Ask the Big Questions, Embrace the Uncomfortable

“Ask the Big Questions, Embrace the Uncomfortable” Matt Wolpert and Ben Nedivi on ‘For All Mankind’

“I can’t recall what got me into screenwriting, other than just loving movies at a very young age,” said screenwriter Matt Wolpert, who recalls watching Singing in the Rain and Funny Girl as a kid with his mom. “I don’t remember wanting to do anything else.”

This led Matt to NYU Film School, where he met Ben Nedivi in a Film Production Class. “I grew up in LA,” said Ben. “My father was a set decorator and he worked on Quantum Leap. Our garage was filled with props from that show,” he added. “Every episode is a different era, location, so it was a place my sister and I would get lost in—make believe.”

Ben summarized both of their childhood stories, “There’s no way I’m not doing this.” As they started to write together, eventually found themselves in staff for shows like Entourage, Fargo, The Umbrella Academy, and most recently, For All Mankind where they’re listed as creators along with Ronald D. Moore.

“We would spend nights after our day jobs, meeting in delis across Los Angeles, writing from the time we left work until midnight, working on features, working on pilots,” said Ben, “trying to get a break. Entourage was that break for us.” They didn’t expect to land this job, but their naïveté actually helped them get the job.

Logistically, the duo has been paid to write together for the past fourteen years. “I feel like we’ve actually merged into one human being,” joked Matt. “We have the same thoughts. It’s getting scary. But we are a partnership, we basically write everything together.”

“I think that helped us, because we’re a writers’ room of two. It’s a person you can bounce ideas off of. Ben has a perspective I don’t have and vice versa, and we’re both perfectionists, so we push each other. But early on, having that ally in the room, a friend in the room, is invaluable. The only compromise is that you share a salary. That’s the trade-off.”

Writing Partnerships

“We grew up in very different ways. We have different perspectives, but the way we write is sort of like a relay race. I take a stab at half the script, Matt takes a stab, and then we pass it off. We’re each others’ editors in a way and honestly, I wouldn’t trust anybody other than Matt,” said Ben. “If he doesn’t like it, it doesn’t work.”

This re-editing, re-writing process is one of the keys to their success. “By the end, we have a draft and we sit together and go through it. But, the part I’m skipping there is the part before you write. That conversation is so valuable as a partnership because you have someone to talk ideas with, break the story, and that’s what we do with our pilots and now with this show.”

It’s within these initial conversations that the writers are able to find a North Star for a show or film. Matt said, “You always want to have that big picture goal post you’re working towards. But writing is so full of discovery as you go, if you cling to what you thought something was going to be, you’re not being flexible enough to find the best version.”

It’s within this tightrope that they created For All Mankind, the Apple series about an alternate 1969 where the Soviet Union beat America to the moon. “Before we wrote a word, we knew we wanted the second season to be the Cuban Missile Crisis on the Moon. We knew that was what we wanted to do, so we had that goal post, but how we got there changed a lot in the breaking and writing processes. Other times, the goal post changes, based on character interactions, so it’s important to have both.”

Alternate universe or not, the show is built on hours and hours of research behind the idea of what could have been? Ben joked, “We were not prepared for the amount of research needed for For All Mankind. It’s alternate history, but we didn’t want to forget the facts or the science. We went the opposite way. Because it’s alternate history, we felt more of an obligation to not only be true to the history, but the science of the time.”

The writers dug in and found a series of concepts from NASA that never came to be. “Once we landed on the moon, the interest withered away. So these ideas for a Moon Base or the Sea Dragon were just designs in dusty warehouses. What I enjoyed the most is that we took that research and brought it to life. It’s challenging, but rewarding.”

Writing Alternate History

In cinema, examples of alternate history is limited. There’s The Man in the High Castle (what if the Nazis won?) and technically Planet of the Apes (it was Earth all along), but otherwise, the writers are charging new grounds with the genre. “It’s original, so the IP we rely on is history.”

“We talked a lot about alternate history and how it had been done prior to our show. What they usually do is jump a bunch of time and the world is totally different. The basic concept of our show is we’re starting from a divergence point and showing the alternate history grows over time.”

“Coming at that from a historic perspective, but also through characters, see how the world is changing and how these people are changing by decade is a pretty unique [genre]. The Crown sort of does that, but those are historical characters, so not alternate, but they are jumping through time. I think ours is the only one that shows us what is happening.”

This slow moving, butterfly effect, displayed across multiple seasons is what makes the show so unique. For the latest season, the show is about to enter 1995, which means making their version of the 90s, based on what happened the previous 30 years with an obsession for space.

“I think it’s important for us to not only discuss what’s different about the era, but also keep a foot in what’s true to that era. Music is a big part of that.” As an example, Season 2 ends with a glimpse into the new world courtesy of Nirvana’s “Come As You Are.”

“At the beginning of every year, our music supervisors send us hundreds of songs from the era. We use it to get into the writing of the era, but also when we write scenes. The songs at the end of every year are in the script. Music is a big part of what we do. We also go into it looking at big historic events and how we can repurpose them.”

Changing History

In Season 2, the story moves towards female history. “A lot of those initial ideas came from the research we were doing, when we started to look at the reality of the space race at the time. The idea of the Mercury 13, a group of female pilots in a separate program—their program was canceled in a large part because John Glenn testified before Congress about how women don’t belong in space.”

The writers felt like their show had the opportunity to find redemptions for events such as this. “It’s not like Richard Nixon is a feminist [in our version]. It’s like the Russians put a woman on the moon and now Nixon wants a woman on the moon and wants a blonde. He’s still a sexist guy,” he joked, “but idealistic things from a cynical motivation is part of it. That’s what the space race was—it wasn’t just science. We don’t want the other guy to get the high ground of space.”

“The Cold War, fear of nuclear escalation, all these things lead to these amazing technical achievements. We wanted to look at the story through that prism. We wanted to look at Civil Rights through the Danielle Poole (Kris Marshall) character and how difficult it was for people of color. Ellen Wilson (Jodi Balfour), being a person in the closet—really showing different points of view. So it was important to find people who can speak to these perspectives while staffing the show. The more points of view you can get, the richer your world is going to be.”

One central challenge in writing these moments from a historic perspective can be somewhat daunting today. In one particular scene, when Ellen Wilson wants to come out of the closet, to someone she may very well die with, Deke Slayton (Chris Bauer) rejects her moment. “We have to remind our actors this a period piece and we really do want to capture the era, which might mean capturing what’s uncomfortable in that era. If you’re going to ask the big questions, you have to make people uncomfortable. You have to embrace those things.”

“Most shows in that moment and the argument in the writers’ room was that [Deke] should embrace her, but our argument was, would he come to terms with that? In our argument, he wouldn’t. It’s hard to watch, but it felt true to the character and it played a big part in Ellen’s trajectory.” In Season 3, they followed this up a storyline about “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

The Writer’s Room

The creators joked they need an alternate history historian to help with all of the potential what if scenarios they’ve created. “We go down these tangents for hours about random, political and historical news. We need an alt-historian to track all of these changes we’ve made.”

“We love bringing in people who have a healthy appreciation for history and science. We have a few people with that background in our room, including a former astronaut. He reads our scripts and we debate with him. That’s all important, but first and foremost, it’s a character drama. We start every season, every day, with that in mind. What’s going on with the characters and then we let the science piggyback on that.”

Bouncing around in different decades, some actors are brought in for limited runs while others are growing and aging with the series. “We talk about the show as if it were a symphony. At certain points there are different movements, different instruments rise to the front, and then they take a backseat. Even in a season there’s that, because we have a huge ensemble. Some actors have a harder time than others, warping their mind around that idea of aging.”

As for writing partnerships, Ben said, “Matt and I were friends before we were partners, and I think that helped. This does test your friendship. It’s a big thing, the stress, the jobs, and hard times. Having that friendship as a basis helped a lot of it. I’ve seen partners succeed. I’ve seen partners fail. You want to feel like you’re getting more by working with this other person. I know that’s simplistic, but if you feel like you’re adding something, it’s huge. Doing this alone is a lot of work for any one person.”

Matt added, “Having a similar general outline on life [is important]. We were workaholics. We would go from our day jobs and work another 5-6 hours. We were both so committed to that and writing is such an exhaustive process. Breaking into Hollywood, there’s such a high wall keeping everyone out, so you both have to be committed for the long haul.”