This is the transcript for Episode 16 of the Navigating Hollywood Podcast: Monica Macer, TV Writer & Producer: Station 11, MacGyver, Queen Sugar, Lost, Prison Break. Listen to the original episode here.

Allen Wolf:

Welcome to the Navigating Hollywood Podcast. My name is Allen Wolf, and I’m a filmmaker, author, and game creator. Navigating Hollywood encourages and equips entertainment professionals to live relationally and spiritually holistic lives. If you work in entertainment, visit navigatinghollywood.org to discover how you can get involved. Today, we are joined by television writer and producer Monica el. Monica has written for some of the most acclaimed television series over the last 15 years. She’s currently a consulting producer for HBO’s Station Eleven. She was the executive producer for MacGyver, Queen Sugar, Nashville, and Gentefied, which was nominated for Peabody Award. She was a writer on Lost, Teen Wolf, Prison Break, and more. She was also named as one of Variety’s 10 Writers to Watch. Amazing. Welcome, Monica.

Monica Macer:

Thank you so much. It’s lovely to be here.

Allen Wolf:

Oh, great to have you. Would you agree that your first big break was on the show Lost?

Monica Macer:

Definitely. That was my first staff gig. And prior to that, I had been a writer’s assistant for two seasons on 24. And I remember getting the meeting and being so excited. They had already started the room and they had just enough money left to hire a staff writer. So I felt like I hit the lotto when I got that one.

Allen Wolf:

Oh, my gosh. Did you do something to celebrate when you got that news? That is huge.

Monica Macer:

It is huge. I was still an assistant at 24, so I got the news when I was at my desk at 24. And my agent was like, “You start tomorrow.” And it was like five o’clock on a Wednesday, so I had to run around to all my bosses at 24 and tell them, and they were so excited because they had put calls in for me. And I asked them their advice like, “Do you have any advice for me? And they were all like, “Don’t be a talkie staff writer. Listen more.” They all pretty much said the same thing, “Remember, you’re a staff writer, it’s a very hierarchical system. Do all the homework.” And it was so exciting. We were on a J.J. Abram show. We were right across the sidewalk from Alias, so we got to know those writers really well and we had lunches together. It was just a really cool time.

Allen Wolf:

And when you left the show, did you know what would happen to the storyline?

Monica Macer:

You know what, not really. So we had started preliminary conversations about season two, and so we knew certain things that were going to happen. We also, at one point, J.J. had come into the room in the middle of season one and says, “We have to figure out what the island is.” So we spent the whole day with him while he had taken a break from prepping Mission Impossible and tried to figure out what the island was. We came up with an idea. And Damon Lindelof, the co-creator, was like, “I don’t think it’s going to end up being that, but at least we have something, so that it’s in our brain. We know what we’re working towards.”

Monica Macer:

And yeah, I didn’t really know what was going to happen after I left the show. I was just really thankful for the opportunity, thankful to be able to contribute in what I felt was really meaningful way because Sun and Gin were Korean characters on network TV for the first time speaking in Korean, subtitled. I’m half Korean, so that was a huge win and just kind of a moment in television I think. And I was really excited, Damon said to me when I left, “Your DNA is imprinted on those characters,” because so much was pulled from asking my mother questions, but also pulling from things that I knew about Korean culture and about my family’s history.

Allen Wolf:

That’s amazing. And how special is that?

Monica Macer:

Very special.

Allen Wolf:

And did your ideas on what you thought the island was, did they end up going with that or did it end up changing eventually?

Monica Macer:

I think it ended up changing. It ended up changing because… Also, Damon was very much in touch with what the fans were thinking, what they were wanting, we’re communicating with the fans. And he really didn’t want any idea that a fan that was sort of out there in the zeitgeist. He was like, “It has to be something different, which was really hard.” But I think, in the end, it ended well.

Allen Wolf:

How did you get your start as a writer?

Monica Macer:

I think even in middle school, I was told by teachers, you’re a really good writer. When you’re in sixth grade, you don’t really know, “Okay, how does that translate to a job in the future?” And then in high school, I thought, “Oh, that means I’m going to be a journalist,” which I wasn’t going to be a journalist. But, It was the most tangible thing that I could think of. And then when I got to college, I wrote a very short play, a one-act play called “Vassar in a Nutshell.” I went to Vassar College. And my professor, my English professor said, “This is the best thing you’ve written all year.”

Monica Macer:

And I was like, “Oh, interesting.” Then it was produced sophomore year in the fall by the college because they wanted to promote dialogue. There were a lot of things going on campus about stereotypes, and racial, and cultural misunderstandings. So they used it as a springboard for discussion and I directed it. And just seeing people respond to my writing and laughing at the jokes, it was an auditorium full of students. And then, an upperclassman who I really respected, his name was Danny, came up to me and said, “That was really good.” And I was like, “Thanks.” He was like, “You should do this for a living.” I was like, “You mean playwright?” And he was like, “Yeah, you should do this.” And from that moment forward, I was like, “I’m doing this for a living.”

Allen Wolf:

So people really spoke a lot of encouragement into your life?

Monica Macer:

Yes, they spoke a lot of encouragement. My parents were very proactive in sort of giving me opportunities that were in theater where I was going to make $75 a week after graduating and having student loan debt. They were like, “It’s fine.”

Allen Wolf:

That was a lot of money in 1939, but I don’t know… That’s what you hear in old movies where they’re like, “They’re paying us $75 a week?” And you’re like, “Oh, that’s a lot of money.”

Monica Macer:

I know. I was like, “What?” So I did. I got a lot of encouragement and a lot of support from my parents. My mom, one summer, I wanted to work at the Old Globe Theater, assisting the director. Again, that paid peanuts. And so she rented an apartment, stayed with me, would cook all my meals, send me off the rehearsal. So my parents really encouraged and supported me.

Allen Wolf:

Wow, that’s incredible. And are they just amazed and so proud of you today?

Monica Macer:

Yeah, my father has since passed, but before he passed, I was visiting him. And he walked into a Walmart and he said, “I bet I’m the only person in this Walmart that can walk to the DVD section and pull out something and say, ‘My daughter wrote on this show.'” So he is so proud and my mom is really proud too.

Allen Wolf:

I talked about you being the executive producer of multiple series, but I know in the world of movies, the title of executive producer doesn’t have a ton of significance, at least as much as it does in television. Can you describe the difference?

Monica Macer:

Executive producer in television, so for me, the shows that you mentioned, specifically Queen Sugar, MacGyver, and Gentefied, I was the executive producer and showrunner. With the title of showrunner, you are the head writer, you are the main person to interface with the studio, and network, and production company. And there are other executive producers on the show from the production company, but they are more creative producers that give you notes on your script, give you notes on the cut of an episode. As the executive producer slash showrunner, you’re doing everything from breaking story in the room, to writing your own episodes, to rewriting outlines and other episodes, to being on set and producing the episode. But you’re responsible for the entire show, that’s why you’re called the showrunner. Now in film, and I just learned this recently. I think I knew it and forgot it. And then was reminded about that big title and film to get on the producer side is producer, not executive producer.

Monica Macer:

So the producer on the film side is the one that is doing all the things similar, I would say, to the showrunner, but split with the director and helping the director fulfill their vision. Executive producer, what I’ve sort of been told and learned over the years is that’s more of like, I don’t want to say vanity title, but it’s more of… It might be the production company executives, but they’re not the ones boots on the ground doing the day to day work. They might represent the company or an EP from the studio, or maybe they option the original material for the entire project. But I kind of feel like EP/showrunner in television, you’re the general. And I do answer up, I do have to answer up to the president and all of that, but you’re the general. And I feel the same way when you’re the boots-on-the-ground producer for film, you’re a general and you are moving troops, and moving equipment, and trying to make your days.

Allen Wolf:

Yeah, you’re at war.

Monica Macer:

Yeah, exactly.

Allen Wolf:

Entertainment war, and it’s got to keep moving forward.

Monica Macer:

Yes.

Allen Wolf:

Well, after the tremendous success of Lost and then Prison Break, what did your dance card look like?

Monica Macer:

So after prison break, I had my daughter, and it coincided oddly enough, with the writer strike. At first I was like, I feel like a lot of working moms feel this way in TV. You feel like you’re never going to work again because you’re just at home rocking the baby and your whole world has been exploded and you have to rebuild it around your child. And then the writer strike happened. And I remember I would do the shift where we loaded the signs into the vehicles at night because it counted as two shifts because I was like, “I need to get double shifts here because I have a baby at home.” Right after that, a friend reached out to me who’s Korean American and he said, “Hey, there’s this production company in Korea that is looking for a Korean American writer who has sort of edgy action credits like yours to consult on a show.”

Monica Macer:

So I said, “Oh, okay, we’ll send them my way.” Not thinking anything of it. Cut to four months later, I’m on a flight with my mom and my nine-month-old child flying to Korea to consult on a Korean drama. And I did that for five weeks and then the strike ended and my agent was like, “Come back to LA.” And it was amazing. We worked maybe about four hours a day because we had a translator. My Korean is very baby Korean and his English wasn’t as proficient, so we needed a translator. So I would pitch ideas in English, the translator would translate it. He would listen and respond. And that’s how we worked. And it was so challenging, but so rewarding. And after we finished our four hours of work, we would always go eat because we were so tired and hungry and drained.

Monica Macer:

Right after that, I was also really fortunate to get the first show right after the strike to staff, I got on Knight Rider, the reboot of Knight Rider that NBC was doing. I was like, “Oh, I’m never going to work again. What’s my life going to be?” And then I got a job in Korea, and then I came home and I got the job right out of the box of the first show that was up and running in April. That was a total blessing. And I felt like it was like that was like, “Girl, I got you. Stop. Stop. Why are you stressing? I always have you.”

Allen Wolf:

And was your husband stressed at all during this time?

Monica Macer:

My husband’s very even keel and he’s kind of a go with the flow kind of mentality. And I’m a planner, so I think I was stressed and like, “Ah, what’s going to happen?” And he was like, “It’s all right. Everything will work out.”

Allen Wolf:

And from Knight Rider, did you then move on to Nashville?

Monica Macer:

I did Knight Rider and then I did Teen Wolf on MTV, for the first season of Teen Wolf. That was great, but it was also, the timing of it was odd because we weren’t going to know if we were going to get a season two until after network staffing. And I was like, “Oh, what’s going to happen?”

Allen Wolf:

And your husband’s like, “Don’t worry about. It’s going to work out.”

Monica Macer:

Well, he’s an actor. His entire career has been freelance. And I think his writers were like, “I just want to get on a show that’s going to go five seasons and never have to worry about staffing.” And of course, it never worked out that way. So, he was used to the up and down and sort of the tumultuous nature of the industry, where I was like, “I just want to get on a show that’s going to go five seasons.” And of course [inaudible 00:13:45], I never did.

Monica Macer:

From there, my friend was like, “Hey, I’m going to go be the number two on The Playboy Club on NBC. Do you want to come with me?” And I was like, “Yes, because I don’t even know if we have a season two of Teen Wolf.” So, I called my boss and he was like, “Of course. Of course, because I don’t want you to be without a job.” So, I was able to go with her to that show. And that show only lasted six episodes, three that aired.

Allen Wolf:

Only three of them aired?

Monica Macer:

Yeah.

Allen Wolf:

Oh, wow. And when people hear it, it sounds salacious, but it wasn’t salacious was it?

Monica Macer:

It wasn’t. No, it wasn’t salacious. It was about the jazz club in Chicago that the bunnies worked at as cocktail waitresses, so it was essentially… I think maybe the misstep there was calling it “The Playboy Club” because everyone thought the magazine. When I read the script, it was clear it was about the cocktail waitresses. It was about 20 something women trying to figure out their lives in early 1960s in Chicago. And that was one where I too was like, “What is The Playboy Club about? Because I wasn’t really sure.” But then when I read the script, I was like, “This is not about the magazine at all.”

Allen Wolf:

Not I feel like Nashville, it seems like that was another big step forward for you. Is that true?

Monica Macer:

It was a big step forward for me. The first half of my career, I feel like there were a lot of action credits. The girl who was trained by the writers of 24, and then I went to Lost, which is this big show genre. And then I went to Prison Break, very action, testosterone-driven, explosions and car chases. And then did Knight Rider, again, action. Teen Wolf, genre. And The Playboy Club was the first turn for me. And I had said to my manager, “Look, I want to write soaps and character-driven things.” And she was like, “Look at your resume. Your resume does not reflect that you can do that.” So she said, “You have to write a sample that’s character driven or soapy. And then you have to reach out to your friends that work on those shows and get them to read that so that you can possibly open up the door.”

Monica Macer:

And that was Karen. Karen read my sample, that I wrote. It was still actiony but it was character driven. Read that, and that opened the door. And then, I was like, “Yay. I got my shot on The Playboy Club.” Even though I was really hired because there was a mob storyline, it was fine. I still got to write women in their twenties trying to figure out their life. And then we got canceled and I went to Deception on NBC, which the leads were Meagan Good and Laz Alonso. And that was a Liz Heldens show. And that was, even though it was a mystery thriller, it was very soapy and very character driven. And so that helped me turn the corner. And that was only one season, it was a mid-season show.

Monica Macer:

And that really helped me get in the door with Nashville, to show like, “I can do soap. I just worked on Deception and The Playboy Club.” And Nashville, I went from being a producer to a co-EP on that show. Produced all the episodes that I wrote, spent a good amount of time in the city of Nashville. And I really feel like that’s sort of where I earned my stripes as a producer. We had a huge cast and three musical numbers in every episode, so totally it was a lot to juggle and it really stretched me as a writer. And I feel like I grew a lot as a writer under the tutelage of that showrunner, D. Johnson. I think I became a stronger, emotional and character writer.

Allen Wolf:

Wow. And from there, eventually, I love that, that all of this eventually led to MacGyver. I mean, another classic show.

Monica Macer:

Yes, yes. From there, then I did a couple other shows, but I got my showrunner stripes on Queen Sugar on OWN. And then I went to showrun Gentefied season one, where we got the Peabody Award. And then, after that, it was like the pandemic hit. We weren’t sure if Gentefied was going to get another season. It was a really weird time in March of 2020. My agent called me in April and said, “Hey, Peter Lenkov at CBS want to meet with you for MacGyver. Are you interested?” And I said, “I am.” And he was like, “Okay. Okay, let’s set up the meeting.”

Monica Macer:

And a lot of my friends were like, “MacGyver? You just ran Queen Sugar and Gentefied, those are critically acclaimed and character driven.” And I said, “You have to remember I am the young writer who was in the action room. I was usually the only woman or the only person of color. Action is a really strong muscle for me. And I also, in watching the series, felt like I could put some spin on the ball with it.” I was like, “This is an action show. What it needs to do is go deeper into character and they need to play up this love triangle.” It’s an action show at the oldest of the old guard networks. And for me, a woman who is black and Asian, to be the showrunner of that and to get this job where it’s not about me being black or Asian or a woman is a win in terms of representation and other writers of color scene.

Monica Macer:

I can do that. I know the woman who I didn’t know her personally coming up the ladders for me it was Pam Veasey. She was running CBS shows that had nothing to do with her race or gender, and she was the showrunner. And I would read about her in the trades and it was like, if she could do that, I can do that. And I wanted to, especially being African American Asian, show people, “Yeah, you could be a black Asian girl and run an action show on network TV.” To me, it was a win.

Allen Wolf:

Why do you think the writers’ rooms are so male dominated?

Monica Macer:

I don’t think showrunners of those shows set out to say, “I’m just going to hire all men.” I think it is subconscious. I think it is, people hire their friends and people that they have worked with before. And I also think of it as people need to educate themselves and read writers of color and women more and familiarize. Reach out to their agent, tell them who are your top five female writers that write action. I want to read them and I want to get to know them even though I’m not staffing now.

Monica Macer:

And I think it just comes from, “You know who you know.” And so therefore, that’s who you staff. That’s what I’ve sort of seen coming up being in these rooms. And then usually the studio or the network will say, “Hey, there’s three female leads in this show, too. You need some women on staff.” And then they’ll start reading women. But usually it’s like, they came up during a time where there were very few women on staff and their rooms were male dominated, so they picked their three friends that they liked the best from the shows that they’ve worked on in the past. And so it perpetuates this cycle that needs to be broken and more people need to be given access. And slowly, things are changing.

Allen Wolf:

You mentioned that that woman, when you read about her in the trades, that she was inspiring to you. Has anyone said that to you?

Monica Macer:

Yes. I did a Zoom with a young woman who is, we call it hoppa when you’re half Asian. And she’s hoppa, she’s half Asian and half Caucasian. And she said, “I’ve never met another writer who is half Asian like me and you are a showrunner.” And I told her this story, I said, “After running Queen Sugar, I took a job during that time because I was developing as the number two on a show. I was only there for two weeks because then my dad was put in hospice and I was like, ‘Ugh, I really need to go be with my father.'” But when I walked in that writers’ room and there was another writer that I knew on the show, another Asian American writer, and she was like, “Monica,” and she was like, “The number two.” And my heart sank because I had climbed the ladder and worked so hard to get to showrunner, to hear someone say, “Oh, you’re the number two.”

Monica Macer:

I was like, “Oh, my gosh.” And I said to that young hoppa writer, I said, “I’ll never do that again.” I said, “I am holding a place for you as a hoppa writer.” As a half Asian, half black writer, I said, “I’m holding this spot for you so that you know and that you can see that you can get here too.” And that doesn’t mean I won’t take a number two job or a consulting producer job. It has to be the right job. And that show, everything that was going on with my dad, it wasn’t the right show at the right time for me to be like, “Yay, I’m the number two.” Now, after having run three shows, I could take a job like that and it wouldn’t be as much of a thing for me. But when I told her that, “I’m holding a place for you. And you can do this, too, you can be a showrunner, even though I’m the only other half Asian showrunner you’ve ever met, who’s a woman,” she started crying and she was like, “I needed to hear that. That’s so encouraging.”

Allen Wolf:

Well the storylines of MacGyver often involve him coming up with imaginative solutions to get out of situations. What was it like coming up with those solutions?

Monica Macer:

It was so much fun. I have to give a shout out to the MacGyver season five writers’ room. First of all, hello, doing television in a pandemic on Zoom, doing your writers’ room where you have a new boss and another new writer coming on board that you’ve never met in person… And the writers’ room in person is like, over lunch we eat together. You get to know each other. When you go into the break room and you get your coffee, people make small talk. That’s how you build rapport. So, I inherited a staff that didn’t know me, that had to get to know their new boss over Zoom. So hard, so hard. And the blessing of it was that the majority of the staff was returning. So they had been on C4, really smart. MacGyver was a well oiled machine and just came up with so many great ideas, so I have to give credit to the writer staff. They were very imaginative and creative.

Monica Macer:

And the only thing that I changed was I was like, instead of breaking story from the point of breaking the mission first, I said, “We’re going to break from character POV first.” I said, “I know that’s weird in an action room to do that, but having done both, I’m telling you it’ll work, and the stories will resonate emotionally because that’s what we want. We’re always going to have run and jump. We’re a mission of the week show. Mac is always going to figure out how to make something work with his pen, his glasses, and his cellphone. And he’s going to blow up, open a door, and we’re going to save the day.”

Monica Macer:

So the point of the story is to make people feel something. And if you go deeper into character, we can have both. We can have our cake and eat it, too. So it was fun. It was fun doing research on, if you have these three elements… Also, I have to give credit, we also had a tech advisor who is physics professor who would give us information on how things to work. So not just the writing staff, also our tech advisor.

Allen Wolf:

Oh, I see, okay. And speaking about just building interesting characters, I loved at the beginning of Station Eleven, the show on HBO, where one of the main characters at that point runs onto the stage because he thinks someone’s having a heart attack, and then he’s asked if he’s a doctor, and he’s not a doctor. And you’re just like, he says, “No, I’m not a doctor.” And you’re just immediately interested, “Who is this person? Why did he run on stage?” And it just kind of goes from there. Can you tell us more about Station Eleven?

Monica Macer:

Sure. So Patrick Somerville was the creator of that. And I met with him while I was developing. And he was like, “I need someone to come in a couple days a week and run the room.” He had two shows going at the same time, one was in production. And the room on Station Eleven was going and he was like, “I can’t be there every day.” And I just really need you to run the room and talk story with the rest of the writers. He had already written the pilot. So I read that and I was blown away. I was like, “Oh, my gosh, I love this. I love his writing. I love this world.”

Monica Macer:

I had never read the book but I was just immediately pulled in. And the room was really great. It was a lot of fun breaking those stories. And reading the book and seeing the difference between what Patrick was doing in the adaptation, because he started his career as a novelist. It was just a lot of fun working with the writers and seeing Patrick’s process. Because the great thing about him not being there every day is he would have a fresh perspective when he heard what we worked on. And he is very imaginative. And he wasn’t afraid to say, “That’s all great, but what if we spin this around and do it from this 180 degree perspective,” which I thought was also really refreshing and kept things really fresh and inventive in the room.

Allen Wolf:

I really appreciate the show’s use of art to inspire people who survive the devastation that happens. How do you connect to that theme?

Monica Macer:

I think that art for me, it’s so interesting, especially being a kid who’s like, “Oh, you’re a writer.” And always gravitating more towards the arts. It’s so interesting that in school, art and drama, it’s seen as extracurricular. It’s not really given priority. You look at public school funding in the US, the arts program, the music program, the dance program, those theater, they always get cut first. And when you think about our ability to communicate as human beings, things through a piece of choreography or a piece of music, how global that is and how it transcends language and how we can connect with human beings, for me, is so important. I often get inspiration just from going to the museum, going to LACMA or going to The Broad. I love watching modern dance because that also inspires me. It’s almost like it unlatches something in a different part of my brain when I could be working on a script or an outline and being so literal about what the characters need to do and how the plot needs to go.

Monica Macer:

And I can listen to a song on the freeway and it’ll be like, “Boom, that’s the idea.” So it really helps, I mean, to that point on Nashville, I was breaking an episode that I was writing and we couldn’t figure out the Juliette Barnes storyline. We had Rayna Jaymes’ storyline figured out the story. We could not figure out Hayden Panettiere’s characters story for the episode. Our music supervisor came in, Frankie, she brought a song in that would usually go to another actress on the show because of her voice. It was a ballad, it was more ballady, more emotional, where Juliet Barn saying the top 40 kind of country music. I heard that song and I was like, “That song is Juliette Barnes’s story for this episode. So I really get a lot from different art forms in terms of inspiration, healing. I really identify with that aspect of the show, that in the face of so much devastation that this Shakespeare troupe is kind of the balm that the broken soul of all these people left need.

Monica Macer:

And I feel like during the pandemic, that’s why streamers, we were all binge watching, partially to escape this big unknown, mostly to escape. But also there were so many great shows that I watched over the pandemic, and things that I went to watch on Netflix and Amazon that I had missed before and I went back and watched because I had the time. I recently have realized that I love what I do so much that I don’t rest enough. And for me, I’ve realized that the importance of having a day of rest when I’m busy. There were weeks on MacGyver when I didn’t have a day of rest because I was in Atlanta producing during the pandemic, wrapped in PPE, because we were shooting before there was a vaccine. And then on the weekends, we’re working on cuts with the editors on Zoom, reading people’s outlines and talking to the writers and giving them notes that I didn’t rest enough.

Monica Macer:

And I just came off another period recently where I wrote this past season three network pilots all between the span of November and March. And I pulled 10 allnighters during that time. I gained 10 pounds. And when I turned everything in, I was sick for two weeks, and it wasn’t because I kept testing. It was exhaustion. It was exhaustion. And so I have learned to stay creatively fresh, I need rest. Not rest of a Saturday where it’s like, “Oh, and we’re going to go to the baseball game and then we’re going to go [inaudible 00:31:38].” No, I need to sleep late. I need to wake up, eat whatever I want to eat and sit on the couch and flip through a magazine, maybe watch an episode of television. I need my soul needs rest. And I’m so thankful that my husband is a hands-on dad.

Monica Macer:

So those days when I need that, we’re both middle children, so I think we naturally retreat after a very intense creative time. We only have one child and now she’s 15. So if Mama is like, “I’m going to take a three-hour nap,” she’s fine. She can read a book or do her homework or be on Zoom with her friends or go to the mall. But rest for me, in addition to feeding myself with other art, but I really have had to check myself when I’m going to the museum. I’m like, “Am I going to the museum to enjoy art or am I going to the museum to collect ideas and to be inspired?” There’s a difference between refreshing yourself art or going to it with the intention of mining, that’s not rest either. I’ve had to really check myself. It’s also hard, I got to be honest. It’s hard to read a novel without thinking like, “Oh, this would be a great adaptation.” So even reading has become work. So rest really is the best way to recharge creatively for me.

Allen Wolf:

It’s interesting because that also holds true for someone who’s trying to build muscle at the gym. You work out really hard and then it’s the resting period that where the muscles are rebuilding and you’re growing stronger. If you worked out every day, you’re destroy yourself. I mean, you would not gain muscle at all because of that rest time. So, it’s interesting how we’re just built that way, that we’re just built to need that rest to just thrive as people.

Monica Macer:

And I just learned that lesson, Allen, because I’ve been working out trying to get these 10 pounds off. And I said to my husband, I’m day seven of starting to get back in shape, I was like, “Why isn’t the scale moving?” And he said exactly what you… He’s like, “Have you had a rest day?” I had got done 10 days in a row. He’s like, “Honey, have you had a rest day?” And I said, “No, I have to get this weight off.” And he said like you said, “Your body needs a rest day.” I was like, “Oh, okay.”

Allen Wolf:

That’s like a big theme right now, the rest theme.

Monica Macer:

Mm-hmm.

Allen Wolf:

Well, you have worked on some of the best known shows in television history. As you look back, what have been some of your favorite memories?

Monica Macer:

Being in the Lost room when we broke episode two and getting chills when we reveal that Locke was paralyzed. And when the plane crashed on the island, he could walk. I mean, just shivers down our spines. That was a pretty amazing moment. Producing my first episode of television, going to set for Prison Break and working with William Fichtner with his intense blue eyes asking me questions about the script and interfacing with the actors. It was just, that was a career high. Nashville, I mean, that show was so special, that cast, our writer staff, D. Johnson, our showrunner, Callie Khouri, the creator. But getting to work with such big name talent with Hayden Panettiere and also Connie Britton, she’s a powerhouse. She was on Friday Night Lights. But that entire cast, so talented. And getting to see huge concert numbers produced with, this is before COVID, with hundreds of extras and with the playback of the music, and the dancers, and the musicians, and being in Nashville and having those musicians, such great talent.

Monica Macer:

And being at the Bluebird in Nashville. Those are definitely some career highs. Queen Sugar, getting my showrunner stripes on that show. Always will be grateful to Aver DuVernay and OWN for choosing me to be the showrunner of season two. But also just for me as someone who came up in network television, who was largely writing shows where the leads didn’t look like me, to then run my first showrunner job, running Queen Sugar where the entire cast was African American was like, “Oh, wow. I never thought that was really possible,” when I started on Lost. There was maybe two shows, Soul Food and one other drama. There were a lot of comedies coming up. But dramas with African American families were not on television except for Soul Food. So that was really huge and inspiring for me.

Monica Macer:

And then I have to say, when people ask me recently, “What has your favorite experience been?” MacGyver. MacGyver because we were the little engine that could. We were shooting in the fall of 2020 before we knew what was going on with the virus, before there was a vaccine. Writers in a room who had to get to know each other over Zoom, and learn their boss, and me learn them, and doing it. And to be able to go to set during the pandemic when we were all locked in our homes. My husband, God bless him, drove me to Atlanta in a converted sprinter van that we rented. And we camped and stayed at two camp sites, because I was like, “I’m not getting out and using the restroom at a gas station.” I was like, “COVID will fly into my eyeball, and I will bring it to set, and we’ll not get to start on time. “So he was like, “Okay.”

Monica Macer:

So he drove me there. And I didn’t have to step foot outside to use the restroom or anything. Everything was inside and made it there COVID free, got to produce a show. Everybody was so encouraged because we were like, “Oh, my gosh. And prep, we’re getting ready to do this. Are we going to do this? We’re doing this. Oh, my gosh.” Where everybody else is at home and either is just working over Zoom, we’re back on set. The comradery, the teamwork, the effort to get a show made, I feel like we were high fiving each other and doing back flips. That was such a special memory to me. And the executives, the support from the studio and the network from CBS Studios and CBS Network was amazing. Anything that we needed to get the job done, because I think people were so happy. I feel like network was like, “Are we going to have a fall schedule?” We need to have a fall schedule and we did it. So that is probably recently my most favorite memory.

Allen Wolf:

That’s great. As you look back at your career, what would you do differently if you could do it all over again?

Monica Macer:

I think I wouldn’t sweat the small stuff, which is so easy to say in hindsight, but no. I talk about how wonderful Nashville was, but every season, we were a bubble show and we were hoping in a brand that we got another season. So, that meant I had to go out and try to get another job, but say to people that were interested, “Okay, great, but you’re in second position because contractually I have to go back to Nashville.” So it was just this weird little dance. And during those times, I was always stressed out. I was always nervous, and anxious, and snippy with my husband and my daughter. And there wasn’t a lot of joy. There was a lot of work. So even when it was supposed to be my hiatus, we didn’t know if it was a hiatus or you were just going to have to go get another job.

Monica Macer:

I feel like I needed to manage my stress better and I needed to trust that God was going to provide. I didn’t need to worry. He always comes through. But I don’t know, I feel like I always have to learn the worry lesson over and over again. I wish I wasn’t sort of wired that way. I wish I was like, “Everything’s going to be all right.” But, I feel like it goes up and down. So that’s what I would do differently. I would be like, “You know what? It’s going to work out.” As long as you do the work and you put the work in. I think worrying is something that I would really try to work on.

Allen Wolf:

Well, you’ve been part of many different writer rooms, so there must be something very affable about you that works well with others because that’s so important in what you’re doing. How have you developed as a collaborator?

Monica Macer:

That’s a great question. So I would say there’s two things. One, I moved around a lot as a kid. I went to 13 different elementary and junior high schools because my dad worked for the government. Yes. So 13 times I had to reintroduce myself and we’re not talking within the same state. I mean, I went to school in Indiana, went to school in Illinois, Oklahoma, Texas, New Jersey. Lot of change. And when I look back on that, it really prepared me for this industry. You’re constantly moving, so I think there was something sort of in my DNA as a kid having to move around that prepared me for TV. When I look back at how I was as a child and in high school, I was really much more of an introvert. You can’t be an introvert in TV. You have to talk in the room. You’re an introverted writer, you might want to be a feature writer or a playwright. But in the room you really have to contribute because people are looking for ideas to get on the board to then become an outline and then become a script.

Monica Macer:

I think college helped me come out of my shell a lot, but I would say I’m naturally curious about people and empathetic, I think, is one of my… I have a lot of empathy and compassion. And I want to know people’s stories, so I think that helps. I think I’ve been really good at being able to relate to other people, even in the most extreme situations when someone tells me a story about another person and, “Oh, and this happened to them and this happened to them.” And I’m like, “Oh, I just try to put myself in the other person’s shoes.” And I think I also, honestly, I feel like I have hit the lotto working in television. It is my dream job. I get to go and sit in a writers’ room for eight hours a day and talk story and character and big set pieces. I want to have fun and I want to have fun with the people that I’m working with. I don’t know, I just think I try to relate and treat people the way I like to be treated.

Allen Wolf:

And you mentioned God earlier, what has your spiritual journey looked like?

Monica Macer:

My grandparents on the African American side of my family were Baptist. And I went to their church with them when we lived in Illinois. My grandfather was a deacon, my grandmother was a deaconess. I had memories of when I was really little going with my grandfather to go visit the sick and shut in from the church. The people who couldn’t come to church, the deacons would go and visit during the week because they couldn’t go. And I remember sitting and watching him just hanging out and chatting or bringing cookies or something. And then we moved. Then we started our, whatever, seven years of moving around America. And I didn’t go to church at all. And my stepmother was an atheist. And my dad, even though he was raised going to church was, to be honest, he was burnt out on church, so he was really not trying to go to church.

Monica Macer:

So it was this long gap. But I was very close to my grandmother and my grandfather. And they just left a really strong impression on me. And so then, it was really after college that I was like… Honestly, in college, I started going on a spiritual journey. I was like, “Well, my mom’s side of the family, they were Hindu and Buddhist.” So, I took a religion course in college where we studied all the different religions. And I was like, “Hindu and Buddhism, not really for me.” And then it wasn’t really until I was in New York and I was running around crazy and really trying to find my way as a young playwright and director and really starting to burn out that I started going to a black Baptist church in Harlem with a friend of mine. And I was like, “Okay, I don’t know why it took me so long to find my way back here, but this is where I belong.”

Monica Macer:

And then talking to my husband who also grew up in a Black Baptist family where he was starting to really get serious about his faith again, it just sort of all clicked. So, that when I moved to LA, I started going to his church. And it was such an exciting time because I was in my twenties. And everyone at our old church, we were just so excited to learn. And our pastor really was a good teacher. I mean, we all had our notebooks out and we would go, after church, go to brunch and talk about the sermon. And he was breaking it down and telling you the Greek and Hebrew roots of the words. I felt like I was in college again and we were all so inspired. And then once Sterling and I got married and had a kid, we couldn’t drive all the way to Englewood to go to church because we live in the valley.

Monica Macer:

Now we go to a church in the valley and our daughter goes to the Youth Ministry and she loves it. And that’s our church home. And for me, it has to be a vertical relationship. Because I had to be honest, I didn’t go to church during the pandemic. I watched it online pretty faithfully for the first few months and then I completely fell off. I was like, I just fell out of the habit. But I still was getting in the word, I was still praying with my prayer partners, I was still having a relationship with Christ. That’s really important to me. That’s the foundation of who I am. That’s the rock that I cling to. And it’s really interesting to me because my mom told me the story of her family. We are from Northern Korea originally Pyongyang. And my grandmother was a Seventh Day Adventist. And she wanted to go to college in America and become a missionary, but my great-grandfather wouldn’t let her. So she was kind of the first on the Korean side of the family that was a Christian and was a really strong Christian.

Allen Wolf:

And what made sense to you in that Black Baptist church in New York that you connected to, that you weren’t connecting to as you were going through the different comparative religions?

Monica Macer:

Honestly, nobody… And I said to my grandmother once, I was like , even when I was going to church with her as a child, I said, “How come y’all never told me it was about having a relationship with Christ?” I thought it was about going to church and sitting in the pew that, that was what being a Christian was. And at that church in Harlem, when I went as a 20 something, post college, he broke it down. You might be a sick and shut in. Does that mean, if you can’t go to church, that you’re not a Christian? No. You can have a one on one relationship with Christ yourself. You can talk to him yourself. You don’t need the intermediary of a pastor or a priest and a congregation. It’s about a relationship. So that was the mind blowing thing that I had. No one had really broken it down in a way that either I could understand or was ready to receive.

Allen Wolf:

Wow. And how did that change your life at that point?

Monica Macer:

For me, it changed everything because I was so focused on career. Post college, It was theater at the time. I hadn’t made the transition into TV yet. It was career, career, career, career, career. And I remember running, I had a fellowship at a theater in New York. I was so proud. It was a fellowship at Second Stage Theater, which has launched the career of a lot of female playwrights like Wendy Wasserstein and Theresa Rebeck. So, I was so excited to get that fellowship for directing. And then I was also directing a play on the side and helping another playwright that I knew do a stage reading. And I remember going to a deli, grabbing lunch, going back to my apartment, that I shared with two other women, shoving the food down my throat and trying to eat because I had to get out the door in 30 minutes and I vomited because it was too much.

Monica Macer:

That was right before I went to church. It was almost like God was like, “Girl, you doing too much. What are you running around here doing all this stuff? You doing too much. Your career will happen. Stop striving so hard.” I had no balance in my life. So after realizing like, “Oh, it’s about a relationship with God,” helped reframe things. I stopped striving so much. I stop trying to make it happen. I feel like, in entertainment, we feel like we have to make it happen. Make it happen in a way that is defeating sometimes, in a way that exhausts us. It completely depletes our soul. We have no balance in our lives. And that’s the thing that was like, “Oh, okay, I can have a relationship with Christ.” That is the center and I will focus on that, and everything else will come in its natural order and time. And honestly, I had so much more peace after that.

Allen Wolf:

And how do you continue to stay spiritually healthy while working in entertainment?

Monica Macer:

I have friends who are my prayer partners. My girls from my old church who have known me since I was the writer’s assistant on 24, who will call me on my stuff. They just keep my feet on the ground. They’re also my prayer partners. If I’m nervous about something, I’m like, “Girl, I don’t know why I’m so worried. Will you pray with me?” They keep me grounded and my husband. My husband, easy breezy, go with the flow, super chill is also like, “You are stressing too much.” This is what my daughter, my husband will say when I’m anxious or anxiety ridden, “Have you had your quiet time today?” They know the difference between mama who has not had any quiet time with the Lord and mama who has. They like mama who has had her quiet time, who has had her soaking music wash over her, who has had her prayer time because she is not anxious, she is not snippy, she is not mean.

Allen Wolf:

That’s great. And how has your faith impacted what you write and produce?

Monica Macer:

There’s a perception of what a Christian is in the media and in television that is not my reality. And I love The Simpsons, but Mr. Oakley Doakley is not how I run through this world. Okay. So for me, just being myself in a room. Usually it comes up the second or third week, like, “What did you do this weekend?” I went to church. So I’m very open about my faith. I feel like, in the same way that I want realistic representation of people of color and women, Blacks and Asians, I would like to see that too with Christians because it’s not a one-size-fits-all. There are a lot of denominations and we’re all different in the way we worship, what we believe sometimes. And how we live out our faith, it’s very different. But there is a one-size-fits-all stereotype right now that I am not about perpetuating.

Allen Wolf:

And have you been integral in helping to change that on some shows that you’ve worked on?

Monica Macer:

I know that there was an episode of Prison Break where we had this one character, Abruzzi, he had a crisis of faith. And he had a moment where he met with the prison chaplain. And the writer who wrote that, Karen Usher, interviewed a prison chaplain, was very specific about it. And then when she was on set, there were some questions in the room. And so, I did step and like, “Hey, we can’t change all that. Yeah, they got to say, ‘In Jesus’ name’ when he prays.” Because we were doing the story about someone who’s becoming a Buddhist, I would fight to have it specific and precise and authentic, too.

Monica Macer:

On Queen Sugar, we had an episode, I think it was episode that I wrote for the beginning of season two. It was Juneteenth and the family was getting ready having this big celebratory meal. I don’t know if they were Black Baptist, but they were Christians. And the matriarch of the family led the prayer and I wrote the prayer and she prayed, “In Jesus’ name” because that was specific to who that family was in Louisiana and how they would pray. So I’m all about like, “Let’s be specific. Let’s be on point.” I want to respect everyone’s faith and I want a realistic portrayal of that on television, so we’re not dealing with stereotypes and caricatures.

Allen Wolf:

And what about relationally healthy? What do you do to stay healthy in your marriage?

Monica Macer:

That’s a really good question. I think my husband and I need to work on that a little bit more. I think the great thing about the pandemic is we’ve had so much time together. We need to prioritize each other. We can both veer towards workaholism tendencies because we love what we do. We get to do our dream jobs. He’s an actor. He’s in Where the Crawdads Sing, the new Sony release. He was gone for three months shooting that, right when I came back from MacGyver.

Monica Macer:

We respect what the other person does. And if you have to go for three months to go shoot Louisiana, go. I’ll hold it down with my daughter. And when I was gone for two and a half months in Atlanta during the pandemic, he held it down and my mom had moved in with us and my daughter was doing Zoom school. So I think we give each other the space to do what we need to do and be who we are. And I think just in terms of keeping our relationship healthy, we need to get our date night back. I think it’s challenging when you also have children or a child. I realize so many of our conversations are about our daughter. And that there have to be days or nights or activities that we do that is not just us relationally being about parents.

Allen Wolf:

Because eventually she won’t be there anymore. And then it’s just the two of you. For my wife and I, we made a role of not being able to talk about the kids on date night. And it’s a challenge because we naturally want to go there, but when we do, we remind each other, “No kids. No talk about kids.’

Monica Macer:

That’s so smart. I’m going to steal that.

Allen Wolf:

Was there a moment during your career where you felt particularly discouraged? It sounds like, that almost happened after many of your shows, but was there a moment where you thought, “I don’t know if this is going to move forward. Am I going to be able to continue doing what I’m doing?”

Monica Macer:

Yes. After Prison Break, after having my daughter, I thought my career’s over. It’s hard because you’re in echo chamber of not working and you’re sleep deprived, because you’ve got a newborn, and you’re nursing, which is also depleting you of nutrients. I remember not even having time to take a shower when my husband was out, when she became the center of our world it was so hard. I remember crying and thinking, “I’m never going to work again.” And like, “What’s going to happen to my career? I worked so hard.” Another woman in the industry said, “You really shouldn’t have a baby until you’re a co-producer because then you have a producer but behind your title.” And I got pregnant with my child when I was a staff writer. I was like, “Well, I didn’t know that rule, that unspoken rule.” And I thought, “Oh, my gosh. I’m just starting and it’s all going to end.”

Monica Macer:

And I had a lot of postpartum depression that I was dealing with. Not severe, but I think it was definitely part of it because my hormone levels were all over the place. There was a lot of sadness during that time, too. A lot of quiet sobbing in the shower. I felt like the shower, when my husband was home, was the only place that I could really let it go because I didn’t want him to think that I didn’t love my child. I loved her and I was excited that she was here. I don’t know why for some reason in my brain, my brain was like, “Mom and writer does not compute.” It’s like, “Career over,” was the message that I kept getting.

Monica Macer:

And I talked to friends who’ve had babies and they’re like, “Yeah, I don’t know why I feel like that.” And I was like, “I don’t know why it happens. Maybe because we don’t have any time for ourselves, let alone our writing, that it feels so far away.” Yeah, that was probably the darkest time I’ve ever had career wise. And then there was a point where I had to be like, “You know what? Either I’m going to be depressed this whole time, this first year of my daughter’s life, or I’m going to have to learn to enjoy it and just let go and let God and figure out how to get a job.” And I feel like, when I turned that corner, that’s when the job in Korea came. It was almost like spiritual. It’s like, “You got to learn this lesson first before I give you the reward. You got to get over this mental, emotional hump of believing your career is over before I’m going to give you a job.”

Monica Macer:

When I look back on my old prayer request, one thing before we had Dylan, because I think we were married eight years before we had our daughter, before we had Dylan, I had written down in a journal somewhere like, “Oh, Lord, when I have a baby, I want to have a year off with my child.” In my little journal, forget wrote that. Do you know the job offer for Knight Rider came on her one year birthday? It was like the Lord was like, “I got you.” Because the job in Korea was great, but it wasn’t anything really that was going to move the needle here in Hollywood. It was like the Lord was like, “See, I told you I got you. You got your job offer on the 28th of March, which was the day she was born. You have been home exactly a year.”

Allen Wolf:

That’s great. Yeah. At the end of your life, what kind of legacy would you like to leave behind?

Monica Macer:

That’s a great question. So one of my mentors was Jack Gilbert, who ran the Warner Brothers workshop for a long time, and then who was also very active in Act One. He ran the TV track. And the way he gave feedback, he said, “We’re always going to start by doing a circle of love. And the circle of love is you’re going to say everything that you love about this person’s script before you get to the constructive criticism.” And it’s something that I’ve taken with me and I remember at his funeral when he passed, seeing all of these writers, all these people in entertainment whose lives he had touched and inspired, encouraged, that’s the kind of legacy I want to leave.

Monica Macer:

I want to leave behind people whose lives I’ve touched by encouraging them when they needed a word of encouragement. Who, when they were struggling with the script, I took time out and gave them notes. People who I’ve known who aren’t in the industry, old friends who needed a helping hand, or who needed a shoulder to cry on, I would like to be that person. That’s the kind of legacy that I would like to leave, to be a friend to a friend in need.

Allen Wolf:

I love that. Thank you so much for being my guest, Monica. Thank you for talking about your amazing career and your spiritual journey. I really appreciate it.

Monica Macer:

Of course. Thank you so much for having me. This has been great.

Allen Wolf:

If you work at entertainment, check out the complementary courses and other resources available at navigatinghollywood.org. Please follow us and leave us a review so others can discover this podcast. You can find other shows, transcripts, links, and more at navigatinghollywood.org. I look forward to being with you next time.