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Interview With Nancylee Myatt

Writer-producer Nancylee Myatt is one busy woman these days. After spending her mornings walking the picket lines for the Writer’s Guild strike, she hurries off to spend her afternoons working with co-producer Maeve Quinlan to put the finishing touches on their web series, 3Way. The series, which stars Quinlan, Jill Bennett, Maile Flanagan and Cathy Shim, makes its online debut today, Feb. 4, at 3waytv.tv.

Having spent the past 15 years writing and producing for prime-time television, including South of Nowhere (The N), Myatt is well-versed in what it takes to get a television show up and running, but developing a series for the web is a new adventure for her. She recently spoke with AfterEllen.com about 3Way, the brave new world of online media, her experiences with South of Nowhere, and the writers’ strike.

AfterEllen.com: How did 3Way come about? Nancylee Myatt:What happened with 3Way was not untypical of going in and pitching any other show. After Nikki and Nora and South of Nowhere, I was invited to Logo [AfterEllen.com’s parent company] to go and talk to them about some ideas I might have, and could I come up with a Nikki and Nora—type show for them; they really liked it. … I pitched several ideas to them, and then nothing sort of stuck. They were still getting their scripted side of their lives together over there.

As we know, when a network launches, it’s a whole heck of a lot easier to grab a library of films or television shows that already exist and license those or syndicate those or do reality shows.

AE: Like Curl Girls? NM: Right, it’s much easier to do … to get it off the ground and help people find your network. But I always maintain that if you get a good show there, people will find it, and it has very little to do with what it costs.

So when I pitched a few things at Logo, nothing really stuck, and they said, “Hey would you be interested in creating a web series?” And I said, “Yeah, I might be able to.”

So, literally one evening, Paige [Bernhardt], Maeve [Quinlan] and I were sitting around and swapping stories and talking about what’s next. Paige and I were mourning a little bit the demise of sitcoms and half-hour comedies in general, because that’s where we’d both cut our teeth. Maeve was telling some of her true-life adventures, and out of that session came us saying: “Oh my God! That’s a sitcom.” A gay-themed sitcom, and even more importantly, it’s pretty much Three’s Company for a gay audience. Why can’t we tell this story?

So we put together an amazing production team and did a great pitch. … They [Logo] were incredibly receptive and thoughtful about it, and ultimately came back and said it’s “kind of not what we’re looking for in a web series right now, but keep coming back to us.”

So I said, “Oh well, OK.” … You usually mourn it and move on to the next project, because for all of us writers who are out there pitching, it’s not just one project you’re pitching, it’s one of many that you’re pitching because it’s always such a fluke when it gets sent up, anyway.

Then I said, wait a minute, we’re acting disappointed as if we’d walked into 15 networks and got passed at the door on everything. This is a web series!

AE: You’re not beholden to anyone. NM: Yes. It was that moment when that light bulb goes off! Everyone I know is shooting something in their backyard, and everyone’s kid I know is shooting something in their backyard and posting it on YouTube or their own MySpace or their own website, and everybody is trying to gather and figure out what “new media is.” … So, I said to Maeve, “You want to roll the dice on this one and fund it ourselves and see what happens?” … and before I even finished the sentence, we were off and running. It’s completely raw and really fun because nobody is saying “no.”

AE: Kind of like the Wild West? NM: It’s very much like the early days of television. It is people figuring out how to supply content for a specific audience that will be funded by advertisers, who know that they’re going to get the ear of the demographic buying that product. It’s that simple.

AE: The other factor too is that it’s unlimited bandwidth, really. Now anyone who gets their act together can broadcast their work. NM: Yes, and it’s always available … and if you embed your product in your show, or even take a more interesting approach and create commercials that live within the content of the show, then that commercial is always going to be there, and that’s really attractive to advertisers right now.

3Way was born from the idea of “let’s just test this.” We love this idea; we know we can pull this together. Let’s just do it, and let’s be really specific about it.

And God bless AfterEllen.com and Sarah Warn and everyone over there who have really sort of guided us just by what they’re putting on their site. I’d have conversations with people: “What stars do you want to see?” “What do you want to hear?” There’s not enough funny. Girls take themselves way too seriously so let’s try to have some fun, and that’s exactly what we did.

We said: “Listen, we know this is a funny idea, we know how to produce this. Let’s put stars in it that people are already attracted to in this demographic, and let’s get really specific and see if we can’t bust it open.”

AE: Speaking of funny, you have a group of great actors for 3Way. NM:They’re all wildly funny. Maeve was big a surprise for us with her comedy. It wasn’t for me, because I know her in life – she’s very funny in life.

My house is a fun place to be, let me tell you, because all of these people on the show, with the exception of Cathy Shim – Jill, Maeve and Maile are at my house all the time. We used to throw these South of Nowhere screening parties on Friday nights – which the neighbors hated by the way, because it really was like – and I’m not kidding – was like a sorority or a frat party every Friday night … with the cast of South all here, piled on the couch drinking beer and watching the show. AE: That must have been quite a scene! NM: It was … and so, having spent time with Maeve, Jill and Maile, it was always funny. It’s great because I’d watched Jill before I’d seen her do any of the vlogs. I hadn’t seen her doing anything except a couple movies that I’d rented – a lot of brave performances, a lot of great performances and a lot of challenging material – but I knew she was funny in life, and I thought, “Why isn’t anyone giving her a shot?” And then she had these amazing video blogs where we’re all just cracking up, so that was great.

Actually, I’ve got to say that all the women we’ve brought to the table have contributed so much to the development of the characters. There’s a lot of improv, trust me. This is a gigantic improvisational show. We have what we call the “episodes,” webisodes with a beginning, middle and end – the story if you will – for 10 minutes. And then we have a section on the site which are “confessionals,” sort of ripped from reality TV – which we love – when they put a camera on someone, and then everybody trashes the other person on the show.

Our characters are doing that, and they’re doing that in character, and literally we put a camera on them and [tell them that] here’s kind of what we’re thinking about, and “Go!” They’re really funny. I think you’re going to be surprised.

Also, the surprise for everyone will be seeing how funny Maeve Quinlan is. Her body of work is traditionally dramatic. She plays a lot of Lifetime movies, victim-of-the-week movies. She’s really funny in this. She a little bit Mary Tyler Moore. … She’s our straight eye into the lesbian world – a fish out of water, which is great for comedy in a perfect way to tell these stories. She gives everybody a run for their money. … She’s having to literally play the straight girl, and the straight man, in a lot of places.

Most people don’t want to do that, but she’s found a way to make the setups and the punch lines as interesting as everybody else’s insanity around her. I’m really proud of her, and plus, she’s been a great partner. She and I have been equal partners in this and really enjoying each other, and I think she’s had a good time behind the scenes.

AE: It must be exciting for her to be on the other side of things and push a project she feels invested in. NM:What I love is that she was able to put on her producer hat very quickly. She’s also produced other things, too. She has her own production company as well … but to come in there and walk into an editing bay, which is something she doesn’t do very often – which the rest of us have done when you’re producing a show – and to be able to be objective about your performance on that take and be able to say, “You know what, cut it.” Or, “I know there’s a better performance somewhere, or give the joke to somebody else.” Whatever it is to make the show better … she’s been very good at that.

AE: So there are the three roommates, and then a fourth character? NM: It’s an ensemble of four, but the 3Way name came from our version of Three’s Company, which was the two girls and the guy living together in the house, and Larry always being there or the Ropers always being there. … What we were really trying to do was to tell what happened to Maeve, moving her best friend in – who happens to be gay – and within almost minutes, the girlfriend has moved in with them. And now here’s the straight girl completely immersed with two lesbians and then, of course, their exes who never leave, either. Maile plays Cathy Shim’s ex who they just can’t get rid of. She never goes away.

AE: That sounds very lesbian, very true. NM:It’s very true. The title of 3Way was just too irresistible, and our little homage for Three’s Company, but it is definitely an ensemble of four, and Maile’s character has been so much food and fodder for everyone. I think you get a scene with Maile and everybody’s comedy rises. She just demands it.

AE: So, what’s the plan for the show? NM: We are having what we’re calling our “pilot presentation short roll-out,” because we didn’t have a lot of money and time to do more than the amount of material that you’ll see, probably four or five weeks of content.

Then, when that’s done, we are going to put together a package for advertisers and some networks as well. And, if we can get this thing sold – or paid for, I should say – then we’ll make some more episodes. And then we’ve actually proven that it works. If we can’t prove that it works this way, then I’m not sure what the formula is.

AE: So you’ll eventually try to sell it to a network? NM:Actually, we’re not trying to sell it to a network first, we’re really truly just trying to get advertisers to pay for the series and be our own network, if you will.

We’re taking the mindset too, that the BBC has it right in a lot of ways. A series should only run as long as a series should run – which is, hey if you’ve only got 13 episodes in you, and you’re done telling the story and we’ve seen it all, that’s great … or if you have 11 years in you, then go for it.

I’m not sure content you’re creating for the internet is going to be one of those shows that’s going to run forever, but what would be really awesome is to create a great team and ensemble of actors and production crew that’s willing to come back every once in a while and create some really fun stuff. … Do what Christopher Guest does and take your amazingly funny cast from one project to the next … try to hit a demographic and try to tell a story and see what happens.

So that’s our goal: to try to see if we can just produce a web series and cut out the middle man and go straight to the advertisers and bring the audiences what they want. We’ll see.

But hey, listen, if a network came up to us and said, “We love this,” this would be a great companion piece to, let’s say Exes & Ohs on Logo, or if NBC says, “We’ve been looking for a comedy to replace Will & Grace and let’s do our version of 3Wayabsolutely!

AE: You wouldn’t turn ’em down. NM: You bet. You have to remember, too, that sounds like an easy jump considering we will have done all the legwork, but I’m not so sure. Now I sort of go back to, now let’s look at the machine again. So, we do everything that a pilot does, essentially, by doing this, and we test it, which is what the networks would do before they put it on the air anyway. So we’ve done all of that stuff. It will be really interesting to see if the networks can get up to speed with new media. I’ll be watching Quarterlife very closely, because that’s exactly what happened to them. They pitched it to NBC, NBC passed … they went off and made the show by themselves, and NBC came back and said, “We’d like to put it on the network.” … I’ll be curious to see how fast it actually gets on the air. In other words, can you actually skip the development process because you just did it.

AE: What about appealing to niche audiences like the lesbian/gay community? NM:When people come up to me and said, “You’re so far ahead of the curve,” I said, “No, I’m not, look at YouTube.” Everybody is out there trying it out and doing something. I’m just trying to take the experience that we’ve had in the past and try to go back to the beginning of television and now see what fits, but you have to be very specific. When a writer comes up to me and says, “Hey I want to do this thing,” I say, “Choose your audience, get really narrow on it.”

AE: Did the lesbian fan reaction to South of Nowhere influence you? NM:South of Nowhere did teach me about this fan base. I had only done a couple things because I wasn’t always getting to write the voice that is my experience. You get hired to write, and you do it. My first paid writing job was the last two seasons of Night Court, which was a long-running, traditional workplace comedy on NBC that had run forever, and that was really great experience for me, but I wasn’t an attorney; I wasn’t a cop.

AE: And you weren’t a “perp”? NM:I won’t say that I’ve never been arrested, but …

AE: We won’t go there … NM: Yeah really, thank you. … I have family still alive [laughs]. … So you end up putting on a coat, whatever the conceit is for that show, just like we know that people who write shows about aliens aren’t aliens. … It isn’t until you develop and people start to ask you what do you want to write that you actually get to explore something else that’s in your head.

It’s funny to me – the stuff now that I’m getting a lot of attention over is truly because, I think, there is just not a lot of content for gays and lesbians out there.

AE: Well that brings me to South of Nowhere. It obviously resonated with lesbian fans of all ages. I think when you look back in gay/lesbian TV history, it’s going to be a real turning point. South told a story so effectively that it really struck a nerve and sort of opened the floodgates, in a way, for some other things to happen. NM: Especially in terms of it being the lead story on a show. There are some that have gone before South that had used gay and lesbian relationships during sweeps, or maybe for a tragedy moment in a drama.

AE: Yeah, lesbian sweeps week. NM: But we have to start with Tommy Lynch [creator of South of Nowhere]. What’s really interesting is – talk about writing what you know – Tommy didn’t know this. This isn’t his experience. He’s an Irish Catholic guy, married to his high-school sweetheart, who raised four boys.

They shot this pilot presentation, and I think they had always intended for there to be more of a balance of the three kids’ stories. They were trying to say it was a story about identity, but the fans were not going to not let that happen. AE: The fans sort of shoved the other stories aside. NM:It’s true. … It’s really true. It was a curse and a blessing for The N. … They were like, “Whoa – wait a minute – but this wasn’t really what we had planned to do.” But the controversy was getting them noticed, and Tommy said, “I know how to write a family, and I know how to write these other dynamics, but this isn’t my experience.”

And that is why I got hired. He had seen Nikki and Nora, which I like to say is the most-watched pilot never on the air.

AE: It’s on YouTube. You can find anything on YouTube. NM: Yeah, I know … [laughs]. That’s why I got hired. I had run shows before that had strong female voices, and I’d written a lot of teen television. It was just a good fit.

AE: So you were brought in after the pilot was already produced? NM: I was [brought in] after the show was picked up and going to series. They were looking for someone to run the show, and that’s when I got hired.

AE: You wore many hats on South of Nowhere, didn’t you? What’s that like to be responsible for so many things? NM:It’s kind of what you do; that’s the job. The only difference for me with that production is that normally you have a little more money and you get other people to help you, like a writing staff. I had great support, don’t get me wrong, I just didn’t have the amount of bodies.

AE: You do more with less? NM:That’s right. In a way it was great because I found a great core group of writers who essentially became my faux staff, because I wasn’t paying them as a staff. They were freelance writers, but they were so committed to the show, and we made the experience really good for them and they were very loyal.

For the first season, nobody really knew what we had. We were working in a kind of vacuum, shooting in Whittier [near Los Angeles]. It was the honeymoon period, and we got to find our way. The shows were looking really interesting, but nobody had seen them yet.

AE: Don’t you think it made the show more powerful because it was sort of created in a vacuum? NM: The network was a little gun-shy. Before the show ever got launched, there had been some attacks from the Christian right. They do just what we do: They sit on the web all day long, and they Google in the names of people that are on their list, like me – I’ve been on their list for a long time.

The first time I got some attention from the right wing was when I was working for Norman [Lear, producer of All in the Family] and he said, “Welcome to the club.” And he said, “If they are hating you, they’re watching you.” AE: Really a badge of honor. NM: Yes. So when they found out I was hired, and they found out what the show was about, there were letters to the network and letters to Tommy Lynch, and they panicked. God bless ’em, they just panicked. … It was [like]: “Uh-oh, is this what it’s going to be? And is it your fault?” Just me being there – literally, we had not shot a single script before this happened.

There was an interesting couple of weeks there where finally I said: “You know what, I didn’t create the show; I’m not telling my story. If this is the show you’re going to put on, then you have to respond appropriately, which is [that] we are telling the truth about a specific story.” And the best spokesperson you could ever have to the Christian right about the show is Tommy Lynch, because he has no agenda.

So I took a gigantic step back, and I didn’t do any press the whole first year. I didn’t talk to anyone about it. I was too busy working anyway, but he was great. How were they going to go after this Irish Catholic guy who’s been married forever and raised these four boys and doesn’t have any gay children, [and] is not gay himself? He’s just saying, “I’m just telling stories about teenagers.”

AE: I think it’s a combination of things. I think people were ready for it. It seemed nonthreatening. It didn’t seem to get a lot of attention from the mainstream press. NM: That was early on. My only regret about all of that was that we didn’t even get out of the chute before the network and Tommy got punished, in a way. And that made me sad because the honeymoon was over for us at that moment, in terms of what we were doing.

We had to get busy making a really great show, because … there was going to be controversy around it, so we really had to be truthful about it. I have to tell you, the network got scared at that point in time.

AE: That seemed pretty clear, watching Season 2. NM: But on Season 1, there was hardly anything. They didn’t kiss until the last episode.

AE: Oh, I know, but that’s why Season 1 was so wonderful, because there was so much unspoken stuff going on, but you could read it. I think the people on the Christian right weren’t savvy enough to notice all of that. NM: It’s true.

AE: The moment where their hands touch and they’re walking along in the parking lot, that was just an amazing moment. NM: It’s one of the most bittersweet, hottest moments in teen fantasy right there. But then second season came along, and they had had a GLAAD nomination and the fans had exploded, and Spashley was everywhere and we were telling a lot of stories.

We had a homophobic mother, played by our lovely Maeve Quinlan, and telling her story too, which also kept the balance for us. … For so many years all we ever got was coming-out stories, because that’s the most compelling thing, the most dangerous thing that ever happens to any of us. And to be able to tell that in the context of a family and a teen show and create a villain in Maeve, which I love – she’ll probably never forgive me for that – she’s smiling at me right now across the room … but probably for the Christian right, [for her character] to represent the enemy was really interesting. So, in a cool way we kind of got to appease everyone and tell the truth about the situation. But then the second year rolls around, they had a GLAAD nomination, the fans went crazy, and now all of a sudden the network is touching the show. They are testing it within an inch of its life, and I’m like: “Why are you testing a show that’s a hit? Why do you want to change what’s a hit?”

But that’s the nature of everyone – not just The N; every network does that. They go, “Oh my God, we’ve got something here.” Now we have to –

AE: Ruin it? NM:How can we ruin it, fix it and change it? How can we make it bigger and put different stars on it? How can we broaden it out and whitewash it to appeal to all these advertisers. …

And then of course, now our dilemma is, [Spencer and Ashley are] a couple and we’re telling a story about a couple. The battles that went on to tell a story about a couple were insane. The fact that we had to fight over hand-holding and kissing and the gay story line in the second year of a show that really truly came back, I think, because of that story line, was stunning. We also had a new executive show up that year who was not there for the first season – I think that had a lot to do with it.

You get executives who shepherd you and feel like they’re responsible and there’s ownership, and it’s really helpful when they care about the show the way you care about the show, and they help you fight your battles with you. But more often than not, it’s a change of regime that hurts a show. I’m not saying they’re particularly evil, I’m just saying that’s just the nature of that job.

Also, new show runners: same thing. Person who creates the show, or voice of the show gets fired or moves on to create another show, and a new show runner comes on, a new writing staff comes on. Let me tell you, whenever a new show runner comes on, everyone gets fired. They clean house. It’s really, really rare if writers survive that. Everyone wants to bring their own team. They want loyalty. You get rid of the boss they love; they’re going to bring in the people that are going to be faithful to them.

But I think networks underestimate audiences. I think audiences can tell when it’s different, and I think audiences can tell when the show is written by somebody else. I’m going to have to not talk anymore about this because I’ll sound completely like sour grapes about the third season, and you know how much I love my cast and I love that show, but … I think there’s a difference.

[Maeve Quinlan in background: “We love you.”]

AE: Well to be honest, I haven’t watched it much since you left, because I totally detect a change in tone. None of it really holds together like it did. I think your presence is very much missed. NM: Here’s the good news. Here’s the awesome blessing that came out of the show that I get to take with me. I get to take my reputation for the first two years of that show. I get to take the two GLAAD nominations and, more importantly, I get to take the relationships that got out of that show. Maeve Quinlan is now one of my dearest and best friends, and … 3Way has come out of that.

AE: I know you are walking the picket lines every morning for the WGA. What can you say about the strike? NM:The good news for all of us is that the Directors Guild negotiation, while it’s not exactly the contract that speaks to all of our issues, it’s a pretty good boilerplate. And more importantly, the fact that they made a deal has helped us get back in the room for informal talks with the producers and studios.

And informal talks are great, because what happens in an informal situation is it’s not the representatives of the studios and the producers, it’s actually the studios and producers in the room talking … instead of toeing this gigantic, corporate … line. It is the heads of certain networks and heads of certain studios sitting down in a room talking about the impact these individual issues really have on their company, and then in turn we get to say, “Well, here’s the impact on us.”

What we are asking for is really pennies on the dollar sort of thing, but it’s our livelihood. I’m optimistic. I think when the formal talks start, it will really be about dotting i’s and crossing t’s.

Watch Nancylee Myatt’s new web series at 3waytv.tv. You can watch the episodes on AfterEllen.com, too, and keep up on the latest episodes, confessionals, and behind-the-scenes videos in AfterEllen.com’s 3Way video section.

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