A conversation with writer, actor, and producer Jameel Saleem.
Warm, relaxed and a gamer in his free time, Jameel Saleem’s career has been one to watch and admire. Jameel is an actor (performing alongside Kevin Hart in the 2012 film, EXIT STRATEGY), a producer (creating the webseries, Exit Strategy, that eventually led to the film), and a writer for both TV and film.
Jameel has written on some of the all-time best animated shows, from South Park to Bob’s Burgers to Disenchantment. He also wrote on several live-action series, including The Rickey Smiley Show, Geek Cred, Manhattan Love Story, Whiskey Cavalier, and even more; the list of his works truly goes on and on.
It was a real honor to pick his brain on all things comedy writing at the 2024 Austin Film Festival. Jameel’s approach to character, pitching, and storytelling is something I hope to emulate in my own work, and this interview is one I’m going to keep bookmarked on my browser any time I need a boost of creative confidence!
Go ahead, bookmark it too. You know you wanna.
Keep reading for more insight into the minds of one of the funniest guys in Hollywood: Matt Stone and Trey Parker-approved.
Gathering Creative Tools:
PR: I read in another interview that in your early years in Los Angeles, you were taking a writing workshop every Saturday. What’s something you learned in those workshops that is still useful in your career today?
Jameel Saleem (JS): The writing workshops were in Beverly Hills, and I lived in Sherman Oaks at the time, North Hollywood. I didn’t have a job, and I would have to drive to Beverly Hills every Saturday… For three years, that was my Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., just hanging out with a group of writers. My manager—who ran the workshop and signed me shortly after I started—would bring actors in, and they’d read the scripts. Then the actors would leave, and the writers would give notes and punch up the scripts. The biggest thing I learned there was how to be in a writer’s room because she ran it like a writer’s room. I learned how to collaborate, how to take notes, and how to have thick skin. So, by the time I started my first writer’s room, I was already used to that environment.
PR: You’re also an actor. What’s one part of acting that you feel may have carried over into your writing?
JS: I think I write strong dialogue because I can hear it, visualize it, and perform it while I’m writing to make sure it flows.
Exit Strategy: The Webseries:
PR: I’ll admit, I’m someone who tends to get really overwhelmed by the idea of putting content I record myself online. So I was curious—how did you initially educate yourself on how to even make a web series like that?
JS: Yeah, I mean… I moved to LA in 2007 with a friend who was also an actress. She had some friends who had just moved here, too, so we were all new in LA, all actors, and we were all wanting to do stuff. So, I found a guy who had a camera, and I found a guy who had a computer with Final Cut… We all brought something to the table, and we were just figuring it out as we went along. None of us had really done it before – some of us had experience making shorts – but we were just kind of figuring it out. I had to teach myself how to use Final Cut. I had to teach myself about lighting. For the first skits we shot, we were just using practical lighting—”Put the lamp over here and shine it.” So it looked pretty bad [laughs], but every iteration got better and better. Then we started learning. Then I found somebody who was a cinematographer who went to school for it. We brought him into the group, put a team together, and we were just making stuff.
PR: How often would you guys make a new episode?
JS: We were shooting stuff at least once a week. And this was before Vine, before Instagram and TikTok and all that. So we were making stuff and just putting it on YouTube.
Getting Staffed:
PR: After all that, how did you then get your first staffing job on Manhattan Love Story?
JS: Yeah, that [show] was fun. Before that, I got hired to write a freelance script for this show called The Rickey Smiley Show on TV One. I got that because I knew an executive at TV One; I went to college with him, and he gave my script to the showrunner.
But even though I had written for a smaller, niche Black network, it didn’t really carry weight in Hollywood. The way I got Manhattan Love Story was through my manager. When I started going to the workshop, once my script was ready—it was a Modern Family spec—I did about seven drafts before she felt like I was ready, and then she started sending it around. I started taking general meetings around town at all the studios and networks. You start off meeting with a junior exec. If they like you, they pass you up to their boss, and you keep working your way up. I did that for about three years—just driving around town, meeting everybody. Then one day, one of the ABC executives I had met with, who was a fan, gave my script to the showrunner for Manhattan Love Story. Then I had a Skype meeting with that showrunner—he was in New York, I was in LA—and I got a call saying I got the job, and I had to move to New York.
PR: Wow. How did those experiences on those live-action sitcoms lead you to getting your first job in animation on South Park?
JS: I got a call from my agent saying South Park was looking for a writer because Anne Garefino, the executive producer of South Park, was at the same agency I was with. So my agency found out about it first. I got a call, and they met with a bunch of writers, and I ended up getting the job. Initially, it was to write for the South Park video game, and then they brought me onto the show.
Pitching in the Room:
PR: In those early days in your first rooms, how did you know which pitches you should say and which ones you should hold back?
JS: You know, as a staff writer, you don’t want to talk too much. Ideally, you want to pitch only when you have a really good idea—even if it doesn’t make it in. You don’t want to just say the first thing that pops into your head; you want to be really intentional when you pitch. I’ve seen staff writers who will sit there all day and not say one word. And I get it—it’s very intimidating, especially if it’s your first show. You don’t want to say the wrong thing. You haven’t developed thick skin yet, so if you pitch a joke and hear total silence, it can be crushing for some early writers.
But yeah, you just want to be really intentional. Two things you don’t want to do:
- Let’s say the room is going down a path, and someone pitches something that doesn’t work—it very obviously doesn’t work–you recognize it won’t work and feel the need to call it out to avoid wasting time. But, if you don’t have a solution and you’re just saying, “Nope, that won’t work…” as a staff writer, you never want to do that.
- You also don’t want to be too negative, especially if the showrunner is the one pitching the idea.
PR: Did you run into people who did that?
JS: Oh yeah, all the time. The way I approached it was –Alright, that’s not going to work, but I’m not just going to say that… Let me figure out a solution. And then, instead of shutting it down, I’d phrase it like, “Okay, yeah, that’s a possibility. Or… what if we do this?” But I’ve seen people straight-up say, “No, that’s not going to work because of this and that,” and that’s all they say. Then it’s like, “Alright… got anything else?” “No? Okay, let’s move on.”
Buh Dum Ch:
PR: In terms of joke writing… how does pitching jokes look across the variety of tones and genres you’ve worked within?
JS: Obviously, single-camera and multi-camera are different. The jokes are more punchy in a multi-camera show; you gotta have like three jokes per page. There’s a rhythm to it. It’s like setup, setup, punchline; setup, setup, punchline. For a single-camera show that’s more realistic, you want funny situational comedy, but you also want funny dialogue. You want to have the characters say funny things. Some writers are really good at that—writing funny dialogue, writing good punchlines.
Bob’s Burgers and Animation:
PR: When you join a show in a later season, like Bob’s Burgers, for instance, how did you catch up on the lengthy history of the ten seasons that happened before?
JS: I had three weeks before the room started, so I spent those three weeks watching every episode of Bob’s Burgers twice. I didn’t take notes; I just wanted to absorb it, you know? Because at that point, when I got the job, I had only seen a couple of episodes. So—I would do marathons. I just needed to understand the character voices. I knew I wasn’t going to remember, “Oh, they did this in an episode in the second season.” So, a lot of times I would pitch ideas, and they’d be like, “No, we already did that,” but I wasn’t worried about that. I just wanted to get a sense of the voices. That’s the most important thing. And honestly, it’s a good thing in a way—if you’re pitching things that already happened, it means you get the voices, because it already happened!
PR: Is there any difference when you’re writing for animation versus live-action?
JS: The only difference—because I approach animated stories with the same reverence and care that I approach a live-action story— is that for animation, you don’t have to consider budget. You can kind of do whatever, and it’s not going to change the budget of that episode. If you want to have the characters go to the moon—you can. That’s really fun.
Thanks, Jameel, for your time sitting down to chat and your generous advice. Really looking forward to seeing what you create next!
Payton Russell 
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