Interview: Gennifer Hutchison

A conversation with the writer whose TV credits include Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, and Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.

Screenwriter Cole Haddon (writer-creator of the TV series Dracula) hosts an excellent Substack newsletter called 5AM Story Talk. In his most recent newsletter, Cole features an extensive interview with Gennifer Hutchison (Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power). You should read the entire interview, but here are a few excerpts.

CH: How do you know when you’ve allowed the genre — let’s say the spectacle of the genre, whether that’s magic or exotic murders — to trump those personal, smaller character stories? Is that an instinct you would say you just possessed, or a muscle you’ve honed over the years?

GH: I can usually tell when the story is overtaking the characters if characters start making decisions that seem truly for the sake of making a specific thing happen, as opposed to choices being the natural consequence of where they are emotionally. People make all sorts of terrible, contradictory decisions all the time, but there is always some emotional, internal consistency. Even if the reasoning is revealed later, a choice needs to make sense for the character.

I find the room starts to get really stuck in a break when we’re focused solely on plot needs that contradict character. Nothing quite fits and connective tissue starts to get sloppy. That’s usually the moment when I’d ask, “Where is the character’s head at?” That question, specifically, is one that I learned from Vince Gilligan. That said, I do think I have always had a very good instinct for character, so I feel it’s probably a combo of my gut and years of working with wonderful writers who ask the right questions.

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GH: Coming into “SAUL” was interesting because, with “BREAKING BAD”, the show was fully formed by the time I was writing for it. With “BETTER CALL SAUL”, even though we knew the character already — or thought we did — the show was still pretty nebulous when we started writing Season 1. [Co-creators] Vince [Gilligan] and Peter [Gould] had their pitch, but we really discovered the show itself together.

I learned to stop making assumptions about the limits of a character. One of the biggest challenges for me was wrapping my head around focusing on “Saul” as a full character and not just the supporting comic relief. I’d seen how great Bob Odenkirk was dramatically in the later seasons of “BREAKING BAD”, so I knew he could thrive in a deeply complex story, but I didn’t have any idea who Jimmy McGill was or why he was important. I think all of us likely struggled a bit with that.

I remember at a certain point, we all shifted from calling him Saul to calling him Jimmy, and that’s when I knew we were getting to the heart of the show and defining it as something special in its own right. Suddenly, I loved Jimmy and was deeply mournful about him becoming Saul. Luckily, we’d always planned it as a redemption story.

I’ve followed Gennifer on Twitter for years (@GennHutchison) and have always been impressed by the insights she provides about the writing craft, in particular her focus on getting to know and write from a character’s experience. “Where is the character’s head at,” that question Vince Gilligan taught Gennifer speaks to this point. What is going on in the inner life of the character? What are they feeling? What are they thinking?

It’s always gratifying when in an interview, a writer such as Gennifer reminds us of the importance of immersing ourselves in the lives of our characters as that understanding informs and even drives plot.

To read the rest of the interview with Gennifer Hutchison, go here.

To subscribe to 5AM Story Talk, go here.

For 100s more interviews with screenwriters, TV writers, and filmmakers, go here.