A conversation with showrunner Annie Weisman.
Annie Weisman is the loveliest form of a vulnerable, open book. At this year’s Austin Film Festival, Annie shared her experience writing for theatre, television, and film. She also gave a very raw insight into the loneliness of Los Angeles, CA… As a rather lonely person myself, I appreciated her candor about how a very sunny, beautiful city can sometimes feel like it’s taunting you: “Get outside! Go spend money! Go see friends! Go!”
It’s no surprise that in real life, Annie is blunt, honest, and very conversational. Her television projects, which span across genres, are some of the most hilarious, raw, and gut-punching shows I’ve seen in recent years: She created PHYSICAL, and she’s worked on THE PATH, ALMOST FAMILY, and DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES, among many other popular shows.
Annie also showran the second season of BASED ON A TRUE STORY, which came out on November 21, 2024. When you need a respite from family this holiday season, be sure to tune in. And, keep reading below for inspiration on writing your next vulnerable creative venture!
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Starting Out:
PR: You grew up in Southern California and started out as a playwright. When did you first know you wanted to be a writer, and what early forms of writing did your creativity take?
Annie Weisman (AW): I was just listening to Rachel Bloom talking [about this], and it’s funny because she’s a Jewish girl from Southern California, like I am. She was talking about how when you grow up in Southern California, but you’re kind of a depressed person, you kind of feel strange because everyone’s like: “It’s sunny! And you’re supposed to be happy all the time! And you’re supposed to be outside!” You know? And then you’re like: “Where are my people?” That was my childhood… I was always a writer because I was always like, “Why is everybody smiling and running around outside? I want to be in the dark watching movies and reading books and thinking about ideas and stuff.” Then, I wrote plays because I had an opportunity to, through a program in San Diego called the Playwrights Project. They kind of found me and said, “Hey! Maybe you’re a playwright!”, So, I started writing plays. They produce young people’s plays… And then plays turned into television because people read my plays, and television sort of came to me from there.
PR: When you first moved to Los Angeles, what was your experience like settling there and starting to build your network?
AW: Well, LA can be really isolating and really depressing, especially for writers. So, I found community through theater, actually, because I interned at and worked at the Mark Taper Forum Theatre downtown. I met a lot of young people there. And then, I ended up meeting other writers, and we formed a writers group that I’m still in, to this day… It’s been 20+years that we’ve been meeting once a month and sharing work. It’s so critical to have people you know and share work with and share drafts with — people who actually want to give feedback on your work. That you can build a long-term relationship with.
Growing Your Network:
PR: In your early days in LA meeting with executives, agents, and other writers, how did you manage to keep growing your network?
AW: You know, I wasn’t great at it at first, but I do think it’s really important to come to places like [Austin Film Festival], you know, where you can interact with a lot of people. Especially that kind of casual interaction that isn’t necessarily just a general meeting… Putting yourself in an environment where you can have that more sort of casual you know, “get to know you” kind of interaction is really great… And then communicating and keeping in touch, you know it’s always a good idea to watch a lot of stuff and then communicate about the stuff you’re watching… you can’t go wrong with sharing genuine enthusiasm for things. I think that goes a long way. I’m touched by people reaching out and being excited by something I made… People don’t do it as much as you might think.
PR: It’s probably because they’re scared to! Like, “Oh, I don’t want to bother her”…
AW: You see, it’s funny, I was at a thing over the summer and there was a woman there who was sort of avoiding me and acting really weird. I was like, “Oh this person is strange.” But then, my husband said, “Oh she came up to me later and said she loved your show and she’s scared to talk to you.” And I was like, “I can’t believe that’s true!” But I thought: You can always approach… if you’re bullshitting, forget it, but if you really did like and connect with something and you approach someone about it… Believe me, they’re gonna be happy to hear that.
PR: Do you have an example of when you’ve done that yourself; where you’ve made a connection purely through expressing interest in someone else’s art, or vice versa?
AW: Well I’ll give you an example: Jenji Kohan is an incredible person I’ve loved forever and she wrote an email to me saying she watched my show and she really liked it, and I was like, “Jenji! Stop, you have nothing to gain from this, this means so much to me!”… So, she kind of inspired me to do that with other people, so I reached out to Lena Dunham about her film that she had directed because I really loved it, and I just wanted to tell her. And… I don’t know her, okay?… I just wrote her an email and she was totally happy to hear from me — I just loved her directing work and, you know, maybe we got something from it, but I just wanted to tell her what I thought… I think my instinct would have been like, “Don’t bother her, you dummy! She’s been on the cover of Vogue!” But, I was specifically interested in what she had done… so Jenji inspired me to do that. I’m name-dropping.
What Kind of Project Am I Writing?:
PR: As both a playwright and a TV writer, It must be so different to approach a whole season of TV versus a close-ended play. How do you decide what format best fits a project?
AW: I tend to think certain things tell you what they are a little bit, right? How much is there to explore? How much time do you want to spend with these people? To me, TV ideas feel like they are really located in a place, you know? Place is very important to TV. When we watch a show, we want to kind of live in the same spot and keep revisiting it, you know? Like, PHYSICAL was very much, it was set in a time, obviously in 1981, but very much in a place. That world — it was a certain kind of California world. I think that’s really, really important for TV. Whereas, I think film is a little bit more mobile: you could do a road movie. And then theatre just feels more abstract… something that is more dialogue-based and abstract.
Vulnerability: On PHYSICAL:
PR: Obviously, you’ve now shared a lot about yourself on PHYSICAL and in the Vanity Fair article I’ve read. So I’m wondering: In generals and staffing meetings, how does a writer decide what is too much to share and what they should share?
AW: You know, when I’m staffing a show now, I really care about people’s experience coming in. I care about their point of view. It informs the show. Like, you’re, you know, like, the most recent show that I did, you know, on BASED ON A TRUE STORY, like, we had an incredible staff writer come in who… I had worked with her ten years ago. She was our writer’s PA on a show, and she was, like, the shyest person ever, Like, I never talked to her, and she was always, like, she didn’t want to talk to me and was scared and stuff. And then… I was staffing [BASED ON A TRUE STORY] and somebody had submitted her work to me, and I read it, and it was… she wrote this pilot based on her own experience as an athlete, and she, it was really personal and dark, and it was really relevant to the show because we have a character on the show that’s a former elite athlete who’s now kind of down on his luck and he’s, you know, and he’s going through it. And so I was really thrilled to meet her again in this context. It required her to be really honest and open, so you can’t be afraid to be your full self. I mean, that’s what people are hiring you for.
PR: When you’re writing something that takes place in history or has to do with something really personal or dark like an eating disorder, how do you decide what moments are imperative to the story and what are not?
AW: Well, I think the best stuff costs you something and is a little bit scary. So I think you just really go for it and surround yourself with collaborators who will give you the courage to do that. Because that’s what connects people… I think the writer’s room is really helpful in that because you get to bounce around people and kind of feel it out. Is this interesting? Is this important? Does this matter? And then be really ruthless in the editing process with your material. You know, you want to get it all out but then you also want to kind of really work your stuff to a high standard of what is absolutely necessary to tell the story.
Thank you so much, Annie, for your time at such an action-packed festival. As someone who’s struggled with an eating disorder for years, Physical was a really important, raw, realistic depiction of what I’ve struggled with, and thank you for bringing that to life on screen.
Thank you to Hannah for scheduling!
Payton Russell 
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