This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Julianna Margulies: Hi, this is Julianna Margulies. Hi, this is Peter Gallagher and you're listening to Behind the Awards.

[0:15] Eila Mell: Hello and welcome to Behind the Awards. I'm Eila. I'm here with Bruce.

[0:20] Bruce Gotlieb: Hello there. How are you today? I am very happy to be talking to you.

[0:24] Eila Mell: So yesterday was a big day for me anyway as somebody who is a huge Whitney Houston fan at the time of recording. Yesterday was her birthday and was the release of the Whitney Houston Barbie doll.

[0:40] Bruce Gotlieb: Oh my gosh, how did I miss this?

[0:46] Eila Mell: Listen, I don't know. But so, you know, not everybody gets a Barbie doll, whether they're, you know.

[0:54] Bruce Gotlieb: Most people don't.

[0:56] Eila Mell: Yeah, really? It's rare. You know, people like, you know, Tina Turner has had, you know, of course, Marilyn Monroe. There's the Linda Carter Wonder Woman Barbie doll. You know, she's crossed over into soaps. Deirdre Hall and Susan Lucci each have one of their own.

[1:14] Bruce Gotlieb: Wow. So, you know, in the Broadway world, probably not as many. You know, Kristen Chenoweth had one, but not as a character.

[1:22] Eila Mell: Oh, just as her?

[1:24] Bruce Gotlieb: Just as her.

[1:30] Eila Mell: Well, she kind of is Barbie-like anyway.

[1:30] Bruce Gotlieb: She is because she's so pocket-sized.

[1:39] Eila Mell: But it made me think, you know, who would be on your list of characters to create? Now, we're going to take Grease out of the equation because I think they did a whole Grease line.

[1:43] Bruce Gotlieb: So, from the movie. So, I feel like Grease would be taken out. For me, I think it would have to be someone like either Audra or Patti, you know, for going for the actor.

[1:56] Eila Mell: Okay. Oh, I thought you meant characters, but actors? Okay. Well, Kristen is perfect. I mean, for more of a newbie kind of thing, like a Jasmine Amy Rogers would be a great part.

[2:09] Bruce Gotlieb: Sure. Absolutely.

[2:11] Eila Mell: She's super cute. Oh, boy. Wow. Bernadette Peters.

[2:17] Bruce Gotlieb: Bernadette would be great. Absolutely.

[2:18] Eila Mell: She's Barbie-like, too. To me, she's just perfect.

[2:23] Bruce Gotlieb: Agreed. Agreed. Or maybe even, you know, an icon like a Cheetah or even a Reno.

[2:28] Eila Mell: Yeah, really. I think the bigger question is, is there anyone who can't be a Barbie at this point?

[2:34] Bruce Gotlieb: And I think that's true.

[2:36] Eila Mell: I think we made a lot of progress.

[2:38] Bruce Gotlieb: Absolutely.

[2:39] Eila Mell: Because, you know, listen, it doesn't have to be a certain type. So, I think that's great.

[2:47] Bruce Gotlieb: No, and it's fun when you see somebody who's emulated. So, you know, with Whitney, they took from her I Want to Dance with Somebody video. So, it's the 80s, you know, the hair, lavender, you know, it's what she burst into the scene on. So, it gives that nostalgia. It gives all of those things that you want.

[3:07] Eila Mell: Oh, classic Whitney. What's better than that?

[3:10] Bruce Gotlieb: Exactly.

[3:11] Eila Mell: Oh my God. The huge amount of talent in that one body. It's crazy.

[3:16] Bruce Gotlieb: Yeah, it is. It is absolutely crazy.

[3:18] Eila Mell: And not only talented, but so beautiful. And I.

[3:23] Bruce Gotlieb: Yeah, she started as a model.

[3:24] Eila Mell: I know. And then she was almost Denise in the Cosby show.

[3:30] Bruce Gotlieb: She was right up there in the running. And then she was on Give Me a Break for a while.

[3:33] Eila Mell: Right. That's right. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. No, she she's just incredible. It's so sad that she's not still here.

[3:41] Bruce Gotlieb: It is. It is. But speaking of guest stars.

[3:44] Eila Mell: Yes.

[3:44] Bruce Gotlieb: Tom Fontana shows are no stranger to surprise fun appearances from people.

[3:51] Eila Mell: Oh my gosh. I mean, from Oz to Homicide.

[3:55] Bruce Gotlieb: St. Elsewhere.

[3:57] Eila Mell: So much iconic television came from this one man.

[4:01] Bruce Gotlieb: Well, we had a great chat with him, so let's get our listeners in on it.

[4:07] Eila Mell: Welcome, Tom Fontana to Behind the Awards.

[4:10] Tom Fontana: Thank you.

[4:11] Eila Mell: Thank you so much for taking the time to join us. We're thrilled to have you.

[4:14] Bruce Gotlieb: And for bringing us so much television that we love.

[4:17] Tom Fontana: That's right.

[4:18] Eila Mell: I love that you love the television.

[4:22] Bruce Gotlieb: So Bruce has a show like every he always has a show that he's watching. And Oz happens to be his show right now.

[4:29] Tom Fontana: Oh, you're kidding.

[4:30] Bruce Gotlieb: Yeah. I was like, you know what? It's been obviously years since since I watched it originally. Let's go back and midway through season four currently.

[4:40] Tom Fontana: Wow. Well, you're you're a better man than I am, because once I finish a series of mine, you know, the last stage is to do the post production.

[4:52] Bruce Gotlieb: Sure.

[4:53] Tom Fontana: And I can't I never watch the show again. I don't watch it when it when it airs or is streamed or anything. Because all I see are the mistakes.

[5:04] Bruce Gotlieb: All I want to do is bring everybody back. Let's we can reshoot all this. I'm sorry I did such a crappy job the first time.

[5:14] Tom Fontana: That's literally my attitude.

[5:17] Bruce Gotlieb: So you're a perfectionist, then we could say.

[5:20] Tom Fontana: Well, I'm a Virgo and I was trained by the Jesuits. So, yeah, I'm pretty much obsessively anal.

[5:29] Bruce Gotlieb: Well, that's why your work is so good.

[5:32] Tom Fontana: And it's like I mean, especially now when you watch a show back that was done so long ago, it's like a who's who of like so many different things, you know, between the theater world, this show and that show. And it's even just in one episode, you can have somebody just pop on for a quick little arc and you're like, oh my gosh, this is so and so. So it's real fun that way.

[5:54] Tom Fontana: Yeah, because I started in the theater as a playwright and I was a stage manager, amongst other things. So I know a lot of people. And, you know, like, for example, I just called Uta Hagen up and said, Uta, do you want to be on my TV show? And she was like, absolutely. And Stritch and well, and Patti LuPone, but she's my cousin. So that that doesn't count.

[6:21] Bruce Gotlieb: She kind of had to do it.

[6:23] Tom Fontana: Yeah, yeah. So as a theater kid, when Oz started, I was so excited because you had BD Wong on and Terry Kinney, too, who I loved, you know, as part of that Steppenwolf group.

[6:34] Bruce Gotlieb: Yeah, no. Yeah, they were both I mean, they're still very close. We're actually in about next week. We're going to record something for my Substack channel. I did an adaptation of Jack London, a piece of Jack London's book, The Road, where he gets arrested in Niagara Falls for being a hobo and serves his jail time in Buffalo, my hometown. And so I'm reuniting the Oz cast.

[7:08] Tom Fontana: Oh, wow. It's going to be Kinney. BD couldn't do it, unfortunately. Lee Tergesen, Dean Winters, Scott Winters and Mike Doyle.

[7:18] Bruce Gotlieb: So now is there any chance you'll bring in Chris Maloney as Elliot Stabler since it takes place in a prison?

[7:27] Tom Fontana: Well, he's in Los Angeles right now. I'm trying we're going to do a thing where we're all in the same room together. But Chris knows any time he wants to jump in. I'd love to have him because I adore the guy.

[7:39] Bruce Gotlieb: Well, that's the reason I wanted to invite you on the show because of what you're doing on your Substack. I think it's so interesting.

[7:43] Tom Fontana: So you just released My Own Stranger.

[7:48] Bruce Gotlieb: Yes.

[7:48] Tom Fontana: Starring Edie Falco, also from Oz.

[7:51] Bruce Gotlieb: Yes.

[7:51] Tom Fontana: And Mariska Hargitay.

[7:53] Bruce Gotlieb: And Julianna Margulies.

[7:55] Tom Fontana: I was going to say, I thought I heard Julianna Margulies in there and among others, too.

[7:59] Bruce Gotlieb: Yes.

[8:00] Tom Fontana: Yeah. So you're doing these literary adaptations. Tell us what you're doing.

[8:04] Tom Fontana: Well, it's called Tom Fontana Presents, and the idea is to invite my multi-talented friends to contribute something. We show short films. Betty Buckley supplied an animated film that she made. Poetry, photo galleries, people just ranting about whatever they want to rant about. So it actually is the opposite of what I was told by the Substack people that I should be doing because they said, establish a voice, and that's what you stay with.

[8:45] Bruce Gotlieb: There's a lot of incredible people on Substack, Andy Berowitz and Robert Reich. But I didn't want to do that. I wanted to say, as you know, every time I work, I try to break all the rules because that's what's fun about being given the opportunity to do that.

[9:06] Tom Fontana: And it's proven to be successful for you, your model, so why break it? But everything about this project is outside the box, which I think is so interesting. It's on your Substack, so people have to look for it to find it. Let's just let people know right away how to find it if they're looking.

[9:25] Bruce Gotlieb: Well, I think you go to, hmm. Well, if you go to your Instagram, people will find it. There's a link.

[9:32] Tom Fontana: It's a link there. It's like substack.tomfontana or something like that. It's well worth looking for. I also love it. It makes so much sense right now to do these. It's like we've come full circle and are back to radio dramas, you know, like the beginning before a television.

[9:51] Bruce Gotlieb: Yeah.

[9:52] Tom Fontana: Yeah. No, it's funny. You know, actually, I'll tell you how this whole thing started. I had done a series, a drama series for Audible called Sugar Land, and I had never done anything like that before in my career, and I had an enormous amount of fun doing it and was very interested in doing more of them for Audible. But that's when Audible decided they didn't want to do scripted dramas anymore. They just really wanted to have people read books. So I was whining and sniveling to my agent, which I often do, and he said, well, we have a digital department. You should get on the phone with her, and she started telling me about Substack, which I had never heard of because I'm a complete techno dinosaur.

[10:45] Tom Fontana: And I went like, Oh, this sounds like could be fun and cause a little trouble. And you know, and like I said, it's fun to be able to say, people like Mariska and Edie and Juliana, you know, come over, come over here to the library. This is my library. And we'll record this and they were the three of them were just, I mean, they were, as always fabulous to work with. But they were really engaged by the poetry. Mariska had never read any of Anne Sexton's works. And now she's like in love with Anne Sexton. So, so that's, you know, and then and then, you know, we'll do this Jack London piece. And we've got a lot up our sleeves. So yeah, I think it's exciting. Is there any theme or it's just whatever you or the people feel like?

It's all about chaos. I love that. I mean, what I love is the idea that on a weekly basis, we post a new segment every Sunday. And I, I just like the idea that the our subscribers really have no clue what to expect. You know, it's like what we used to do with St. Elsewhere and with Homicide, where we would break the format whenever we whenever we could. And, you know, Oz was all about breaking the format because working at HBO, it was uncharted territory and gave me the maximum amount of freedom, freedom.

[12:20] Bruce Gotlieb: Yeah, I mean, you had full male nudity in episode one.

[12:24] Tom Fontana: Yeah. So we knew we were in for something different. And I killed the lead, which was, which when Chris Albrecht, who was head of HBO at the time, said to me, what's the one thing you've always wanted to do? And I said, kill the lead in the pilot. And he was like, do it. Like, I am so happy right now. It also is a combination to have, you'll see some movie theaters do like a mystery movie, where you can go and you can get a ticket for, you know, choose mystery show, you only know what the reading is, you don't know what you're going to sit down and see. So your show provides that kind of component to where, all right, I'll show up because I like all the people involved, if you even know who's involved, but you get to sit down and and be surprised by it all.

[13:14] Tom Fontana: Yeah, I think it's, you know, there's too much in the world today that is like, oh, my God, again, you know, as opposed to, I don't know, maybe we do this this week, and maybe we do that, we'll see, we'll see. And also, you know, it serves a need. I'm not sure that what it says about us is a good thing that this is a need, but for people who are busy looking at other screens while they're listening, this whole second screen phenomenon, but you can you can listen as you do other things. Yeah, I mean, less less so with the short films, because those are actually visual. Right. But and what we try to do to, you know, with some of the things like the like the on the rocks, which is the goofy, goofiest part of the substack channel, which I invite somebody to sit and and ostensibly to talk about bourbon, but we we never do.

Right. And we basically talk about what the next post will be. But it's fun, because we just, there's no script, there's no, there's no plan. I don't like write out questions, I just go, man, you know, what do you think of that? And it's all people that I that I'm friends with. So I think it's got a looseness like this, you know, we're chatting and having fun.

[14:32] Bruce Gotlieb: Yeah, exactly. We don't we don't write questions, either. We just like to know what you're thinking. And you know, what you say spontaneously is going to be way better than anything we can plan. So the switch from being just a writer to then going into TV and being not only writing episodes, but being the executive producer and kind of in charge of that, was it was it a difficult transition to do? Because writers obviously work? If you're not in a writer's room, traditionally, you're working solo. And then when you go into the format of TV, you're now in a room full of people, and you have to kind of bounce creativity off of each other. Was that a difficult transition?

[15:09] Tom Fontana: Yeah, I mean, well, I was very blessed. As I said, I was a playwright, and I was a incredibly unsuccessful playwright, I should add. And Bruce Paltrow, through Blythe Danner, his wife, Blythe Danner, who saw a play of mine being done up at the Williamstown Theatre Festival and in the Berkshires, she said, you should hire Tom to do an episode of St. Elsewhere. At that point, the show hadn't premiered. And and I was given the third episode to write. And I'd obviously never written for television before. And Bruce was an extraordinary mentor and not like, you know, he wasn't Mr. Chips. He was strong and he had opinions and he did not. He did not cuddle me, but he taught me. And he also taught me not just how to write a television show, but how to be the showrunner of a television show.

You know, they were taking responsibility both creatively and financially, which a lot of writers, you know, they don't want to they don't want to owe budgets. I don't want to talk about the budget, but you have to in order to be you know, you can't go, yeah, no, I think I'll put this scene in Paris. You know what I mean? You go, just go shoot one scene in Paris. What the hell are you talking about? So my entire education was at the feet of Bruce Paltrow. And to this day, I am grateful to him. Unfortunately, he's no longer with us. But he really got me through that first year of me not knowing what to do, how to do television, because I basically was writing the first draft I wrote for the first St. Elsewhere episode.

I was like a play. Yeah. I mean, people came in, made entrances and exits and, you know, and and he said, you know, we have this thing called editing where you can cut from this scene to the next scene. You don't have to walk people down the hallway. Ever since then, being the showrunner, I obviously take it, take it very seriously and try to help writers who are emerging the same way that Bruce helped me.

[17:20] Tom Fontana: I loved so much what St. Elsewhere did. It's one of the best shows of all time, I think.

[17:25] Bruce Gotlieb: Oh, thank you.

[17:26] Tom Fontana: I loved when they had like these little nods to other shows like the Mary Tyler Moore episode, which was so great. And also the white shadow. I mean, it was so much fun when they would do things like that and they could do things like that.

[17:40] Tom Fontana: Yeah, no, we it is funny. Brandon Tartikoff said to John Macy's, who was the other main writer, producer on the show with me, he was in the office for whatever reason, and he looked at us and he said, you know, you two are vaudevillians trapped in a drama series. That's perfect. And we took it as a compliment because the thing of it was, you know, you do a hospital show and basically every week you have to write at least one scene where the doctor comes in and says, this is what you've got and you're going to live or this is what you've got and you're going to die. And you write that scene sometimes twice an episode and by, you know, you start to go, Jesus, I'm so bored with writing this scene.

So we would try to throw things in like, you know, killer bees or whatever we could whatever we could think of to make the scene a little more juicy for us as writers, but also for the audience. So they're not just going, you know, because also the patient is in the bed. So that blocking there's no blocking there. And all the doctor can do is pace along the side of the bed. I know it's as dull as dishwater. Anyway, yeah, we would have we would have so much fun writing that show. Way more fun than we should have been allowed. But Bruce was very Bruce was very willing to let us run free.

[19:05] Tom Fontana: And am I imagining this? Or wasn't there a Cheers crossover episode?

[19:09] Bruce Gotlieb: Yes, yes, yes. What happened was they, Carla, Rhea Perlman's character, made a reference one week on their show, that she had all of her kids at St. Elsewhere, at St. Elegias, right. And I think she called it a butcher shop or something. I forget the line. And we thought we were so delighted that we were like, oh, we want to do this crossover. It was so complicated. Because MTM was did St. Elsewhere and Paramount did Cheers. So the legality of marrying these two shows, even for it was about a 12 minute segment. Yeah. And we we actually went over to Paramount to shoot it on the Cheers set. And what's funny, if you watch that scene, so it was Ed Flanders, Billy Daniels, Norman Lloyd, George Wendt, George Ratzenberger, I think this is his name, and Rhea.

And if you see the scene, because they don't have a another wall, the audience is where the other wall is in the bar, Bruce had to shoot the scene, like, it's all shot like, this way, that way, you know, he can't go this way. He couldn't do a revert, a true reverse. But we had a great time.

[20:28] Tom Fontana: Yeah, it's incredible. Do you have obviously, through your your many facets in career, a Rolodex full of friends that you can call on for the new project? Is there anybody that's on your, I have, you know, you haven't found the right moment to get them involved that you really want to?

[20:46] Tom Fontana: Well, I had, I had lunch the other day with Lee Turgeson and JK Simmons. And I was telling him because we also do is a little complicated. But the Writers Guild of America East has a nonprofit foundation called the Writers Guild Initiative, where we do workshops with underserved communities. And one of the underserved communities we work with is Wounded Warriors. And on the sub stack, we only done one so far, but we're going to do readings of the pieces developed in these workshops, the participants aren't professional writers, but it all comes from their heart and their gut and their soul.

[21:29] Tom Fontana: Well, we met at the Williamstown Theater Festival. He was a non-equity actor back then and was in a lot of the plays up there. So yeah, I knew him before he became THE Jacques LeVonic, when the agents were trying to get him to change his name.

[21:59] Eila Mell: Right, because no one could pronounce it.

[22:01] Tom Fontana: Yeah. With the name like Isla, I'm very familiar with that kind of thing.

[22:06] Eila Mell: Ah, yes. Speaking of royalty too. I mean, you've had the pleasure of working with Rita Moreno, who is a legend and, you know, crosses film, TV, everywhere.

[22:12] Tom Fontana: Yeah, I mean, the joy of working with Rita and knowing her all these years and spending time with her. Every time she comes to New York, we organize like an Oz dinner and, you know, get a bunch of the boys so she can slap them around. She's fun. But I'll tell you how that happened. I was at... Rita had been a regular on a show called The Cosby Murder Mysteries. Bill Cosby. This was after the Half Hour Show. It was like an hour show where he was a sleuth. And she was like his cleaning lady or whatever she was. And a friend of mine was one of the producers, writers of it, and they got canceled. And he invited me to the wrap party, which was at Elaine's, which tells you how long ago that this was.

And so, you know, I go to this party and I'm seeing all these people I know and I'm introduced to Rita and I say, oh my god, you know, Rita, I'm such a big fan of yours. And she goes, well, if you're such a big fucking fan of mine, why haven't you written me a part? And I was like, well, OK, you know, and then however long later, Oz came up and I invited her to dinner, she and her husband Lenny. And I said, I want to tell you about this new show I'm going to do. And I'm going on and on about Oz and this and that and this and that. And she's like, oh my god, Tom, that sounds fascinating. She said, but what part would I play? And I said, oh, I'm sorry, you would play the nun. And she goes, me play a nun?

And I'm like, yeah, yeah. She goes, I have played hookers, madams. She went into a long list of all the bad women she had played over the course of her career. She said no one has ever had the balls to ask me to play a nun. And I said, well, that's why you have to do it. And she goes, absolutely. Well, I'm going to do it. And this was no nun out of the sound of music. This was a very street smart nun.

[25:04] Eila Mell: Yeah, yeah. Well, ironically, my sister, who's a nun in the summer, she used to when the nun who was in charge of the hospitality suite at Attica, was it Attica? I can't remember. At a prison near Buffalo, the nun would go on vacation and my sister would arrange for the sex between prisoners and their spouses. And I would I was so like my sweet, innocent, lovely sister is like running a brothel. I quite understand it. So that's part of why I think Rita was intrigued, too, because it was looking at somebody in a religious order from a perspective that we really hadn't seen before.

[25:59] Tom Fontana: Yeah, well, that's true. Or since, really.

[26:01] Eila Mell: Yeah. So you also worked with a very young Denzel Washington in St. Elsewhere.

[26:06] Tom Fontana: That's right. That's right. Denzel.

[26:09] Eila Mell: Yeah. And J.K. Simmons both went on to win Oscars.

[26:12] Tom Fontana: Yes. Yeah.

[26:14] Eila Mell: Are you still in touch with him? Have you worked with him since then?

[26:17] Tom Fontana: I have not worked with him since then. And I haven't talked to him in a couple of years. I always go when he does a show on Broadway. I always go and go backstage and say hi. But there's always nine thousand people.

[26:28] Eila Mell: Right. Right. No, I don't I don't hang out. But yeah, Denzel, he had done one movie. Oh, was it Carbon Copy?

[26:38] Tom Fontana: Yes. Yeah. I remember that. Wow.

[26:40] Eila Mell: HBO used to run that like every day.

[26:44] Tom Fontana: Oh, really? Years ago. Yeah. I remember that. I have to say he told me never to watch it. So I haven't. But that was it. He was you know, he was a theater actor and we were lucky to get him. I mean, that that's the other thing. I have been so blessed in the course of my career with these incredible casts. You know, the St. Elsewhere cast, Ed Flanders. You couldn't do a dishonest moment. Couldn't act a dishonest moment ever. Just, you know, and William Daniels just delightfully. We're still friends. And when I go to Los Angeles, he and Bonnie Bartlett and I have dinner. And she was on the show as well.

[27:26] Eila Mell: She was. She played his wife, which was really original casting.

[27:29] Tom Fontana: Well, you know, they specialize at that. They played husband and wife a lot.

[27:35] Eila Mell: Yeah, I know. And they won two Emmys.

[27:38] Tom Fontana: Wow. Yeah. They were the first, I think I could be wrong about this, but if not the first, they were one of the few married couples to win Emmys on the same night.

[27:50] Eila Mell: Wow. And then Norman Lloyd, too.

[27:53] Tom Fontana: Wow. Norman. Yeah. Yeah. And I was friends with him right up until he left us. So many great stories all the way back. Bertolt Brecht and Orson Welles and, you know, Hitchcock or Hitch as he'd call him. Right. And then you had, you know, young actors who are now, you know, we look at in the same way like David Morris. I mean, he's an incredible actor and he was back then, too.

[28:21] Eila Mell: Yeah. No, David is is is incredible. He just he was so great to write for.

[28:27] Tom Fontana: Oh, I'm sure. And, you know, and Holly's a big game show guy. But he was so fun on the show.

[28:32] Eila Mell: Yeah. Yeah. And he had never he had never really acted before that. He was a comedian who put a.

[28:38] Tom Fontana: That's right. Glove rubber glove on his head. But, you know, but good writing really, really helps a lot.

[28:48] Eila Mell: Yeah. All these stories, you could probably even write a book if you wanted. Is there any one project that you're most proud of or is it the one you're working on right now?

[28:58] Tom Fontana: Well, I will say. Of the shows that I've created, because, you know, doing something else where I didn't create it. Right. So it's a different it's not that I don't love it. I totally love the show, but it's a different kind of creative volcano, if you will. I would say Oz and Borgia, which I did for Canal Plus and was on Netflix way in the. It was actually Borgia as opposed to the Borgias with Jeremy Irons. My Borgia was with John Doman playing the Pope. It was actually on Netflix before House of Cards. So technically, it was the first drama series, original drama series that Netflix ever had streamed. That's a badge of honor.

[29:46] Eila Mell: Yeah, for sure. And then we haven't even talked about Homicide.

[29:50] Tom Fontana: Oh, yes. I mean, I still remember the world kind of stopped a little bit when Robin Williams was a guest star on that show.

[29:56] Eila Mell: Yeah, no, he was so you know, he was he really wanted to do it because it was a dramatic part. But the minute the director said cut and they were setting up another shot or, you know, or changing the lighting or whatever, he would do 20 minutes of material. I mean, just absolutely hilarious. What a sweet and loving man he was and such a pity that that, you know, the way the way his life ended because he he deserved to be well, he deserved to be with the angels, which is where I think he is anyway.

[30:32] Eila Mell: Yeah, yeah. So I know that we're kind of up with our time, but I feel like we've only scratched the surface. So I hope as you continue to do Tom Fontana Presents, you'll come back and keep us updated on what you're doing and maybe bring some of your cast on.

[30:47] Tom Fontana: Ah, well, you know, then they want to get paid.

[30:52] Eila Mell: Well, forget that. I'm kidding. I'm kidding.

[30:57] Tom Fontana: No, this it's it's great to meet you both. And thank you for your enthusiasm about my work and also about the Substack channel, which really is just an opportunity to to for creative people to say, I don't know, let's try this and see what happens.

[31:13] Eila Mell: Yeah. Well, I listened to the first episode and I happily await the second one. But it's it's just it's an easy listen. And, you know, you feel elevated after you hear it.

[31:23] Tom Fontana: Oh, that's sweet of you. Thank you.

[31:28] Eila Mell: Yeah, absolutely. So look for Tom's Substack. You can Google that. But also if you're on Instagram, just search Tom Fontana. And then when you find his account, you click right on the link.

[31:37] Tom Fontana: Well, and my account is son of Cecilia. Right. Because I'm three quarters Sicilian and one quarter Polish, which I'm equally proud of. But well, I don't see that in your handle.

[31:44] Eila Mell: No, no, it wouldn't. It would have gotten a little long.

[31:50] Tom Fontana: It would. And Poznan, it would just.

[31:54] Eila Mell: Well, thank you both. And thank you for joining us.

[32:01] Tom Fontana: See you again. We'll put a link in the show notes, too, so everyone can find a little bit easier.

[32:06] Eila Mell: Great. All right. Well, we will see everyone next time on Behind the Awards.

[32:10] Tom Fontana: Bye bye.