Noah Hawley

Well, I grew up, because my father had studied acting in the UK, he came back with a lot of goon show records, which was Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers and Harry Seacombe, this radio, half-hour radio show.

It was that, it was Monty Python, it was Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

There was a lot of that British humor that really was seminal for me.

And then, you know...

Because people ask me, when was the first time you saw Alien?

And I say, well, I'll tell you the first time I didn't see it was a nine-year-old's birthday party where my parents were like, yeah, you're not going to that.

And so we went to see The In-Laws instead, right, with Alan Arkin and Peter Fox.

And I was like, I think that explains everything about me, right?

So, you know, that's the sort of thing is the absurdism, but also, you know, the cinematic nature of it.

Both for ABC, yeah.

No, I mean, I had come from being a novelist.

you know, to writing an original spec feature film that I ended up selling, and my first novel had been optioned, and they said, all right, well, now you're a screenwriter, so give it a shot.

So I did some feature writing, and then, you know, the TV agents at the agency were like, would you ever think about doing TV?

So I went out and I took some meetings, and I ended up selling a couple of TV pilots that I wrote, and I thought, well, if any of these ever get produced, I should know how to make a show, and so...

whatever it was, 2004.

I was in San Francisco.

I came down to L.A.

and I staffed on Bones.

And I did it because Hart Hansen, who ran the show, said, well, you're going to learn how to make a show.

There were other shows where they're like, you're going to be in the room the whole time.