6 Qs with Jose Molina

The Children of Tendu are this month's Q&A guests!

Set Sci-Fi References to Fun!

For our next live Zoom Q&A on Saturday, April 22, 11am, we’re doing a “crossover” episode with The Children of Tendu podcast¹, TV writer all-stars Jose Molina and Javier Grillo-Marxuach. Javi and Jose have fifty years of TV writing experience between them, and they started their podcast way back in 2014 to share the knowledge they’ve accrued. Though intermittently-released, Tendu is a trove of incredible information about both the business and craft of writing. My favorite part of listening to their podcast, though, is eavesdropping on two good, funny, charming, nerdy friends talk shop.

I’ve had both Jose and Javi on The Writers Panel many times, as they are always terrific guests, unafraid to be honest about the industry and unabashed in their love of craft.

I’ll post Javi’s 6 Qs next week. This week, I want to tell you how great Jose Molina is.

Jose Smash!

Jose Molina has worked on dozens of TV shows, usually as a dependable second-in-command, and most of them with a decidedly genre bent. From his earliest jobs on Dark Angel and Firefly to The Vampire Diaries, Legacies, Agent Carter, The Tick, and lots more, Jose brings a genuine love of genre storytelling to every job.

He comes by his nerd cred legitimately. “I didn’t speak English growing up,” he told me in one of our first interviews, “so The Incredible Hulk and Dukes of Hazzard were really easy for me to follow because there was a lot of Grrr! and Yee Haw!”

Those were Jose’s introduction to television, and after those shows, he was hooked. “We had the networks but we also, because we were in Puerto Rico, we needed to have cable in order to have access to just the networks, so we also had HBO, and we had Showtime, and we had WGN and TBS and Nick at Nite. So, I am well versed in everything from I Spy to Dobie Gillis to everything.”

That all-consuming appetite is obvious from even the briefest conversation with Jose, which is restless with references to pop culture. The way he synthesizes that storage of information is, in part, what makes him an asset in any writers’ room.

But getting into the writers’ room isn’t always easy.

Bad Rep

One of the strangest, and most exciting, exchanges that happened on the podcast was between Jose and Bones creator Hart Hanson. Part of the fun of the “panel” conceit of the podcast, especially in those first few years, was that writers who otherwise wouldn’t necessarily encounter one another might meet as guests of the show.

I should say that these recordings were always very light and fun, as you’ll hear below, when an absolutely bonkers story came out about how Jose had interviewed with Hart and hadn’t gotten the job.

You’ll hear Hart speaking first, about how Bones was the last show picked up that year, then Jose, as well as panelist Sarah Goldfinger and me.

Yeah. There’s just no end to the ways in which the studios, networks, and agents will try to, um, bone us.

Six Questions with Jose Molina

1. What you working on right now?

I’m working on a couple of pilots for Netflix, on both of which I’m collaborating with other writers. The first one is a coming-of-age story about a young football player in college who has a big genre secret up his sleeve, and the other is an adaptation of a thriller written by a big Latin American writer. Both shows feature largely diverse casts, which I’m very excited about.

2. What challenges are you facing specific to your current writing project?

Both pilots come from pre-existing material — one was a script and the other was a novel — so it’s always the balance that you have to keep in mind when you’re doing an adaptation. You don’t want to throw out the baby with the bathwater, nor do you want to be too slavish to what was there originally. So you’re balancing what’s best for the story, but also what makes you excited and engaged with the idea -- how to make it work, and how to make it your own.

3. What advice about the business of TV/film writing can you give to someone starting out now?

The advice never really changes. The number one thing is always be writing. Always have a project or two that you’re trying to get off the ground. Always have a new script that you’re a few weeks away from turning in to anyone who’s interested in reading.

Other than that, if you’re starting out, get a job in the assistant trenches so you can be close to the work and to the people doing it. You’ll learn more from being around writers than you will from any film school or any class you can take.

4. What advice about the craft of writing can you give to someone starting out?

Character, character, character. People watch movies and TV because they want to connect with someone, even when you’re looking at high-concept work.

You look at a show like Game of Thrones, and the thing that kept you coming back that first season was Ned, not the crazy machinations surrounding the Iron Throne. Something like The Last of Us, you’re absolutely watching because of the relationship between Joel and Ellie, not because of the clickers.

5. What do you respond to most in a piece of writing?

Character, character, character. Give me someone I like — or can relate to, or want to understand — and I’ll keep turning the page. But beware the slow burn. Something needs to be happening to — or around — that character that keeps them moving down a path.

The best advice I can give to someone writing a pilot is to look at the hooky end of your script and consider making that the end of act one.

6. What are you watching/reading/listening to lately that’s getting you excited or inspired?

Do reruns of The Amazing Race count? I’m pretty disappointed in a lot of the “big swing” shows out there right now. I have franchise fatigue. Andor is the exception to that statement. I think the execution of that show is pretty flawless.

On the page, I’ve recently become addicted to Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series, which is about the Napoleonic Wars if the Napoleonic Wars had dragons! 

1. Named for, I think they told me, a Star Trek thing? I don’t know.