing is Juicy, so he's, like, 'Up Inside Juicy!" I'm, like, "John, none of these are gonna go!" And the network wanted King John. And I said, "Okay, I like Up Inside Juicy and Puerto-Rican Jungle..." I wish I'd written all this down, but it was just a wave. It was like standing in back of a jet engine the entire time.
So I'm, like, 'Okay, how about King John?" "No fucking way. I won't do a show called King John. It's bullshit. It's sitcom. You know, you did such a good job, you and I have to stand together." Which is the equivalent of saying, "Go take a helicopter to David Geffen's boat." I'm, like, "You can stand on this. If John Leguizamo says, 'I don't want to call this King John,' they have the multimillion dollar deal with you. For me, I'm just gonna be the latest guy who couldn't do a pilot for you. I'm going to be swept away. You can go there, but I can't."
Again, nothing but good things to say about John, but he was just, like, "I'm not a sitcom guy. I'm not doing a sitcom bullshit thing. We worked really hard on this, you got my voice and you got it without jokes. It's not jokey. I'm not doing King John." "Okay, John's not doing King John." "Okay, tell him he is." "Okay, uh, you tell him he is." And that's the thing about the showrunner, especially the showrunner that's not on the same level as your actor: everyone tells you to tell the other person, and you're just being squeezed and squeezed and squeezed. So I said, "What if it's temp?" "No, it's bullshit. I won't let the show go on the air with King John." But ultimately it was called King John. I don't know how.
The end of it was just as ignominious as the beginning. I remember Samie Kim, who was there, said, "I don't know how you did it, but you did it. You filmed it." Nobody believed we could film it. It was three weeks start to finish. We cast the sets first, and then the wife and kids, and then the script. We got it together and...it wasn't bad. There was a really fun scene... My one fun memory is the scene where John and his wife have, like, a dance fight, because they dance at each other in a very aggressive way. John's a great dancer, he loves dancing, and they just have this aggressive dance fight, and I thought it was very, very funny. It was physical, and...it was good! And that was the kind of a thing an audience would love. And I was assured by Maria Crenna—who was my producer on that and who I adored in a very professional way, I've known her forever and ever and ever—she was, like, "I have a friend in New York, and he knows someone inside who knows it's on the schedule." Now, there's no chance that Peter Roth and Maria Crenna's friend could both be wrong in the same cycle of guaranteed things... [Laughs.] But sure enough...
So I'm interviewing people, they're having me do a writers room, I'm getting ready to go to New York for the upfronts... I'm, like, "I did it!" By the way, I had no idea what the show was going to be going forward. But it was, like, "You know, we'll figure it out. I have John Leguizamo. We'll figure it out!" And every show I do, I at least have in my head a story bible, I have characters built up... It's never done like this. Never, ever, ever. But I'm, like, "I'll catch up." All I wanted was a show on the air. I'd never had my own show on the air. And then sure enough, the phone was ringing during my meeting, and it's ABC. And I'm taking writers meetings, and I'm, like, "I'll get that, they're probably making plans for New York." And Maria Crenna says, "Look at Deadline." And I'm, like, "Hold on..." And I go to my computer, I go to Deadline, and the first story says, "ABC Now Contacting Show Runners Whose Shows Aren't Going." [Laughs.] I check my caller ID. It’s ABC calling! I'm, like, "Okay, this writers meeting is over. Great meeting." [Mimes picking up phone.] "Hello? Yeah? Oh, fuck." They're, like, "It was really close." I said, "But Maria Crenna's friend said it was on the air!" "Yeah, well... Thank you. Really. We love you." "Okay." And that was the end of King John. And I was a puddle of a man.
But as a nice coda to this, I got together with John, and I said, "I'm sorry, man." He said, "What are you sorry about?" I said, "You know, you're such a great talent, and I feel like... I mean, isn't this devastating to you? We were on the schedule!" He's, like, "No, this is what we do, man. We'll just do the next thing." I said, "Yeah, but it's easy for you. You're John Leguizamo. You'll do an Ice Age movie. You'll do whatever you can." And he said, "You think it's easy for me? Every time I go into an audition, Benecio del Toro is in that waiting room, and I go, 'I don't got that job.' I'll go in there and I'll read, but I'm not gonna hire me if Benecio del Toro is there. But you do it, you do it, you do it, you get up, you brush yourself off, you do it again. That's the business. And you've gotta have fun in the process." And it was really the first time someone of import told me that. The next time someone of import told me that was John Lithgow after Trial & Error. It's just sometimes you have to hear it from someone who's incredible and incredibly talented that this is the business. And I tell this to other people. It's the business we've chosen, but it's still a business, and my job—pre-streaming, anyway—is to keep the commercials from hitting each other.
So that was it, and after that I was exhausted and didn't have a job. And my agent said, "Bill Lawrence needs someone to run a show, Ground Floor, and you just ran a show by yourself and proved yourself. Do you want to do it?" And I said, "Yeah." And that was it.
And from there, it just took off. I did that, I got Trial & Error, and now Shining Vale. And it was that experience under fire to really prove that I could produce a show by myself. But, boy oh boy, I'm getting tired now just from telling you about it. I remember the three days after I wrote it... They gave me three days off after I wrote it, because I wrote it in eight days, and we had 11 days until the table read. So I took three days off, and I was so sick that I was holding on to the base of my toilet, and I'd feel the cool tile against my skin....and in hindsight, those were the best three days of the pilot. [Laughs.]
Okay, so I have to admit that you told that story with so much detail that I don't actually have many follow-up questions, but I do have one borne out of curiosity: when you were dealing with all of this stuff, did you ever frequent Deadline's comments section under a pseudonym?
No, I did not.
I can't remember which article it was under, but it said...
“Jeff Astrof wrote King John in two weeks. Imagine what he could do with a normal schedule. Yes, a lot of ball scratching, sure. But also, he could make a great show.”
That's amazing. No, I stayed away from the comments section, but that's... Wow, a nice Deadline comment! [Laughs.] That's very funny. I mean, Deadline was only... [Hesitates.] It's like when someone from the military shows up at your door with a flag. It's usually not great news. And there are no comments on Deadline that are going to make you feel good about yourself. I imagine it was one of my friends who helped out on the pilot. It could've been Maria Crenna. I don't think anyone else had any investment in me.
They're only identified as "TV Writer."
Oh, "TV Writer"? Then maybe my sister? She's a TV writer!
Siblings: they're always there for you.
Yeah, you know, the only time I've ever posted on Deadline—literally the only time, and I posted as myself—was when Trial & Error was picked up as a pilot, and someone wrote, "This is the hackiest bullshit I've ever heard. It was a terrible script, it'll make a worse series." And it was signed "Dan." And I just wrote back, "This better not be Dan Norton, my agent." That's literally the only time I've ever commented...and the guy wrote back, "All right, not bad."
