Haunted hotel / Monster post-mortem
Today: Jack Pendarvis, an American screenwriter, author, and voice actor; Josephine Riesman, New York Times bestselling author of Ringmaster and True Believer; and Leila Brillson, author of the newsletter Night Creeps.
Issue No. 385
Ace Goes to Hollywood: Episode 9
Jack Pendarvis
HYDRANYM No. 13
The Editors
Alien: Earth PODCAST Recap: Episodes 1 and 2
Leila Brillson and Josephine Riesman
Ace Goes to Hollywood: Episode 9
by Jack Pendarvis
Ace Goes to Hollywood is the continuing transcript of a ride from Oxford, Mississippi, to Memphis, Tennessee, during which Jack Pendarvis interviewed Ace Atkins about his work on the Pauly Shore film Jury Duty.
Episode 9: Terror on the Eighth Floor
ACE: So, I started talking to one of the producers of Jury Duty, who is now one of the producers on, uh, the Magnum P.I. reboot.
JACK: I didn’t even know there was a Magnum P.I. reboot!
ACE: There is. Yeah.
JACK: But I’m old.
ACE: I don’t know why.
JACK: But you know what? I bet only old people watch the new Magnum P.I.
ACE: Yes.
JACK: But I’m so old, I didn’t even know there was one.
ACE: I think those shows are kind of like the show I saw a promo for the other night, Doctor Odyssey, where people are on a cruise ship, but they’re stuck in the water because they’re surrounded by sharks.
JACK: Wait a minute! [Laughter.] Isn’t every cruise ship surrounded by sharks?
ACE: Well, it paralyzed the… I don’t think they realized they were on a cruise ship. They thought they couldn’t move.
JACK: Let’s be fair, though. You didn’t watch it. You don’t know what happens!
ACE: I don’t. It was a special two-night event that involved sharks on Doctor Odyssey.
JACK: So, your ambition: you’re reading this script for Jury Duty, thinking “I could do better.”
ACE: What it really made me realize is that I was not going to become a writer by working out there. One of the most exciting things on the set was I was sitting there reading James Lee Burke’s Heaven’s Prisoners. And the guy who was doing the special effects, he walks by and goes, “Oh, I just got off of that movie.” And I thought that was fantastic! I’m reading a book, and he had just been down in Louisiana working on it. I was like, “Oh, man, this is one of my favorite characters and I love it. How was it?” And he goes, “It was total shit.” [Laughter from both.] So that’s the vibe.
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