#11 - Liz Hannah - Award Winning Screenwriter & Producer - Pt 1
Episode
53 min
Read time
2 min
Topics
Career Growth, Productivity, Health & Wellness
AI-Generated Summary
Key Takeaways
- ✓Career pivot timing: Hannah worked in development for five years reading scripts before attempting to write, which removed intimidation by revealing structure and rhythm patterns, making the transition less daunting at age twenty-seven.
- ✓Writers room assembly: Build rooms by identifying personal weaknesses first—Hannah excels at character but struggles with plot, so she deliberately hires writers strong in structural television storytelling to complement her skills and fill gaps.
- ✓Mental health storytelling: For The Girl from Plainville, Hannah prioritized hiring writers who could create safe spaces for vulnerability and unconventional thinking, matching the show's focus on mental health and suicidal ideation with musical numbers.
- ✓Rewriting philosophy: Hannah avoids being precious about individual words on the page, focusing instead on the complete six hundred page television narrative, requesting collaborators not inform her of changes to avoid emotional attachment to specific lines.
What It Covers
Screenwriter Liz Hannah discusses her journey from AFI producing graduate to Oscar-nominated writer of The Post, covering writer's room dynamics, self-awareness in hiring, and the brutal reality of pitching versus writing.
Key Questions Answered
- •Career pivot timing: Hannah worked in development for five years reading scripts before attempting to write, which removed intimidation by revealing structure and rhythm patterns, making the transition less daunting at age twenty-seven.
- •Writers room assembly: Build rooms by identifying personal weaknesses first—Hannah excels at character but struggles with plot, so she deliberately hires writers strong in structural television storytelling to complement her skills and fill gaps.
- •Mental health storytelling: For The Girl from Plainville, Hannah prioritized hiring writers who could create safe spaces for vulnerability and unconventional thinking, matching the show's focus on mental health and suicidal ideation with musical numbers.
- •Rewriting philosophy: Hannah avoids being precious about individual words on the page, focusing instead on the complete six hundred page television narrative, requesting collaborators not inform her of changes to avoid emotional attachment to specific lines.
Notable Moment
Hannah sold The Post as her first screenplay to Amy Pascal, with Steven Spielberg directing and Meryl Streep starring. A cast member told her good luck next while on set, acknowledging the impossibly high bar set for her debut.
Episode Transcript
The holidays mean more travel, more shopping, more time online, and more personal info in more places that could expose you more to identity theft. But LifeLock monitors millions of data points per second. If your identity is stolen, our US based restoration specialists will fix it guaranteed or your money back. Don't face drained accounts, fraudulent loans, or financial losses alone. Get more holiday fun and less holiday worry with LifeLock. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com/podcast. Terms apply. You can find and subscribe to the premium episodes of this podcast @pitch.supportingcast.fm. On this week's premium episode, you can hear the pitch and first three pages of the feature script Empty Chairs by Zach Catone and Gabriel Dominguez. Make sure to check that out. Hi, and welcome to another episode of Pitch. I'm Leah Saint Marie. And I am Angel. And today's episode is a little bit different and has kind of a backstory. Angel, do you wanna walk us through that? Yeah. So I've got a a neighborhood. I live in a neighborhood. And one of my neighbors has been walking her her dog by my place for several years now. And then she got another dog and we became friendly. And we learned that we're both writers, both in the entertainment industry. And so we started to talk about things and I I told her about the podcast. She goes, that's really cool. One of my friends is a is a really big fancy writer. You may have heard of her and some of her stuff. And I was like, oh, who's your friend? She said, Liz Hannah. And Lee goes, oh my god. I love Liz Hannah. One of my favorite movies is one of her movies. So she said, I would love to interview her or we I maybe we we approached you all and said, would you be willing to come on the show if we had a little friend interview set up? So that's what we're doing today. It's true. It is true. We're here. That's the voice of Carrie and that's the voice of Liz Hannah. That's me. I'm Carrie. I'm the neighbor with two dogs now. Two very big dogs. Made a mistake. Not just not just a neighbor. I'm a friend. You're a friend. And you're a writer and you do a writer. Yes. I'm a writer and I'm an actor and a producer. Whatever. But I'm mostly a dog mom because the second one has really just ruined my life for the better. God bless you for taking in that pup. She's really beautiful and so dumb. She's really really really dumb. But a big ole heart. Big big heart. A tiny little brain. I just thought number one was perfect. I mean, like, Millie is the perfect animal. She is smart and she is kind and she's a human zipped in a dog body. And Frankie has no thoughts. They're bubbles. She's young still, though. …
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Books, tools, and gear mentioned in this episode
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Books
The PostBy guest“Hannah sold The Post as her first screenplay to Amy Pascal, with Steven Spielberg directing and Meryl Streep starring.”
- The Girl from PlainvilleBy guest
“For The Girl from Plainville, Hannah prioritized hiring writers who could create safe spaces for vulnerability and unconventional thinking, matching the show's focus on mental health and suicidal ideation with musical numbers.”
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