Sheryl J. Anderson (Showrunner of Sweet Magnolias)

The episode you're about to listen to was released back when the Mere Christians podcast was called the Call to Mastery. Now, if you love Mere Christians, you're still going to love these older episodes because the majority of each conversation focuses on how the gospel influences the work of our guests. With that disclaimer out of the way, please enjoy the episode. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Call to Mastery. I'm Jordan Raynor. This is a podcast for Christians who want to do their most exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others. Every week, I'm bringing you a conversation with somebody who's following Jesus Christ and also pursuing world class mastery of their craft. We're talking about their path to mastery, their daily habits and routines, and how their faith influences their work. Guys, I'm releasing this bonus episode because we had to get it out as quickly as possible. Today you're going to hear from Cheryl Anderson. She's the showrunner for, at the time that we record this episode, the number one show on Netflix in all of the U.S. the show is called Sweet Magnolias. You probably probably seen it right there on your Netflix home screen. Cheryl is a masterful screenwriter who spent decades honing her craft. She's written for shows like Charmed, the mega hit in the late 1990s. She wrote for Flash Gordon. She sold pilot scripts to Disney and NBC and Lifetime. Man, I was so excited for this conversation. You guys know how much I love tv. As I talk about in the episode, I think being a showrunner, running a show is like one of the greatest jobs, if not the greatest job in the world. So Cheryl and I sat down. We talked about how Netflix reacted to her having Christian characters in a show that isn't overtly Christian, but is definitely playing on some gospel centric themes and what their reaction was to that content. We talked about how we as artists, as entrepreneurs, whatever, our craft is how we can model gospel subtext, Jesus gospel subtext, as we tell great stories through our work. And we talked about how to give and take great notes of feedback as we seek to master our crafts. You guys are going to love this episode with my friend, Cheryl Anderson. Cheryl, I've been so excited about this conversation. Thanks for doing this.

Oh, thanks for inviting me, Jordan. I really appreciate it.

So we met on May 1st and you're like, oh, yeah, I get the show coming out with Netflix in 18 days on May 19th. And so, you know, I look it up and I thought, oh, yeah, this looks cute. It's like very much catering to the Hallmark crowd. Not My typical show, but cool. This is awesome. It should do well within that niche on Netflix. And then I turn on my TV and Kara, my wife and I are like flipping through Netflix one night and your show is the number one show in the United States on Netflix. I was like, totally beside myself. Were you as shocked as I was? Probably not.

Right?

Like, you probably knew this thing was going to hit do well.

No, I actually might have been more shocked because I genuinely thought that we would be a slow build, word of mouth kind of show. And the fact that we came out of the gate so strong and that we spent Memorial Day weekend at number one. I'm still, after a second week in the top five, still trying to wrap my head around all of it. And the fact that we never could have predicted when we were making the show, the turbulent and terrible times that would be happening when this show dropped is a mystery beyond my comprehension. And it's a blessing to be able to offer people a show that is based in faith and hope and community at a time when, you know, just with the virus, people were longing for that. And I'm delighted that it's reaching people, including all the people who have said, I don't normally watch a show like this, but.

Well, I don't either.

Right.

So we started watching. We haven't finished it yet, but it is different. Right. Like, this isn't my genre, but I can appreciate it for being really good television. Like, it's just very well written, it's very well acted. Right. Like, you guys produce a really great show. Well, I am curious, like, I'm sure you've done a lot of analysis over the last two weeks. Why do you think this show is working? Because it's not. It's not like it's dealing with any of the issues that the country is currently addressing. The pandemic, race, whatever. Like, why is this just, I don't know, a welcome beacon outside of those things? Like, why do you think the show continues to do so well right now?

I do think that there's an element of escapism to it. Critic called us comfort food. And I actually take that as a compliment because I do think that one of the purposes of entertainment should be to give people a chance to catch their breath. But certainly in this second week with the focus on injustice and inequality, I think that the message of community is really, really important. And we've gotten some flack about it being an unreal picture and I understand that reaction. But we saw the show as an opportunity to model how community could be. We did not set out to be a show that was wrestling with big questions. We set out to be a show genuinely about the power of female friendship. And I wanted to layer in the questions of faith and reconciliation and reinvention that I think everybody deals with at some point in their lives. And the fact that these three women are at a point in their lives and in their relationship where those are all vital questions for them, allowed us to deal with particular and personal questions that also resonate on a larger scale.

Yeah. So we're going to talk much more about Sweet Magnolia. So before we go any further, can you give the 30 second elevator pitch for the show for people who might not know.

So Sweet Magnolias is a story about three women in a small South Carolina town who have been friends since the cradle. Now in their late 30s, they're each at a crossroads and examining what they want going forward in terms of friendship and business and family and romance. It's very much.

That's a pretty tight description. You've done this a couple of times.

Once or twice. Once or twice. It is absolutely a character driven drama. Again, we had no idea what would be happening when we premiered. It's not a show about issues, it's a show about emotion and relationships.

Yeah, that's good. So, by the way, I want to ask you a selfish question. I love the entertainment industry and so I'm just always interested in what these players are doing. But you know, Netflix, Amazon, we're moving to this model where, you know, these, these big tech companies are gobbling up huge audiences and they're the, the whole game is how do you segment that audience into a million different slices and provide them exactly what they're looking for? Right. So I'm curious, like, what's going to be the best strategy for bringing winning shows to market in that environment moving forward, like, is it niching down and saying, okay, we're going to play to this particular crowd and that's all we're writing for because Amazon needs that content or Netflix needs that content, or is it going to be this really like broad interest stuff? Are you going to see both? How are you thinking about that?

I think it will always be a combination of both because there's a danger in being overly focused, that if you miss a narrow target, who else are you going to get? So I know this sounds a little starry eyed. My approach has always been you just have to tell a great story with wonderful characters, dealing with interesting questions, whether it's a fluffy rom com y kind of show like ours or whether it's a darker, deeper, issue driven show. And I think one of the fascinating things about the streaming services is, well, let me just speak to Netflix, because I really only watch Netflix right now. There's always something on the platform, no matter what mood you're in, whatever you think you might have the time or the interest for, whether you hop on to see a movie or get embroiled in a whole series like ours. So I think, and I'm certain that Hulu and Amazon are doing the same, I think they're looking at both the micro and the macro, because to continue to build subscribers, they have to be looking at all the different audiences out there. Taste isn't monolithic, so the audience isn't monolithic. How can you offer a varied menu so that no matter what people are hungry for, they can find something on your platform?

It's such a fun space to be observing as a consumer. And it's just as, you know, an entrepreneur, business strategist, like, you know, seeing Disney plus get in the game. This is just fun. Right now, I'm having a lot of fun as a consumer. Watch it all play out. All right, so we typically don't spend a ton of time asking guests to talk about their backstory, but I am going to ask you to share a bit of yours because I think I mentioned this on our call a few weeks back. I think you have the greatest job on earth, period. Full stop.

I agree.

Like, I love tv and if I wasn't writing books and producing podcasts, I've always said I'd want to be a showrunner. I think it is the greatest job in Hollywood. And I think, I think a lot of our listeners are really curious. I think a lot of people see Hollywood as a black box. Like, they just don't understand it. They don't understand how it works. So can you spend a few minutes talking through, number one, what does a showrunner do? And then number two, you know, what's the. What's your story? What was the trajectory of your career that led to you being a showrunner for this phenomenally successful Netflix series?

So, first of all, the showrunner is usually the head writer of a television series. So I was in charge of the writer's room is how we refer to it, which is the writing staff, the people who come up with all the ideas for the episodes, who then individually write the episodes. We come together as a group. We do notes, People do other drafts. But I am the final pencil is one of the phrases. I am Responsible for making sure that every draft not only pleases the producers, but is ready to go to set and then when we're in production, I'm also responsible for keeping an eye on everything. I'm involved in casting and editing and location scouting. And what am I forgetting? Music. I oversee all the department heads, along with our executive producer, Dan Paulson. And the short version of this is everything's my responsibility, so everything's my fault. But I was very, very lucky early in my time in Hollywood to work for Grant Tinker. And Grant had this wonderful approach, which was hire the best people and then get out of their way. So the fact that I had an incredible team across the board and could say, I'll be back in an hour, I have my phone if you need me, and know that quality work was going to be done in my absence was magnificent.

Yeah, is. I mean, you're basically between you and the ep, the executive producer, you're kind of co sharing CEO responsibilities of the show, likening to a business. Is that right? Is that fair comparison?

I think that's a very fair com comparison, yeah.

So how did you get into this? Right? Like, you don't just, like, go to Hollywood and run a show, right? You start in a writer's room, like, what. What was your story? What's the trajectory of your career look like?

I actually studied playwriting at the College of William and Mary in Virginia and thought that I would go to New York to be a playwright. But then several friends of mine came out to LA and started working their way into TV and film and talking to them, I was intrigued by the possibilities. So I came out here instead. And I actually was very, very lucky because it took me a while to get an industry job. And my first industry job was working for Grant Tinker. And that was my graduate school. Grant and my immediate boss, Rob Kaplan, and all the other incredible people that Grant had at the company. I learned so much from them. And I was in the development office. So I spent my entire day reading scripts again at my grad school. So I started off freelancing in half hour, and I worked in half hour for a while. I freelanced a couple of shows and then got on staff, which means you're working full time, as full time as anything is, when you never know if you're gonna wake up the next morning and somebody's gonna say, well, the show's been canceled.

Right. That's not. Yeah, like, full time's not a thing in television. By the way, before we go any further, Grant Tinker if my memory serves correct, he was CEO of NBC for a time. Maybe probably not when you were working for him. But didn't he end up running NBC?

Well, he was. He was president of the network.

Yes.

Okay. Absolutely. And I worked for him at the production company he had afterwards.

Wow.

Which was called GTG Entertainment. And he was remarkable. I still, all these years later, go back to things that, that Grant and Rob taught me. And they were wonderfully supportive because I knew then I wanted to be a TV writer. And they were both like, what can we teach you? And it's wonderful to be in a supportive environment when you're looking at pretty astronomical odds about being able to move forward.

Oh, the odds are horrible. The, the odds of television are so bad. But there's a lot of wisdom here. I talk about this in my book Master of One of just the. The value and the common thread of world class people of apprenticeships early on humbly submitting themselves to world class masters of their crafts. And that's exactly what you did. Right. So what was your first, what was your first really big break? What was the first show that you were writing on?

My first significant show was Parker Lewis Can't Lose. And I was very fortunate to write multiple episodes for them across multiple seasons. And that was really how I got in the door. So I worked in Half Hour for a number of years, but I felt a pull to tell more complicated stories and different kinds of characters. So I segued over to our television and Charmed. The original Charmed. I now have original Charmed.

Yeah. There's a new Charmed, by the way. I had no idea there was a new Charmed until we were doing research for this episode. I was like, who remade Charmed? But the old Charmed, the first Charmed, that was a big deal.

It was a big show. It was, it was. And it was huge fun. And that was my start in Aur. And it was also the point where I recognized, oh, this, this is my place. This is my sweet spot. So I like the freedom of hour and being able to tell all kinds of different stories.

So you've had a ton of practice of your craft. I would describe to you as a master, your craft before this most recent unbelievable win. But clearly you're a master of craft. I'm curious, what do world class writer in television do that their less masterful counterparts don't? Right. So I understand nonfiction and writing full length books, but that's a pretty different thing. Like, what's the delta between good and great in your profession.

It is practice. It is constantly seeking to be better. The I teach and the most common mistake I see in young writers is that they don't want to rewrite. They think they've gotten it right the first time and it's just not possible. And even if you write a gorgeous first draft, you need to learn how to take notes and incorporate other people's input because you don't make television in a vacuum. Television is completely collaborative. So there are writers who are happy with what they're doing and just want to keep doing that. I think that writers who are invested in every script being better than the last one they wrote gain mastery more quickly than people who are just like, well, that worked, let me do that again. And I, I have to say, I, I don't think I've mastered the craft yet.

I don't think anybody, I don't think true masters ever believe that they've arrived. Mastery is not a destination. Right? It's a, it's a perpetual, it's a mindset.

Well, and it's also, it's a, it's a goal that blessedly eludes us because every time you think, oh, that was great, at least for me, there's always that little voice who goes, yeah, but you know what, what if that scene had gone this way?

You probably. I heard Aaron Sorkin, who, you know, is. Is my all time favorite writer of really anything, any medium. I heard Sorkin say once that he never turned in a script that he didn't immediately want to take back and like, oh, sure, rewrite. And I feel that way about books. Like, as soon as I send the book to my editor, I'm like, ah, there are eight things that I would change about that thing. I think that's the mark of people on the path to mastery. By the way, I think your comment here about taking. Being willing and humble enough to take notes and feedback, we hear that in almost every single conversation on this podcast. I think we all want immediate gratification, especially the younger we are. But be willing to say, I know when I turn this thing in, it's not going to be at its best. And being okay with that and being receptive to feedback is really critical. I heard, I heard an editor, a guy who spent like 40 years in publishing editing books. His advice to writers, like, basically listen, like anytime somebody gives you a note, right? You don't need to listen necessarily to their proposed solution, but you got to understand that there is a problem. Like, if somebody's telling you there's a problem here it is a problem. It's up to you, as the writer or creator or entrepreneur, whatever you are, to figure out what the solution is. But you got to accept that there's a problem. Would you agree with that?

Absolutely. I have so many students who say, oh, but you just don't get it. And I have to say, well, why don't I get it?

Right? That's the point.

Because you didn't communicate it properly. If I'm misunderstanding, maybe that's a little bit on me, but it's pretty much on you and I. What? One of the things I love most about working for Netflix is that I'm working for executives who are so clear when they give notes and so collaborative. Here's where we bumped. We were thinking maybe this, but what's your response? And I love that so much because over the years, I have worked with other executives that I'm very fond of, but I've also worked with executives and frankly with other writers who are more of the, I don't know, it doesn't work, fix it school. And that's not helpful.

So give us an example. Give us an example of a great note. Like, can you think back to, like, something maybe on Sweet Magnolias? Like, oh, man, this was like a really, really good note. Really helpful note.

I will say that there is a character in Sweet Magnolias who very easily could have been the villain of the piece. And from the very beginning, the executives at Netflix said, please humanize him. And initially I thought, why? Because he's a bad man. I mean, I knew I didn't want him to be a mustache twirler. But one of our first conversations was about, how can we humanize him? And I thought, oh, yes, because that's so much more interesting that he can't easily be dismissed as this terrible person. And it helped actually shape our worldview in the writer's room of Serenity. And a piece of that worldview became, no one in Serenity is beyond redemption. It takes some of them a little longer to get there, but no one is beyond redemption. And in looking at all of our characters that way, not just this one character, it opened us up to ways to make everybody multifaceted and multi layered, not just our core cast. And that's something you always want. You always want fully dimensional people, no matter where they fit into your ensemble. But it was a beautiful note up front about how to treat everybody in the writing. And it's kind of fabulous to see the audience struggling with that now.

Yeah. And, you know, complex characters work because they're true, right? It is, it is. It is the combination of, hey, we're made in God's image, but sin has entered the world and we're all constantly battling between good and evil. Lecrae actually talks a lot about this. The rap artist Lecrae talks about, like, how he doesn't like characters in his songs that are exclusively villains or exclus heroes. Like, we are all part villain, part hero. I love that. So, Cheryl, we talk a little. There you go.

Have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Are you going to leave them there? Are you going to help lift them up?

Amen. And telling stories of redemption through the art. Because if there's no sin, if there's no hint of villain, there's no redemption. Right. And that's just not a true story. We're pointing towards the true myth that Tolkien and Lewis talked about, a Christianity, which I want to come back to in a min. First, we do like to talk a little bit about routines, daily habits, routines. So I'm really curious, you know, when you're actively working on the show, let's say maybe when you're actively in the writer's room. Let's go back to that time period you guys are writing the script. What does your day look like from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed? What does a day in the life of Cheryl Anderson, showrunner look like when.

We'Re in the writers room? Get up, check the phone, brew the coffee.

What time are you getting up?

Pre Covid when I had a commute. Yeah, 6:00. To get up, to be able to check all my emails, respond to the ones that have to be answered right away, grab some breakfast, commute. I live in Los Angeles, so I have a short commute. It's an hour. And then our writer's room was. I tried to keep it 9:30 to 6 because I had writers with younger children. I mean, I like to get home to my kids for dinner too, but my kids are older. But I had writers with younger children and I wanted them to be able to be home for dinner. And it's also, I have found that I think like any activity, but particularly focused creative activity, there's a law of diminishing returns.

Oh, yeah.

At some point, you know, you just have to stop. So we'd work from 9:30 to 6. Takes a little longer than an hour to get home. But that time in the car is great for me in terms of processing the day as a whole. Come home, have Dinner and frankly, work another couple of hours either on my own script or doing notes or revisions on somebody else's script, looking at notes from Netflix and then as we got closer and closer to production, starting to look at production oriented questions as well, with the hope of being back in bed by 11:30.

Yeah. So I'm really curious, when you're on your drive home, are you listening to anything or are you sitting in silence and just letting the day kind of connect in your head?

It depends on the day. Yeah.

That'S a good answer.

There are days where silence is the only proper response. And there's the day that show tunes at the top of my lungs. Out the open window into traffic is the only proper response.

I love it. All right, so we share, I didn't know this. We share this love of screaming show tunes.

Absolutely.

What's your go to?

Again, it depends sort of on my mood. But Hamilton, Les Mis, that's the answer. Anything by Sondheim.

Yeah. Les Mis and Hamilton are about as good of answers as you can hear on the podcast. Those are, those are really, those are really good answers. All right, Cheryl, so you know the scope of this podcast, really trying to understand how the gospel influences our work, whatever our work is. Whether you're a showrunner or an entrepreneur or a sales executive, whatever. And what I like about you is you're in Hollywood. You're not making films and shows for Christian subculture. I wrote about this in Master of One. Your art that is made by the church and exclusively for the church is not shockingly seen by nobody outside of the church.

Right.

And you're not doing that. And as you and I talked about briefly before, your faith still does very much inform your work and your approach to your work. Can you explain how?

Absolutely. That's a two part answer. I think in terms of, first of all, my personal drive I have felt since I was a teenager, certainly, I mean, I've always been a storyteller, but it was really as a teenager. Well, post confirmation, I'm a Lutheran Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. I was very fortunate to grow up in an atmosphere where pursuit of the arts was encouraged and that the, the value of storytelling was very much encouraged. And my, my parents were amazing. My, my father was a career naval officer and my mother was primarily, I mean, the census would call her a stay at home mom. But as the wife of a career naval officer, always volunteering, always helping wherever needed and wherever we lived, both incredibly active in the church. So I was fortunate to grow up in church communities that Encouraged my desire to be an artist and raised with the notion that Jesus taught in parables, why shouldn't we? So as a storyteller, I felt that and still feel God gave me this gift. What better way to use it than in his service? So when I came to Hollywood, I was interested in telling stories where the gospel is subtext. I've had people point out to me that a lot of my work is about giving people a second chance, about redemption, about family, whether biological or chosen. And that makes complete sense to me because those things are important to me. But I do find that I am consistently drawn to stories about people who try to do the right thing, even when it's the hard thing, and people who are eager to offer grace to each other. And so when I write, even though people aren't necessarily speaking explicitly to the gospel, though, I am so delighted that I had the opportunity to have our characters go to church and have a pastor be a vital member of the community in Sweet Magnolias, even in other settings, to be able to talk about the great themes that the Fruits of the Spirit as themes for my work is what excites me most.

No, I love that. And I think your approach is very much aligned with what I wrote about. Master of one is being winsome to the world. Right. We are not winsome when we lead with a particular agenda or message. We are winsome when we lead by being just masters of our crafts. Being great at what we do, being true to our art form is appealing to all, Christian and non Christian. And by the way, I love the way you put this. The gospel of subtext. Oh, by the way, it was also subtext of Jesus's own parables. Exactly. Jesus never made the connections directly to the full group. He would take the disciples off to the side and explain it to them, but he rarely connected the dots. So. All right, here's a follow up question for you. You're content leaving it there? You're content not preaching in your scripts, just revealing the fruit of the spirit, revealing stories of redemption and forgiveness and grace and love and joy. Why is that enough for you?

Let him who has ears hear. Because I think that's the best kind of storytelling. I think that when we put a billboard up front, it's not the best art and it's not the best evangelism either. Because you're limiting your audience. If, if people feel you're preaching to them, you're going to lose a lot of your audience. And the. Again, as, as he said, you know, there's a Reason that Jesus told parables so that people would get drawn into the story and then at the end go, oh, which was the better neighbor? Oh, I get it. And I think that there are people who are hungry to hear what Christians have to say, who need to hear it in a less on the nose fashion.

So can I. I want to try to make an analogy here that I've been thinking about, get your reaction to it. So, yeah, I think great art that's true to its form can make people yearn for the characteristics of the kingdom without beating them over the head trying to introduce them to the king. Right? So, for example, here's the analogy I've been thinking through lately. I love to travel right now. I miss it terribly. My wife and I were actually talking about coming to Southern California soon and we're talking specifically about San Diego. We're like, oh, we want to go to San Diego. We talked about why. We were talking about how clean their downtown is and how amazing the restaurants are and beautiful beaches and the world class zoo and really friendly people. And never in our conversation did we talk about the mayor of San Diego. He didn't come up one time. Believe it or not, we don't travel because we're interested in the character of the policies of the person who rules the city. We're attracted by what that person's policies perceived produce. Right? And I think, I think art can accomplish that. I think art can give people tastes of the kingdom, taste of the fruits of the kingdom of truth and justice and joy and forgiveness. And I think that can make them long to learn more about the king whose policies have produced all these good things. Does that resonate for you? Does that make sense?

That's fascinating. I have never thought of it that way, but I think that's a beautiful analogy. In the first episode of Sweet Magnolias, Pastor June says from the pulpit, the kingdom doesn't have to advance with bulldozers or brass bands. The kingdom can advance gently. And I do think, as you're saying, there is value in showing people, here's harmony, here's reconciliation, here's faith. And then have people go, but where does that all come from? Rather than telling people, here's what you need in your life or your soul needs saving, Right?

By the way, I heard somebody say this recently. I looked it up myself and confirmed it and was blown away by this. Jesus used the word save or saved or some variation of that word less than 10 times in all four Gospels. By contrast, he talked about the kingdom 150 plus times. Right. Like we have such this overemphasis. Now listen, don't get me wrong. Sharing the gospel explicitly is important. We are all called to do it. Every Christian is a full time missionary, as I said before. But it is not the only thing that matters. Making people crave the kingdom matters and is good in and of itself. And great art like Sweet Magnolias can accomplish that. But by the way, I'm really curious. You guys have this pastor character that I saw in episode one. Did Netflix push back on that or were they just like, no, we know who this is for and it works. And yeah, that's just fascinating me.

Yeah, no, they were very receptive. And the church is in the original novels sort of as a backdrop and as a community meeting place. And I spoke to Ms. Woods, the novelist, and to Dan and Netflix about making it more central and making the pastor a central. Well, she's not a central character, but she's a recurring character. And they were all very receptive. And I, in terms of being artful about it, I didn't want her in the series so that I could shine a spotlight on the gospel. I wanted her in the series because her relationship with the three central characters says a lot about who they are.

Yeah.

As women of faith, at some point in the first season, each one of them seeks her out individually as well as going to church and being involved in church. And I also wanted to make sure that she was an ELCA pastor, not just because I'm proud to be in the elca, but that was part of it, but also so that I was comfortable representing the doctrine and not trying to assume what somebody from another denomination would say. Because I have respect for other faith traditions, but I am particularly fond of my own.

Well, and you know it.

I do. Exactly it. I. There was no second guessing. I'm like, I know what her message would be. And particularly the grace first piece of my denomination was particularly appealing in the stories we're telling because a lot of what's going on in these women's lives, they need to be reminded to accept grace themselves and not worry about how much, not be solely worried about how much they're offering others.

So we, we talked. You, you mentioned. Charmed. A few minutes ago. This. And for those that don't recall, what was this? The late 90s, something like that.

Right. Yes. Late 90s, late 90s.

Hugely successful.

Think how old my kids are.

There you go. Yeah, I love that. So hugely successful show about these three sister witches. Did some of your, like, Christian acquaintances freak out when they heard you were writing a show about witches.

Oh, completely. I had people come up to me at church and say, excuse me, you're doing what?

I love it.

And I said, I'm writing for a TV show that's about the power of sisterhood concerning three young women who have been gifted talents by a higher power and charged to use them to protect the innocent and serve the greater good.

Yeah. If you can't get them over that. Right. Cheryl, you've. You've made it big in your career, especially with this hugely successful show. I got to imagine, though, there's a miss or two in your story. There had to have been a script. You were like, oh, this is gonna kill it. And it's just, like, flopped. Whatever. I've had these. I'm curious what's been, in your opinion, your biggest professional failure?

There are so many to choose from.

I know. I know how you feel.

I have written a number of pilots that never saw the light of day, and I think that's my biggest frustration, that I wrote something that people got really, really, really excited about. I mean, excited enough to pay me.

Yeah.

Which is the definition of excitement in Hollywood, I suppose. And. And then for various reasons, either a change up in executives or a change up in branding or just because they fell in love with something else. Those projects didn't go anywhere. And I think that is more. I'm sadder about those things than about the occasional episode that didn't turn out quite the way I wanted, or even the people I've worked with over the years who were detrimental or destructive in my life, because there have been plenty of those. I think it's those moments of promise and excitement that then fizzle out that are the most frustrating.

How does your faith serve as an equal resource in those times of success and failure? Right. How does it provide you with the perspective to look at those things, both of those things, with hope?

It's. I've had so many people over the years ask me, how can you be a Christian in Hollywood? And my response is always, I don't know how you stay in Hollywood without being a Christian, because nothing is for certain and everything can change tomorrow. And I'm not saying that I understood this when I first came to town as both a less mature artist and a less mature Christian. But my faith serves me because it is my constant. And when things are going well, my faith reminds me to be thankful but humble. And when things are going poorly, my faith reminds me that this is not the definition of my life.

Amen. It's a recognition that everything is grace, right? Absolutely. The bad stuff, it's all grace. None of it is deserved. All right, Cheryl, three questions. We love to wrap up every conversation with. Number one, I'm really curious which books you tend to recommend or gift most frequently to others.

It's funny. You. You had. I appreciate the advance warning that this is one of the questions, because I went back and forth and back and forth, and I think the commonality there is a technical book called the Hollywood Standard by a dear friend of mine and a fabulous man of faith, Chris Riley. And it's a guide to proper technique in formatting and writing a script. And the reason I like it so much, other than the fact that I absolutely adore Chris and he's brilliant at what he does, is because it's a reminder to people that you need to be excellent across the board to grow as an artist. It's not just your idea or your facility with dialogue. If you're going to hand me a script and ask me to read it, it needs to be properly formatted and proofread. And you have to be as professional about the technical as you do about the artistry.

That's good.

And the other book is Adventures in the Screen Trade by William Goldman.

I've had this on my list for years.

It is brilliant. I mean, everything he wrote.

So real quick, bring everybody up to speed on who William Goldman is in 30 seconds. Sell me on why I should put this at the top of my list even though I'm not, you know, in your world.

William Goldman wrote Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid marathon Man, the Magic, the Princess Bride. That should be convincing enough.

That's enough.

But Adventures in the Screen Trade is a wry and wise memoir of his years in Hollywood. And it's where everybody in Hollywood gets the phrase, nobody here knows anything interesting.

I didn't know that.

Yes.

It's a great quote. By the way, do you listen to the Rewatchables podcast with Bill Simmons?

I don't.

You should check out Freaking One. You should check out the podcast. It's great. Bill's a master of this craft. He has an episode with Sorkin talking about butch casting the Sundance Kit, because that's Sorkin's like all time favorite. It's dynamite hearing them talk through, talk through that script. It's really good. All right, Cheryl, who do you most. I'm very eager to hear your response to this, and it could be more than one person if you want, but who do you really want to hear talk about these same questions, maybe on this podcast about how the Christian faith impacts the work that they do in the world.

My friend Mary Beth Spruce, who is the new head of television at Sony's firm division.

Done.

She's an incredible woman of faith and she's doing amazing, has been doing amazing work for years. But I'm really excited to see what she's going to do at a firm.

I love it. That's. That's great. And last question. A single piece of advice to leave this audience with. You're talking to people who some are writers, some are entrepreneurs, some are marketers across a bunch of different vocations. But what they share is a commitment to the ministry of excellence as a means of glorifying God and loving others in their work. What do you want? What advice do you want to leave.

Them with in both the good times and the bad times? Remember why you're doing this and for whom you are doing this.

That's good. Sure. I want to commend you for the exceptional redemptive work that you do in Hollywood. Thank you for working so hard and mastering your craft for the good of viewers, for studios, for Netflix, for your industry as a whole. And thank you for being salt. Right. Creating this winsome art that I think is playing desire in people's souls for the light of the world. And thank you most of all for joining us today. Hey, everybody, listening. Make sure you go watch Sweet Magnolias right now on Netflix. And if you want to keep up with Cheryl, very easy to find her on Twitter at Cheryl J. Anderson. Cheryl, thanks again for doing this.

Thank you so much, Jordan. Bless you and your work.

Wow. I hope you guys loved that episode as much as I did. Hopefully you're enjoying two episodes, two new episodes of the Call to Mastery this week. Hey, if you are enjoying the show, do me a quick favor. Take 30 seconds and go leave a review of the podcast. Thank you guys so much for tuning in to the Call to Mastery. I'll see you next time.