Not not like the various TV collection Ryan Murphy has dedicated to the untold histories of Hollywood, the “Glee” creator took the stage at Saturday’s Producers Guild Awards to share a few of his personal with one of many evening’s massive honorees: Greg Berlanti.
Presenting Berlanti with the PGA Norman Lear Achievement Award, Murphy delivered a heartfelt and candid tribute to the prolific Berlanti — one filled with candy and humble beginnings for males who now populate media energy lists and highest-paid rankings.
Within the late ’90s, Murphy mentioned, he and Berlanti have been hungry younger screenwriters trying to break into the business — Murphy a journalist, Berlanti an assistant to a producer). Murphy obtained his massive break first, promoting a script to Steven Spielberg for “$30,000 after commissions,” he mentioned.
Berlanti was fighting a demanding schedule, nonetheless, engaged on his personal script within the wee hours and getting nowhere. Murphy determined to make use of his “Spielberg fortune” to cowl Berlanti’s hire for 3 months, releasing him as much as write all day and workshop the script collectively at evening.
“At evening, we’d typically obtained to a diner on Sundown to speak concerning the script, the characters, and all the time what we wished to do with our lives. I bear in mind Greg actually being on hearth with this concept, brimming with youth and vitality and function,” mentioned Murphy. “It was private. It was populated solely by younger males like us, some misplaced, all have been looking for a group. I apprehensive about this script. I advised Greg repeatedly, early on, that we couldn’t promote motion pictures or TV reveals populated by homosexual individuals. Nobody would make it, it wouldn’t promote and couldn’t we write a pleasant Sandra Bullock comedy?”
Berlanti endured, and would finally promote his first script and eventual directorial debut, “The Damaged Hearts Membership,” a seminal movie about homosexual friendship. Afterward, Berlanti pivoted to tv the place he has remained for almost 25 years, or as Murphy put it, “first ‘Dawson’s Creek,’ then the world.”
Murphy additionally shared that he gifted Berlanti “a pair of costume footwear for a few of his first post-‘Damaged Hearts’ pitch conferences. They have been in vogue to make sure, however that they had sq. toes. It was 1997. I bear in mind him carrying them for the primary time nervous and saying, ‘I seem like a goddamn pilgrim. Nobody goes to rent me carrying these goddamn footwear.’”
However he was employed, mentioned Murphy.
“In the event you requested me then, would this man within the Myles Standish footwear change into arguably essentially the most profitable tv producer of the trendy age? I’d’ve mentioned a convincing sure, as a result of Greg all the time had it. That factor that makes a star, a enterprise particular person, and a captain of business,” Murphy continued. “Charisma, intelligence, integrity, an understanding of the human expertise, empathy, killer intuition, and a expertise and knowledge far past his years.”
Learn the complete checklist of winners from the 2022 Producers Guild Awards.
