“There used to be a time when leading men were okay with falling down as a character. Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones is a prime example of that. Even going back to the fifties, they understood that failure and falling down, but getting back up, is an endearing quality. It's a universal human quality. We have gotten to a point in the last 10 or 15 years, or maybe longer, where leading men often want to win every fight. It’s in their contract: "I have to win every fight" or "I can't fail" or "I can't fall down." It's just such a mistake because the audience roots for you more if they see you fail and then get back up again. Noah is totally comfortable playing that character who's just trying to figure it out on the fly. Sometimes, he gets it wrong, but he's never going to give up. You can really feel that coming off the screen.”

Alexi Hawley is the creator of ABC’s The Rookie, starring Nathan Fillion, and Netflix's The Recruit, an espionage drama starring Noah Centineo that, in season two, explores the legal defense tactic 'graymail'. The Rookie, now in its seventh season, takes a look at aspects of policing often overlooked by TV procedurals. Hawley discusses the positive role police can play in communities and how he found his own autodidactic path to becoming a television showrunner. He was previously the executive producer and co-showrunner of Castle and The Following, and recently created the upcoming Hulu drama The Envoy which is inspired by journalist and producer Adam Ciralsky’s June 2024 Vanity Fair story about Roger Carstens and his team at the State Department who have brought home 70 American hostages during the past four years.

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How can we improve the way we train and recruit police officers? Can TV dramas serve as positive models for policing and help foster community?
Alexi Hawley is the creator of ABC’s The Rookie, starring Nathan Fillion, and Netflix's The Recruit, an espionage drama starring Noah Centineo that, in season two, explores the legal defense tactic 'graymail'. The Rookie, now in its seventh season, takes a look at aspects of policing often overlooked by TV procedurals. Hawley discusses the positive role police can play in communities and how he found his own autodidactic path to becoming a television showrunner. He was previously the executive producer and co-showrunner of Castle and The Following, and recently created the upcoming Hulu drama The Envoy which is inspired by journalist and producer Adam Ciralsky’s June 2024 Vanity Fair story about Roger Carstens and his team at the State Department who have brought home 70 American hostages during the past four years.

“I never went to school for writing. I was playing drums in a band in high school and college, trying to be a rockstar. I ultimately learned how to write first movies and then TV, mostly by watching them. And I'd put a movie on, and I would sit there with a notebook, and I'd sit there with a notebook, and I'd take notes, which I'd never look at again, by the way, but it was all for me.

That was about structure. Because I think structures is the first thing and the most important thing a writer can learn, depending on the medium that they're in. It's less so in novels, but I think definitely in TV and movies, so I would write, like: three minutes this happened, eight minutes this happened, ten minutes this happened, so that you start to internalize what audiences expect and also where you need to turn the story.”

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Photo credit: Jesse Grant/Getty for Netflix

“The position of the United States in the world, economically and politically, is the weakest it has been in my lifetime. I was born in the middle of the 20th century, so I have watched the rise of the American empire and the success of American capitalism in the second half of the 20th century. However, over the last 20 years, I have watched that turn into its opposite—a decline. The decline is visible everywhere. Unless you live in the United States and consume mainstream media, there is a level of denial that will be recorded historically as one of the great examples, not just of a declining empire, which typically has people who cannot face it and who refuse to see it. You can go to Great Britain today and find quite a few people who think we still have the British Empire, even though everyone who isn't crazy knows that is silly. But we are earlier in the decline phase than the British are; they have had to endure it for a century while we have just had to do it for a couple of decades. It is fresh.”

Richard D. Wolff is the co-founder of Democracy at Work and host of their nationally syndicated show Economic Update. He was formerly professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Yale University, the City College of the City University of New York, and the University of Paris Sorbonne. Currently, Wolfe is a visiting professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University in New York City.

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When capitalism stops serving the needs of the people, what can we do to create a fairer more equitable society? What can we learn from China's success and economic growth? Are we witnessing the decline of the American Empire and what comes next?

Richard D. Wolff is the co-founder of Democracy at Work and host of their nationally syndicated show Economic Update. He was formerly professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Yale University, the City College of the City University of New York, and the University of Paris Sorbonne. Currently, Wolfe is a visiting professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University in New York City.

“The position of the United States in the world, economically and politically, is the weakest it has been in my lifetime. I was born in the middle of the 20th century, so I have watched the rise of the American empire and the success of American capitalism in the second half of the 20th century. However, over the last 20 years, I have watched that turn into its opposite—a decline. The decline is visible everywhere. Unless you live in the United States and consume mainstream media, there is a level of denial that will be recorded historically as one of the great examples, not just of a declining empire, which typically has people who cannot face it and who refuse to see it. You can go to Great Britain today and find quite a few people who think we still have the British Empire, even though everyone who isn't crazy knows that is silly. But we are earlier in the decline phase than the British are; they have had to endure it for a century while we have just had to do it for a couple of decades. It is fresh.”

Episode Website

www.creativeprocess.info/pod

Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

How do our personal lives influence the art we make?

JIM SHEPARD (Author of The Book of Aron, Project X, & The World to Come starring Casey Affleck, Vanessa Kirby, Katherine Waterston · Winner of the PEN New England Award, The Story Prize) explores historical human dilemmas, the emotional imagination and literature's role in extending empathetic understanding. He discusses the importance of self-education and curiosity.

LAURA EASON (Emmy-nominated Producer, Screenwriter, Playwright · Three Women · House of Cards · The Loudest Voice) on how we can live multiple lives through the arts. She highlights the significant role the arts have played in her upbringing and daily life, emphasizing the value of listening to others. As a showrunner, Laura discusses how her work in the theater, where she often adapted literary classics, prepared her for working in the writers’ room of House of Cards, adapting the creator’s vision.

BENOIT DELHOMME (Award-winning Cinematographer · Artist · Director · At Eternity’s Gate · The Theory of Everything ·The Scent of Green Papaya) talks about the intrinsic pleasure found in art and cinematography. He likens operating a handheld camera to playing an instrument and emphasizes the importance of personalizing one's craft to imbue it with soul and freedom.

JOHN PATRICK SHANLEY (Academy Award, Tony & Pulitzer Prize-winning Writer/Director · Doubt · Moonstruck · Danny and the Deep Blue Sea · Joe Versus the Volcano) recounts his personal journey from The Bronx to becoming a writer. He emphasizes the importance of embracing one's life experiences, even the seemingly ordinary ones, as gold for storytelling. Shanley reflects on his collaborations with actors Philip Seymour Hoffman and Meryl Streep and their dedication to their craft.

MARK GOTTLIEB (Vice President & Literary Agent at Trident Media Group) explores storytelling as a timeless art form, comparing books to the oil paintings of new media. He comments on the transformative power of stories, which he believes can manifest in various forms—from books to movies and TV shows.

ANTHONY WHITE (Artist) reflects on the role of visual arts in democracy and civil disobedience. Historical events like the Eureka Stockade, with its spirit of rebellion, have inspired his art.

MICHAEL BEGLER (Showrunner · Writer & Executive Producer of Perry Mason and The Knick) discusses the importance of storytelling in understanding our history and emotions. He stresses that the arts, drawing from personal experiences, help us connect on a deeper level beyond hard news.

To hear more from each guest, listen to their full interviews.

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“My mandate focuses on the protection of those trying to protect the planet. Protection of defenders is my main topic. When I'm speaking to states or companies, it's always related to cases of defenders facing threats, attacks, or penalization by companies or governments, like the recent case of Paul Watson (founder of Sea Shepherd) in Denmark… When I travel to places like Peru, Colombia, or Honduras and meet Indigenous people, I realize they have a relationship with nature that we don't have anymore. They express that the food they eat, the water they drink, and the air they breathe goes beyond just air and food; it represents what they call Pachamama or Mother Earth. This is a cosmovision shared across various communities, not only in Latin America but globally.”

Michel Forst is a prominent human rights advocate and the UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders under the Aarhus Convention. He previously served as the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders (2014–2020) and has worked with Amnesty International, UNESCO, and the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions, championing protections for activists worldwide. Forst’s career is marked by his unwavering commitment to defending those at risk for advancing justice, environmental protection, and human rights globally.

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Who Defends the Defenders? In many countries, the state response to peaceful environmental protest is increasingly to repress rather than to enable and protect those who wish to speak up for the environment.

Michel Forst is a prominent human rights advocate and the UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders under the Aarhus Convention. He previously served as the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders (2014–2020) and has worked with Amnesty International, UNESCO, and the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions, championing protections for activists worldwide. Forst’s career is marked by his unwavering commitment to defending those at risk for advancing justice, environmental protection, and human rights globally.

“My mandate focuses on the protection of those trying to protect the planet. Protection of defenders is my main topic. When I'm speaking to states or companies, it's always related to cases of defenders facing threats, attacks, or penalization by companies or governments, like the recent case of Paul Watson (founder of Sea Shepherd) in Denmark… When I travel to places like Peru, Colombia, or Honduras and meet Indigenous people, I realize they have a relationship with nature that we don't have anymore. They express that the food they eat, the water they drink, and the air they breathe goes beyond just air and food; it represents what they call Pachamama or Mother Earth. This is a cosmovision shared across various communities, not only in Latin America but globally.”

Episode Website

www.creativeprocess.info/pod

Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

"I would love to have an educational system that allowed children to remain with that sense of wonder or retain that sense of wonder and the emotionality that makes them children. In our hurry to grow up and become rational—because rational gets rewarded by a rational economy—we have distorted many parts of being human. And not just distorted, we systematically keep on suppressing and distorting it. It might be that at some point, humans—at least some humans—will realize the power and the utility of being emotional and being more natural to who they are; being feral in some ways, and embracing wildlife and nature in more naturalistic ways than we currently do through our socialized ideas about what nature is and what we can do with it. Because the socialized ideas are the ones that are destroying nature. They are making nature into an asset. Then you put a price on it, and you forget that it’s also a tree.

I feel that all this knowledge I’ve accumulated over 20 years in colleges and universities and working in those environments has diminished my own humanity. I think we are the final authors of our lives. If we look at ordinary things, we can make them extraordinary just by our sheer will and by experiencing them in a different way.

Ultimately, it changes the big picture because I see people changing jobs, changing their livelihoods, and changing their communities in order to maintain the integrity of what they want to do in these small, ordinary things."

Paul Shrivastava is Co-President of The Club of Rome and a Professor of Management and Organisations at Pennsylvania State University. He founded the UNESCO Chair for Arts and Sustainable Enterprise at ICN Business School, Nancy, France, and the ONE Division of the Academy of Management. He was the Executive Director of Future Earth, where he established its secretariat for global environmental change programs, and has published extensively on both sustainable management and crisis management.

Episode Website

www.creativeprocess.info/pod

Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast