I sat down with my very close friend, Lilly Slaydon (check out our podcast!), who worked as a writers’ production assistant on the first season of Shadow & Bone, out this Friday. We talked about what the writer’s room was like, how everyone is going to love Mal, and, most importantly, chocolate covered gummy bears. There are sometimes light spoilers for the show, medium spoilers for the books, and one very big book spoiler that is marked.
Lena Barkin: I know that you have to be careful about the things you say but I am going to try to get as much out of you as possible.
Lilly Slaydon: Okay.
LB: So can you describe your job on the show?
LS: So my job on Shadow & Bone was the Writers’ PA. The Writers’ PA is ultimately just basically the gopher, someone who gets lunch and coffee and makes sure that the kitchen in the writers room is stocked with coffee and Nespresso pods and coconut water and, you know, people’s different protein shakes and stuff like that. And there was basically just like, a lot of ‘hurry up and wait’ in that job because you’re getting everybody’s lunches and you’re kind of getting stuff that people need and keeping the office in order and printer paper, that kind of thing, but that doesn’t keep you occupied all day. So for a large chunk of my day my job was just… reading the books? Like they were just sitting on a table, so I kind of sat at my desk and read the entire Shadow & Bone series.
LB: Nice. Can you tell me how many coffees Eric [Heisserer, showrunner] drinks a day? Like, can you tell me his Starbucks order?
LS: He’s actually not a coffee person. His thing is chocolate covered gummy bears. And he goes through them at such an insane rate that I had to – I had like a personal hookup at Dylan’s Candy Bar. I made great use of that by the end of the season.
Eric’s actually not a coffee person. His thing is chocolate covered gummy bears.
LB: Chocolate covered gummy bears sound delicious.
LS: Oh, yeah, they’re good. But yeah there was a giant container of them. One in his office that was just his personal stash. There was also one that was in the center of – like, in the writers room there’s a conference room that’s the actual writers room, but then there’s individual offices and a little kind of bullpen where the assistant’s – in this case, it was just me. Because, actually, the other assistants had offices. The writers’ assistant and Eric’s assistant and the script coordinator all have their own offices. And then there was like a central area with couches, where people can kind of sit and hang out, and that’s where we ate lunch and stuff. And there was big thing of chocolate gummy bears there. And he would consume pretty much all of them and I was getting a new, like, filling entirely that one every two weeks. So he went through them pretty quickly. I mean, just for context, it was very big. And he had one in his in his office.
LB: You know that when people find out about Eric loving – if the fans find this interview about Eric loving the gummy bears they’re going to send SO many to him.
LS: Honestly, that would be incredible.
LB: This makes me feel so much better about my M&M consumption. Just like okay, writers just do this.
LS: Oh, definitely. Yeah. Everybody has their personal snack.
LB: Yeah. Was that your favorite personal snack? Or did someone else have a better personal snack?
LS: I think that’s the best one. Because he actually, uh – it was like, when he went off to Budapest, he called me. The room was already wrapped and he called me to, like, bring him a parting package of chocolate covered gummy bears to take with him to Budapest as well.
LB: Because you can’t get them there. That’s so important. So basically, you just made sure that everyone was properly caffeinated and sugared up and like, things were running smoothly.
LS: Yeah. Exactly. Made sure that the printer was working and made sure that everybody’s lunch order was right and on time, and that’s basically the deal.
LB: How did you get this job?
LS: So I had been PA’ing around Hollywood in various different capacities in writers rooms and in production offices and on set for, like, three years at this point. And I had previously been a showrunner assistant to a showrunner who actually had fired me, but then hired me as the PA in post-production. So I had been doing that for about six months, because post-production lasts a really long time. And when that ended, I actually was doing nothing for about two months except for just, like, writing my samples for these scriptwriting competitions that I always enter just to torture myself.
LB: Just to see if anything – it’s like playing the lottery.
LS: Anyway, so at the end of those two months, I’m like running out of money. I’m like, you know, ‘shit, what do I do’ kind of thing. And then I see this job posting, which was basically like, specifically it said, ‘looking for someone who has experience in the room and in post,’ and I was like, ‘that’s me,’ so I go in for it. It turned out that that was just because [Eric’s] assistant at the time had been in post before and she thought that that was just like, really useful experience that gave you a well-rounded view of filmmaking and she really wanted to look at people who had done that. So I just kind of came in and then – actually, there had been a PA before me. She was leaving because she had gotten a job on a movie that she really wanted to go work on back at home, which was Atlanta for her. So she was moving back to Atlanta and she just like, was the coolest chillest person ever. And my interview with her was like, we just hung out and it was kind of like, ‘Okay, well, if I have a say in it, it’s you,’ and I was like, ‘Tight. Okay, because you’re awesome.’ So after that, I think it just kind of fell into place.
LB: So what was the room like? What was your favorite part of being in that room?
LS: Okay, so as a writers’ PA you’re not necessarily in the room very much, or you’re not expected to be in the room very much. So I was really only called in for bigger things like table reads and stuff. Which, you know, in my previous experience as PA, you really just kind of like sit on the side like a little butler in Downton Abbey. But on Shadow & Bone they had me playing roles and reading all the smaller side parts in the script during the table read, which was really cool and fun. And I just remember, if people have read the book, when I was – in my very first table read, before I had actually finished any of the books, and I was kind of hearing the story read to me out loud for the very first time, because the first table read that I was at was my second day on the job or something like that, the story that I was the most gripped by and fell in love with the most was Nina and Matthias. So I’m just letting people know that, you know, even though they’re a smaller part, I think we really did them justice. Yeah.
And I think that once Matthias meets Nina, things crack open for him. His perspective starts to change.
LB: They definitely seem like everyone’s favorite characters to write because their dynamic is so tortured.
LS: Yeah, there’s an interesting conversation to be had about how like, ‘Oh, you shouldn’t portray like those enemies-to-lovers thing,’ because there’s like, shades of a Jew falls in love with a Nazi. But I think the beautiful thing about this is that it’s not that. It’s a fantasy world so we can actually explore that and like the tragedy of it, and really dig into what that means for sort of star-crossed lovers. They feel like they’re almost more Shakespearean in a way, like, a very different sort of –
LB: Well, it’s like, there are ways that they’re so similar yet, like, so diametrically opposed to each other in a lot of ways. And I think it’s worthwhile to like – I think one thing that a fantasy novel can do, and a novel where a Jewish person who falls in love with a Nazi can’t do, is that like, yes, Nazis were individual people. Not everyone necessarily believed wholeheartedly – not every German believed wholeheartedly in Nazi idealism, even if they participated in Nazism.
LS: I think that’s one of the things for Matthias that he, you know, he was raised in this ideology, and being with Nina is the first time that he’s ever thought to question it. And she is someone who – her personality lends her to questioning things, but she also grew up in an environment where it was necessary to do so. And he’s really had things drilled into him from a very certain perspective and I think that once he meets her, things crack open for him. His perspective starts to change. If it didn’t, you know, then he would just be a problematic character.
LB: Right, absolutely.
LS: But what’s beautiful about it is that it’s kind of like, you get to watch him have his whole world turned on end by her. And that’s, like, so romantic, but so tragic.
LB: Yeah, exactly.
LS: Very beautiful.
LB: Very beautiful. What was your favorite thing about working on Shadow & Bone?
LS: Um, honestly, everything. So I would have to say the people. I mean, the writers – it was just an incredible, incredible group of writers and every single person from the showrunner and the EPs, like, down to the other assistants, was just so cool. Had amazing ideas, were so invested in what they were doing. It just really felt like everybody was there to do something really cool. They were like, super, super hyped and excited about what they were doing. It was an invigorating environment. It was just like, you walk in and you could tell that everyone was so excited, you just immediately felt alive with it. And not only that, but everyone was just really nice and really cool, which is very rare in a job like this. So um, yeah, having all of the writers that they had. Every single person had a kind of a different perspective and a slightly different style and the whole mesh of everybody was just so interesting and cool. And honestly, me and the other assistants from the show stayed friends after. We still text and talk and yeah. So I think, yeah, the people, definitely. That’s my favorite part.
You walk in and you could tell that everyone was so excited, you just immediately felt alive with it.
LB: Yeah, and I know how, from our personal relationship, I know how difficult it can be to like find the right vibe for a show. It sounds really rare.
LS: Yeah, you know, I’ve been in other places where there were some cool people. But to have just like the overwhelming majority of people around you be that awesome is just really, really unusual. I was very grateful for it. And even though I worked there for a pretty short time I would say hands down, because of the people that I worked with. And because it was just such a cool subject material? Like, the books were really awesome and I feel like the show kind of elevated them to a different level, even. So, like, reading the scripts was really exciting. So it was like I was working on something that was really cool, but because of the people, mostly, it was definitely my favorite job that I’ve done in the time that I’ve been doing this.
LB: That’s awesome. Speaking of the scripts, I know that you talked a little bit about Nina and Matthias – so like, what in the eight episodes has been your favorite scene or moment?
LS: Uhhhh….
LB: Or what was your favorite scene to translate? I don’t know. Answer that how you can.
LS: Honestly, I think, like, I’m just very nervous about what I am and am not allowed to say but I think one of the things that I know I’m allowed to talk about, because it was in the trailer, is I think it’s very cool the way that they changed how the Darkling/General Kirigan in our show releases Alina’s light when he first meets her. Where in the book he kind of touches her, we have him have this ring that he carries and wears with him all the time that he like, slices her skin open with and releases the light that way. I feel like it was just a much more visceral visual. That was really cool. I think that the little changes like that. There’s a lot of them and they’re very cool.
LB: He’s not General Kirigan in the books, is he? Like, is that like a new thing?
LS: No. So General Kirigan is a name that was, I think, I mean – I obviously wasn’t privy to this decision, but I am sure it’s because you know, for new fans, if the character’s official name martially and in the military is the Darkling it would lead me to guess that he might be, you know –
LB: Bad, but they call him the Darkling in the book and you know from page one.
LS: Exactly. You know. That’s probably why the change was made. It kind of reminds me of – so, I did like a study abroad in the Netherlands. And one of my teachers was talking about Star Wars and was talking about how in Holland everybody knew that Darth Vader was the father, because Darth Vader means “dark father” in Dutch. And I was like, “Yeah.” I think the Darkling would be a little bit like that. Kirigan is actually a name that Leigh gave us. When we were like, ‘what should we call him instead? Can we just call him the dark general? That seems like it’s still kind of the same vibe.’ So we needed a name. He needed to have a name.
LB: Oh, the other thing that we could try to do is, like, if you give me your answer for your favorite moment, and then you could like run it by someone before I post it to see if that’s okay. Do you feel okay with that?
LS: I don’t know. I mean, it’s in the book. Like, I just really loved the like Darklina kiss. That happens before she figures everything out and escapes from the Little Palace. I thought that was just done really amazingly well. And the chemistry that Ben [Barnes] and Jessie [Mei Li] have is just like really, really, really, really, really good. I was screaming and texting the showrunner and… yeah, so it was really – I feel like you can say that. I feel like we can – it was in the book, right?
LB: It was in the book.
LS: If I was saying something that we had made up I feel like that would be bad.
LB: So, you excited about Ben Barnes?
LS: Excited about Ben Barnes. Honestly, though, like, Archie [Renaux] is not to be sneezed at. Like, Malina is very real.
LB: Yeah, I know that people online…. There’s this hate for Mal in the books that I don’t get, but I also know that since it’s –
LS: He’s a little boring in the book, but, you know, he just, he has got a lot of competition. But Archie? Archie is not boring.
LB: Sure.
LS: So there’s gonna be a lot of newfound love. [pause] Lammy, do you want to get involved? What did you think about season one? He thought I was gone a lot.
LB: Yeah, I know people online were being like, ‘Oh, yeah. Archie is like changing our minds about Mal one scene at a time.’
LS: As always, I hope that’s what happens.
LB: And I mean, I haven’t seen it and I’m sure he’s a great actor, but he’s not how I imagined Mal? And so like that dissonance is gonna like…he’s very, um, I know that Mal is very military, but he’s very like, I don’t know, not classically handsome, but like football handsome.
LS: He’s very handsome.
LB: He’s like football handsome in a way that like – does that make sense?
LS: Like British football handsome?
LB: He’s British football handsome.
LS: I didn’t think he’s football and I was like, ‘she means like futbol.’ Yeah. Yeah. I could see him playing a footballer.
LB: Yeah. And in a way that it’s not how I envisioned Mal. That doesn’t appeal to me. But I’m also like, ready for Mal to appeal to me in other ways, so.
LS: You will, I promise. I feel like they put in a lot of groundwork in that first episode for people to love him. They were just like, ‘Please! Love! Mal!,’ like, really introducing – we just want you to like him. We know a lot of you don’t like him! But you are going to like him! And it worked. I think it worked. I don’t know. Other people who aren’t deeply invested in this season when they watch it can say. I’m already very committed to this, so.
LB: What are you looking forward most to sharing? I’m not sure I like this question.
LS: I know exactly what my answer to that is, though. Because I feel like, okay, there’s a period when you loved a book and an adaptation comes out where you’re kind of grieving a little bit for your mental conception of the character, like you were just talking about with Mal. And I think that people are going to go through that here. But what I’m the most excited for is for these actors and their embodiments of these characters to start to become people’s mental embodiments. Because they absolutely are these characters, you know what I mean? And I think that once that happens, like, something really special is gonna happen. When that actually falls into place for people who read the book before. They’re gonna go through that like little rough period of being like, ‘Oh, I can’t see my versions of these characters anymore,’ but then it’s gonna really take life.
I feel like there’s a period when you loved a book and an adaptation comes out where you’re kind of grieving a little bit for your mental conception of the character.
LB: Yeah, I’m thinking about, like, obviously the standard bearer for this is Harry Potter and how I, like, can’t think of Ron –
LS: That’s what I was thinking of, too, because I had very distinct mental versions of those characters that I can only barely still visualize in my head when I reread the books. Because actors really took it over. But I think that, like, in the same way, something really kind of magical happened when the actors did take over those roles in my head for Harry Potter because they became almost new, slightly different versions of the characters who were alive for me in exactly the same way as other people. They were much more communally alive. Like, obviously the book characters I also shared with everyone. But they were sort of also privately mine in a different way. And there was something very exciting about having that shared character, right? So that’s what I’m really excited to see happen here.
LB: So if the show does get renewed, what are you most looking forward to exploring in season two?
LS: Um, okay, well, so Nikolai and his flying ship The Hummingbird are definitely things that I’m excited about. But also excited for the – I don’t, okay, so the Nichevo’ya, which are these monsters that are created by General Kirigan out of the Fold to sort of protect him from the volcra, and he is stuck in there because he is kind of like a superconductor for volcra, since his darkness powers are connected to the Fold itself. So if he enters it, he’s swarmed by volcra. So anyway, whatever. So he creates these monsters, and I am very excited to see those monsters interact with characters, and especially Bahgra and Alina.
LB: They made Bahgra hot.
LS: They didn’t make Bahgra hot, it’s Zoe Wanamaker! She can’t help it, babyyyyy. Can I tell you something about Zoe Wanamaker? She brought all of her own wigs with her from England to Hungary. A whole set of like, really good, dramatic wigs that she brought because she was like, I don’t want whatever trash wigs you were gonna give.
LB: I don’t need a Party City Jared wig.
LS: I’ve got options.
LB: Yeah, no, but like by casting someone who’s middle aged or, I actually don’t know how old she is but –
HUGE BOOK SPOILER
LS: But like if she’s aging proportionally to – Should we just, anything in the book it’s not a spoiler?
LB: Yeah, sure.
LS: She’s aging proportionally to her son, General Kirigan then, she, you know, wouldn’t look super old. She would look old enough to be Ben Barnes’s mother, roughly. But like, not quite. Like, a little younger than that. Because they do age. But he is 500 years old but he looks like Ben Barnes, so it was kind of within the scope. And also, she’s old within the TV hotness allowable –
END OF HUGE BOOK SPOILER
LB: I mean, that’s the thing that gets me. Is that you’re not allowed to be old and ugly on TV.
LS: She definitely was like small and withered and like, yeah, she’s like octogenarian in the books, but that’s not Zoe Wanamaker. But she does have the vibe.
LB: Okay.
LS: And by the vibe, I mean the stick that she hits Alina with.
LB: Okay, so I have some questions less about your experience on the show and more about – because I have read all the books, or almost all the books. I haven’t read “Crooked Kingdom” yet. But, I’m really excited to see what season one is of the show, and the characters. You said that Matthias and Nina are in it, which is….so all the cast members are in it? [Bless Lilly for making sense of this question.]
LS: Wylan is new to them in “Six of Crows” so this takes place before that. So he is not yet introduced now, he’s not in it. You know, Nina and Matthias, this is like, backstory for them, too. So they also are not yet fully immersed with the Crows, they kind of are having their thing going on, which, like, begins to tangentially connect with the Crows. But it doesn’t actually intersect in a way that’s recognizable from “Six of Crows” yet in season one, either. So everything is kind of taking place. About two years before “Six of Crows,” maybe.
LB: What kind of stuff, like, what kinds of things got put into the prequel aspect that fleshes out the characters and like the storyline…are you not allowed to talk?
LS: 🎶That’s what I’m scared about answering!🎶
LB: I had to try. How about, like, what do you think the prequel adds to the story?
LS: It definitely adds some new dimensions that will make like – it’s going to change some things. It’s not just a straight prequel essentially. I think you can kind of tell from the trailer, so it’s not necessarily a spoiler to say, that the Crows are on a mission to find Alina, right? Which makes this already a little bit different from the book. So I do think that this prequel is kind of setting up a slightly different version of – not these characters, but of the trajectory. Which I think is gonna add some depth to “Six of Crows” once – I’ll say once, not if, we get there. Yeah, so I think that’ll be really, really cool to see. And I’m hoping that people are excited about that rather than pissed about it. But um, you know.
LB: The show is sort of weaving all the characters together in a way that the books didn’t?
LS: Yeah.
LB: Is there a sense of, um, the way – I know that you just said that it might be a different trajectory, but like, the way things play out might be different than the way that they played out the books?
LS: Yeah, I mean, I think once and if the show is allowed to take the amount of time it’ll take to get to the actual “Six of Crows” story, I think that the Ice Court heist story itself will probably be unchanged, but some of the texture around it will be different. Particularly, you know, Inej having met a Living Saint, or having possibly met a Living Saint this season. I think that that gives her, because she is a person of faith, I think that that gives her a whole new angle on her faith that book Inej would never have had, for example. Because it changes who she is a little bit. Not in a way, where, you know, she’s like, no longer Inej, but just, you know, that’s something that is gonna affect her and it’s gonna affect the way that she makes decisions and stuff like that.
LB: Nina’s storyline in the book takes place after all the events of “Shadow & Bone” because Zoya is in charge of the Little Palace. And so she’s sort of like a second generation.
LS: Yes. Yeah, that’s true. So basically what we’re doing is we’re just kind of starting about three years out where I think like, in book time canon, I do think there’s maybe a ten – a five or ten year gap. I think that they nudged them just a little bit closer together. There’s a bit more overlap.
LB: Yeah, that makes sense. This isn’t a question. This is just my note: All the fun characters are in the second book.
I love Mal, but fun is not the right word.
LS: Not all of them! What about the Crows? Mal. You’re gonna have fun with –
LB: Yeah, tell me about the Crows. I’m gonna have fun – what?
LS: Mal!
LB: Yeah, Mal’s fun now.
LS: He’s not fun. He’s so – I love Mal, but fun is not the right word. The Crows are much more fun.
LB: Well, it’s like, if you think about Mal, Mal is this weird combination of both Xander and Angel from Buffy. Because he’s the best friend –
LS: Angel’s a good one. He’s definitely, yeah, he’s a great romantic lead. But fun is not the word that I would use.
LB: Like I thought the way that he broods all the time is like so… the thing is he has the backstory of someone like Xander who has been your best friend since forever. But the way that he acts is like 100% Angel nonsense.
LS: Yeah.
LB: I love Buffy and Angel, but like…that man.
LS: Yeah, no they have a very Buffy/Angel feel to them.
LB: Mmhmm.
LS: But I love them.
LB: Yeah, tell me about the Crows.
LS: Um, they’re literally perfect. They’re fucking amazing. All three of these people are people who as soon as like I saw their audition tape I was like, “Pleeeaase go with this person.” And they did. Because, like I said about how excited I am to see people kind of let these actors embody these characters in their imaginations, they really just are these characters. And most especially Amita Suman as Inej because she just, I mean, she just is Inej. I mean, it’s incredible. And they love the characters so much and they had so much fucking fun being them that I think everybody is gonna fall completely in love.
LB: I’m excited. I’m excited for Jesper. I’m excited for a disaster –
LS: He is such a great Jesper. People are gonna love him, I really think so. I love him. I – yeah, he’s got all the best lines, because of course he does. And Kit [Young] just is having the fucking time of his life delivering all those lines. Yeah, it’s great. And he’s so good at spinning those fucking guns, he makes it look so easy. I bet you that it’s really hard. Those guns were, like, specially made by this gunmaker in Hungary that came out of retirement to design these gold inlaid guns, and it took him a really long time, and they were super heavy and everything, so. Like it can’t be easy to just like spin them around nothing, but he’s just kind of ‘brrrr’. I don’t know how you’re gonna transcribe that.
LB: *Makes guns sounds.* Pew pew! Okay. So I thought basing a fantasy story in turn-of-the-century Russia versus medieval England was really interesting. Did you, or does the show, sort of have fun picking and choosing from the different cultures?
LS: Yeah, so, like first of all, I didn’t know this at the time, I found out later, but Leigh Bardugo, the writer, she calls it ‘czarpunk.’ And I think that that’s just a really perfect term for it. Um, yeah, I think there was cool stuff in the writers room of Shadow & Bone. There was this huge wall of inspiration images. That was like, you know, that crazy big astrological clock in Prague, and a bunch of Russian architecture. And then there was pictures of like, nightmare monsters that were all different kinds of visions of volcra. And then there was like, different visions of the stag antler prosthetic. It was just kind of all scattered like a big Pinterest board, basically. But it was like a whole – it was actually a window that had been completely covered. And the PA that was leaving – I didn’t put up any of that stuff, I don’t want to take credit for it, it was incredible – the PA Charlotte [Casey], who was leaving, she put everything up on that window, but the light was coming in so you can see everything and it was all kind of like slightly backlit. And I think she had put this, like, reddish paper behind it so that you could like see the details. But it was just like this phenomenal, kind of overwhelming czarpunk aesthetic quilt patchwork that would just kind of be surrounding you when you walked in.
And then they had these sliding whiteboards that were covered with these gigantic printed out maps that had the huge big map of the Grishaverse and then there was like all of the characters movements through all the books charted with these little arrows on the maps, and then on the other wall was the big board with breaking the season. I just want to say that on the board there were these two cards that said, “Fuck Them In The Heart” which was the motto of our show – thank you, Christina Strain. One of the writers on the show, that’s her personal writing mottos, “fuck them in the heart,” and we adopted it. And then “Feral Wendigo,” which came from Daegan Fryklind, who’s our EP and that was her kind of …it kind of just means like balls to the wall, essentially, like ‘Feral Wendigo!’ Yeah, so like two cards, ‘fuck them in the heart,’ ‘feral wendigo,’ and it was just like above the season break. And when I was taking everything down, and I had to throw away everything from that beautiful inspiration image wall, throw away all the cards, I kept those and they’re in my scrapbook.
LB: With you always.
LS: With me always.
LB: Is there anything else you want to talk about?
LS: I just want to say again, that like, it was just easily hands down the best experience that I’ve ever had working in TV. It’s very easy to have bad experiences because of bad people. Even if the show was good. It’s easy to have, like, you know, not everything fall into place like that. But I think it all just kind of comes from the top. So like, yeah, Eric Heisserer – a very good boss, and all the writers in that room. They’re all just really awesome people. And it’s just got a really positive environment of promoting from within. Like, I know, for example, the Writers’ Assistant, whose name is Nick Culbertson, wrote an episode with Scott Veach of the show. Which is not a guarantee in this business, to have a shared episode as a writers’ assistant. So like, it’s just a really positive environment and that’s just like super, super rare. So like, shout out to all of those people.