A conversation with television writer and erstwhile academic, Justin Boyd.
Before crossing over into the dark, forbidden world of television, Justin Boyd was an upright, academic guy. Raised in the Dallas suburbs, Justin worked a string of respectable corporate jobs to pay the bills – side-stepping from the IBM sales department to a city job signing liquor licenses. He was even a debt collector, calling unlucky folks who owed thousands in traffic fines – until he was finally fired for not being “mean” enough.
Justin knew he wanted more than the corporate jungle – he just didn’t know what. Something mysterious was pulling at him, and–much like the walkers he’d go on to write–that thing wouldn’t stop until it was fed.
At first, academia came calling, so Justin moved to Chicago to get his master’s in philosophy. There, he taught undergrads all about Plato, Socrates, and the infamous “Trolley Problem”. But inside, his own call to switch tracks was haunting him. He wasn’t afraid to change course–it was just a matter of how, where, and when.
In 2016, Justin moved to Los Angeles to pursue screenwriting, and the siren call on his heart finally ceased. In the city of dreams, Justin wrote his way onto a number of acclaimed genre shows: Fear the Walking Dead, Sweet Tooth, Lincoln Rhyme: Hunt for the Bone Collector, Reprisal, and Channel Zero. He’s now working on The Walking Dead: Dead City, which is currently filming its third season.
Justin’s mind for genre speaks not only through his work, but in the way he talks about real life–even slipping zombie references into his texts. To him, genre isn’t just about rules – it’s a cinematic way to make the complicated feelings we have inside come clearly to life.
Career Path
Payton Russell (PR): When you first moved out to LA, what were the biggest challenges of breaking into a writers’ room?
Justin Boyd (JB): I was very fortunate because I had been able to see the industry from the inside through my brother. I had been able to sit in on writers’ rooms. I witnessed him go through the process of getting pilots produced, and through him, I knew other people who were in the industry. Because of this, when I got to LA, it wasn’t such a mystery to me. And in addition to that – I mean, I was already in my 30s when I moved to LA… and no one really wants to staff a 22-year-old. So that was a big advantage.
I think the biggest challenge for me was figuring out how to leverage the skills that I learned in other careers and [vocalize] what I was doing there in television. So, for instance, I figured out that working in a writer’s room uses the same mental muscles that you’re using when you teach a class – Let’s say somebody has a bad pitch. What do you do with that? You take that and turn it into something good. Find the interesting stuff about it, the pitch behind the pitch – what are they actually trying to express here? Why is this pitch important to them? And then bring that out the same way that you would if you teach in class and somebody asks a really stupid question, you’re not going to be like, “You’re a moron.” No, you’re going to say, “Okay, let’s dissect that!” So, once I figured out that this is a very similar process, that helped a ton.
PR: Did you talk about those similarities in generals or initial staffing meetings in order to get jobs?
JB: I had to learn that that was something I should lead with. Now, I will use that as something to make me seem more interesting to someone who could hire me, but when I first got to LA, I didn’t necessarily know that that would be an advantage. A lot of people who are in a position to hire are looking for a unique life experience and unique perspective, and everybody has that. It’s just a question of figuring out what that is, and then finding the way to market yourself in terms of that.
There’s also being willing to do that without it feeling disingenuous or gross. I think a lot of writers tend to be introspective, anxious people, right? We don’t want to be inauthentic, but the reality is that, if you’re going to be a screenwriter, you are your own product. You are what you’re selling. You’re selling the mental engine that is contained up here (points at his head). And so, you have to be able to disconnect yourself from that and then package it and present it to people. That’s the game.
PR: How did you originally learn how to package that?
JB: It really came from within. I worked my first staffing job on Channel Zero, and I worked for two seasons on that. After that, there was almost 12 months where I could not get that second job. The months were going by; I was having staffing meetings, and nothing was working. I was getting really discouraged and started feeling like I might never get this second job. Then, I got a staffing meeting on The Magicians. The Magicians had a very specific tone and style. I thought, honestly, “I don’t really think I’d be that good at this.” But I was going to take the meeting.
I decided to go in there and do the meeting however I wanted, talk about what I wanted to talk about, and have my own agenda. I started talking about philosophy and all kinds of topics. That was the best staffing meeting I’d ever had. They didn’t end up hiring me, but something clicked for me in that meeting. Once they saw that I was excited and talking about something they hadn’t heard a thousand times before, they started talking to me about the plot of the season. We really got into it. I got relatively close to getting that job.
What it taught me was that when you go into these meetings, [the showrunners] are taking hundreds of them, and they are bored. You need to make sure they’re not bored, and also don’t make them do the heavy-lifting. Yes, they should lead the meeting, but if it seems like they’re a little tired or distracted, you should have your own agenda and lead that meeting. That approach has made me quite successful in staffing meetings.
PR: I’ve experienced that even in job interviews to be an assistant, having to lead the showrunners in the discussion to highlight my specific skills. Two questions: you mentioned doing assistant work before Channel Zero. Were you support staff? And how did you then get the first job on Channel Zero?
JB: I was the writers PA for the first season of Snowfall. After that season, one of my sample scripts was given to Nick Antosca, who was staffing Channel Zero at the time. They were staffing up for season three, and Nick said, “I’ll meet with you, but just so you know, I’ve already hired everyone for the room. This is just to get to know you and a practice staffing meeting.”
I went and met with him, and a few weeks later, my manager called me and said one of the writers couldn’t do it, so they wanted to staff me.
PR: That’s awesome. It really shows – take every meeting.
JB: Yes, absolutely. Always take the meetings, because you never know what will come from it. Even if that particular project isn’t for you, you can still make a good impression, and that person will remember you for the next project or a similar situation.
Fear the Walking Dead
PR: I wanted to ask, but with a zombie show, is there a certain structure you follow in each episode to make sure you’re delivering on the premise? Like, it’s a zombie show, so there should be a zombie moment in each episode. How was that approached in the room?
JB: I mean, it is absolutely the case that on The Walking Dead shows, we always want there to be some walker action in every episode. We’re not exactly following an episode formula, but there are specific guidelines for the universe, for the way that walkers work, what the rules are, etc. Scott Gimple has all this in his head–some of it written down–and he tells us all what that is, and notes our scripts to keep the concept of the show, the universe, and the voice of it all consistent.
PR: Between seasons seven and eight there was a really big time-jump. I was wondering if you could talk about why that was decided?
JB: The very, very simple reason is that the flagship The Walking Dead was also going to end, and, in universe, it was taking place several years ahead of where Fear the Walking Dead was. So, we wanted the shows to end concurrently for the purposes of, I guess, potential future spin-offs, and so we just fast-forwarded.
PR: You worked on the ending of a massive, eight-season show. How did you guys go about wrapping up all the storylines?
JB: I mean, it’s a huge challenge because there were a ton of characters, and because of that, ultimately, I don’t think we were able to give everyone the ending they necessarily deserved. There are always possibilities for some characters to show up down the line, if there continue to be spin-offs – you never know. But the way those final two seasons of [Fear the Walking Dead] were put together, a lot of the characters were in very different places from one another, in that back half of the eighth season, trying to bring all of that back together and give it all a satisfying conclusion – that’s a huge task. I think that Andrew and Ian did a really good job in shepherding that to the end.
Genre
PR: Do you find in your other genre work, if there’s someone like me, who’s not as genre-brained, that it’s different than writing a regular show? How can someone educate themselves on writing something that’s more genre?
JB: So, the way that I would answer that is that, for me, everything is genre. I don’t really know what it would be to think about writing something and it not be genre. I would challenge anyone who feels like, “Oh, I’m not genre-brained” to maybe question that and ask, “What does genre mean, for you?”
PR: I guess it means that – for example – if I’m writing a horror film, I can understand that there are certain tropes that are both necessary and that you’d want to subvert. Like, first kill, final girl, having jump scares in the beginning before the actual kills happen. But I think I would have to go back and watch all these horror movies to understand that – they don’t necessarily come to me instantly.
JB: I mean, I think that, number one, one would want to marinate in a lot of genre material, and this goes for whether you’re writing a comedy, a sitcom, a rom-com, crime stuff – it’s all genre. These all have their own genre conventions. For horror: there are subgenres of horror. Are you doing a slasher? Is it Ari Aster-style horror, where everything is actually about trauma? Is it a John Carpenter throwback? And, if you’re trying to emulate one of these established subgenres, then you want to marinate in that and internalize the rhythm of the storytelling. However, I don’t think that that is what defines genre, to me.
PR: What defines genre, for you?
JB: The thing about genre that defines it, and what is interesting to me, is that it takes things that are real but normally invisible, and it makes them materially visible. So, it’s always about something that’s actually real in the world, but that’s normally subterranean or under the surface, and the genre brings it out. It’s actually just expressing a real thing that’s normally invisible. I think ultimately, this is what any kind of storytelling should do – what we’re doing is taking some kind of feeling or experience or idea or something that we had internally and trying to express that externally for other people. The things that we typically think of as “genre” are simply the types of stories that do that the most obviously, that are the distilled version of doing that.
PR: What’s the film that comes to mind as a distilled version of “genre”?
JB: It’s the Bryan Bertino film from maybe seven, eight years ago, which I think was just called The Monster, where Zoe Kazan is a single mother, and she’s taking her young daughter on a road trip where, I believe, she’s taking her to go live with her father. And on the way, they’re being stalked by this literal monster. I mean, the metaphor is right there, it’s materialized as this horror beast. But what the film is actually about is the relationship between the mother and daughter, and this dread of having to have that particular kind of family unit split apart.
PR: I think that you’ve actually just made me less afraid of genre by saying this. That’s so cool.
Payton Russell 
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