Jack Carr joins Mike and Tyler to talk DARK WOLF spoilers and go behind the scenes of The Terminal List universe. Everything is on the table: Land Rovers, watches, Chris Pratt, Taylor Kitsch, and MORE!
SPOILER WARNING: We are the thriller deep-dive after show!
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Chapters
02:37 Land Cruisers and Personal Connections
05:33Character Development in Dark Wolf
11:25 Setting Up True Believer
20:17 Trusting the Writers' Room
28:21 Challenges of Filming and Production
29:20 Audience Reception and Feedback
33:26 Writing Through Historical Context
40:18 The Importance of Storytelling Integrity
45:22 Influences and Inspirations in Writing
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Keywords: Jack Carr, Dark Wolf, True Believer, Terminal List, thriller podcast, character development, storytelling, Vietnam War, espionage, writing process #NoLimitsPodcast #ThrillerPodcast #ThrillerPod #SpyThrillers
00:00:14
All right, guys, welcome back to the Thriller Podcast and today
00:00:18
for one day only, Tyler is not the biggest Land Cruiser fan on
00:00:22
the podcast because we are joined by Jack Carr.
00:00:26
Welcome, Jack. Yes, how you doing this is
00:00:28
awesome. How's it going?
00:00:30
Going great going grace how how land cruisers let's gosh I was I
00:00:35
was just in Morocco so there were land cruisers everywhere
00:00:37
there filming up filming true believer we just finished true
00:00:40
believer next season of the terminal list show and before
00:00:43
that we were in Africa for a while and before I got there the
00:00:46
guys were texting me back pictures of all these land
00:00:48
cruisers over there and they were saying now we finally
00:00:51
understand this Land Cruiser obsession of yours they they.
00:00:55
Get it? Reusing them, yeah.
00:00:57
So that was pretty. Yeah, once they finally like
00:01:00
once it clicks, they they won't be able to shake it probably so.
00:01:03
That's it. Yeah.
00:01:03
Well, the guys wanted to bring them back and there's a couple
00:01:06
of guys that are fans already on the set.
00:01:07
Our armorer has a has an 80 series and he's a former Marine,
00:01:11
a Recon guy. And so we connected right off
00:01:14
the ballet first day on the set of True Believer back in 2021.
00:01:18
I walked in and I'd noticed it as I was walking to the set on
00:01:20
Paramount where we built the tunnels and flooded the parking
00:01:23
lot on Paramount to build those tunnels in the first show.
00:01:25
And I noticed this Black 80 series out there in the parking
00:01:28
lot that was tricked out was like, wonder who's that is?
00:01:31
And it was the armor. And yeah, we've been your
00:01:33
friends ever since. Good, good.
00:01:35
I, I was listening to a couple of your interviews with some of
00:01:37
the authors that you like and there was, there was one
00:01:41
recently who's the author that that has like the Gabriel
00:01:45
series. Gabriel along, that's a Daniel
00:01:47
Silva. Daniel.
00:01:48
Silva Yeah, yeah. So I noticed at the beginning of
00:01:51
yours, you know, you were, you were kind of excited to to talk
00:01:55
to him and stuff. And I wanted to let you know
00:01:56
that's how I am. I'm very excited to talk to you.
00:01:59
Lots of influence and stuff. And actually we've met.
00:02:03
It was a similar situation. You and I have met a couple of
00:02:05
times that book signings and stuff.
00:02:08
My cousin is producing for me and he was with me and actually
00:02:11
he was going to pop up a picture of my 60, my FJ602.
00:02:16
Wow, that's beautiful. So unfortunately had to let it
00:02:20
go, but you had a big influence on me getting that, that I had
00:02:23
for years and especially it being white due to James Reese's
00:02:27
in the first novel. So wanted to say thanks and show
00:02:31
you that at least if you talk about Land Cruisers, I'll know
00:02:34
what you're what the jargon is. When I got that thing, he
00:02:38
couldn't stop talking about it. He was just talking about you
00:02:40
and Land Cruisers constantly. Man, I wish you still had it.
00:02:44
Like, it's like we have my wife's trying to convince me
00:02:46
she's out here 'cause we're, we're, I said we just flew in
00:02:48
from Paris last night 'cause we were filming in Morocco, met her
00:02:52
in Paris and then just got out here doing some stuff on the
00:02:54
East Coast before kickoff book tour.
00:02:56
But she's trying to convince me to get rid of one or two of the
00:02:59
Land Cruisers that are have infiltrated the compound over
00:03:03
the last few years. But I won't hear it.
00:03:06
No, no, I was going to. Breach the gates.
00:03:08
Some subtraction, you know, but yeah, very.
00:03:11
And I might, I still have the one that I drove in the SEAL
00:03:13
Teams and that's it's been modified a bit.
00:03:16
Yeah, that's the, that's the icon 4x4 done, done right.
00:03:19
Yeah, I plan on getting another one, but I want mine from
00:03:22
Corsetti. I like their, I like their
00:03:24
program and. Yeah, of course that is great.
00:03:26
I went out there, sat down with him a while ago, 2021 actually,
00:03:30
we were filming the show. So I went out there, got the
00:03:32
full tour of the shop and definitely want one of his as
00:03:35
well. He does a great job in all of it
00:03:37
for a long time. Really like his 80s series.
00:03:38
He has a great 80 series on the he has these huge murals of them
00:03:41
also on the walls, on these awesome brick walls that he has
00:03:44
in the shop. It's really, really cool and
00:03:46
such a such a good dude. But yeah, the one I drove in the
00:03:48
seal Teams was the same color as the one that James Reese uses in
00:03:51
the TV show. And but in the book, you're
00:03:54
right white and I had it white for a, a certain reason.
00:03:58
And but then when I got to the show that Antoine Fuqua said
00:04:02
that white cars. And if you think about it,
00:04:03
there's only very few shows that stand out, movies and TV shows
00:04:06
that have white cars. Miami Vice being one, obviously
00:04:09
for like the, the color palette of that show.
00:04:11
But you don't really think there's not too many others that
00:04:14
have white vehicles, unless you like need to make a, let's say
00:04:17
an old Rolls Royce or something stand out for a certain reason.
00:04:20
But that like 30 years ago, you know, something like that.
00:04:22
Even then, that car would have been 20 years old, Something
00:04:25
like that. Usually they're silver or Gray
00:04:27
or something, but the white ones on screen, they it doesn't play
00:04:31
as well or it's distracting or some of there's some reason that
00:04:34
it doesn't really work on television and film.
00:04:37
So we switched it to the color that that I drive in real life.
00:04:40
Yeah, I know the the one used in season 1 ended up in the Land
00:04:43
Cruiser Museum in Colorado, so hopefully if I make it out
00:04:46
there. Yeah, it felt like, well, it
00:04:47
ended up me first. It was like my wrap gift.
00:04:49
And so so I ended up with that. And then my wife was like, this
00:04:53
thing doesn't even start. It's don't work when it does.
00:04:57
And so it went down to the to the Land Cruiser Museum, on
00:05:00
loan. On loan only.
00:05:02
OK, so you still have the right to steal yours and make them
00:05:06
home someday? Yeah, exactly.
00:05:07
Exactly. We wanted to jump into some Dark
00:05:10
Wolf stuff off the bat and then make our way to some Cry Havoc
00:05:14
and then some future project stuff down the road.
00:05:16
So I was going to ask some some things that, you know, we're
00:05:20
going to probably jump straight into spoilers.
00:05:22
So did you have Jed as that he'll turn from from the get go.
00:05:27
He's he's a great buy in. Mike and I were talking and we
00:05:31
both totally buy into him from the first episode in the
00:05:34
recruitment and everything and how he runs the team and
00:05:37
everything like that. So tell us a little bit about
00:05:39
Jed and his his pathway. Yeah.
00:05:42
Jed Haverford from the beginning, Yeah, he had the same
00:05:45
arc from the very beginning when Dave Degiglio flew out to Park
00:05:48
City right after Terminal S came out.
00:05:51
So came out in July of 2022 and a couple weeks after that the
00:05:55
numbers came in with Amazon. It was very clear that they
00:05:57
wanted another season spin offs or whatever we could give them.
00:06:02
And and so Chris Pratt called and said, Hey, why don't we do a
00:06:05
Ben Edwards spin off? And I had another spin off in
00:06:07
mind. But when Chris Pratt calls you
00:06:09
and says, let's do this one, you say that's a great idea, Chris.
00:06:12
And and so he called Taylor after that and Taylor was 100%
00:06:16
on board. He loves playing this character,
00:06:18
Ben Edwards. And then so Dave Degiglio flew
00:06:20
out. My buddy Jared Shaw, who's a an
00:06:22
actor on the show, plays plays Boozer is also now an executive
00:06:25
producer and a writer now and and does the technical advising
00:06:29
also with a with a team. So he flew out and then we
00:06:32
zoomed in Max Adams, former Army Ranger, who's number two in the
00:06:34
writers room and went through like, what would that look like?
00:06:38
What would the start of Bens pathway towards being able to
00:06:41
make the decisions he does in the terminal list?
00:06:44
How would we do that in a first season and not getting them all
00:06:46
the way there yet because we want future if we want more
00:06:48
seasons, but having an arc that that'll be part of an
00:06:52
overarching arc that gets him to that place where the terminal
00:06:55
list kicks off. So we just sat down in my office
00:06:59
out there in Park City and and sort of brainstorming and came
00:07:01
up with this with this whole concept.
00:07:04
Jed was there from the from the very beginning.
00:07:06
There's some scenes that they made it all the way through,
00:07:09
maybe not necessarily the pitch and the outline.
00:07:11
What's certainly the outline, not the pitch, but the actual
00:07:13
outline for the episodes. And then when you get closer to
00:07:16
filming, you realize that, well, some things are going to get
00:07:19
edited because of just time and other things are going to get
00:07:22
edited because of budget. And then so many other things
00:07:24
influence actor availability and and all sorts of things.
00:07:28
But so there's a lot of constraints.
00:07:30
So there's some other stuff that's like for flashbacks to
00:07:32
him to Beirut 1983 and to pulling a watch off his off of
00:07:37
his mentors hand. And that's the one that he wears
00:07:39
in the show. But it didn't didn't didn't make
00:07:42
it. We couldn't even film, but it
00:07:44
was there for the like when we started filming, but then it it
00:07:47
fell off very, very quickly. That's what a lot of people
00:07:51
don't realize about the show. When you see things online like
00:07:53
why didn't you do this? Why didn't you do this?
00:07:54
It would be awesome if this and that.
00:07:55
It's like there's so many constraints when it kind of like
00:07:58
it's, it's insane that anything actually gets made at all, and
00:08:01
even more insane that anything good gets made with all of the
00:08:05
constraints in place. And it's just, it's just the way
00:08:08
it is. So you kind of just do the best
00:08:10
you can with what you have, trying to make the best show you
00:08:12
possibly can for people who are trusting you with their time.
00:08:15
And you just didn't. And you realize that it's art
00:08:17
and it's objective and you're going to let it out in the
00:08:19
world. And nowadays people are just
00:08:21
going to throw, you know, arrows and and Spears at you.
00:08:26
There's nothing you can do and everyone's going to have a
00:08:28
better idea. Why don't you do that?
00:08:29
Why don't you do this? But you know, you're just doing
00:08:31
the best you can. The budget you have after
00:08:34
availability that you have, time constraints you have, you have
00:08:36
to tell a story within 45 minutes to an hour arc each
00:08:39
episode. And then they have to be an
00:08:41
overarching arc throughout that whole season.
00:08:43
And everything has to move that plot forward.
00:08:45
So it's it's really interesting project to be involved in
00:08:50
because it's so different than the novels where I can do
00:08:53
anything that I want and there is 0 constraints.
00:08:55
And then it's all on me if people love it or hate it.
00:08:58
There's no there, there was no actor availability.
00:09:00
There was no budgetary constraint.
00:09:01
There was no timeline. There was nothing like that.
00:09:03
I mean, there's timeline with deadlines, but as you probably
00:09:06
notice, I blow past those fairly regularly because it has to be
00:09:10
all about the book. I'm not just going to turn
00:09:12
something out, get 100 words and and turn that thing in
00:09:15
because, oh, I'm up on a deadline.
00:09:17
That's just not how I'm wired. I want to miss a few deadlines
00:09:21
here and there along the way, much to the chagrin of my
00:09:23
publisher. Well, with with stuff that the
00:09:26
people were like, man, why didn't you do this?
00:09:27
I know that in some cases you guys did do things like that.
00:09:30
It just gets cut. There's a couple of like my
00:09:32
favorite scenes that didn't make the cut in Season 1, But I
00:09:36
haven't heard you talk a whole lot about stuff that got cut
00:09:38
from this season. So is there anything in
00:09:40
particular? Like I really enjoyed the scene
00:09:42
in the first season that got cut where in the finale James goes
00:09:46
to do the the roll off into the water.
00:09:49
And I can't remember if it's on the boat or in the water that
00:09:51
the whole team is there. He says I'm not alone and goes
00:09:55
in the water and I think you guys had, I don't know if it was
00:09:57
shot or written that the whole team was with him in the water
00:10:00
basically. That was so there were a couple
00:10:02
was it just did it just end up being because now I have three
00:10:05
things that are conflating in my mind.
00:10:06
First season Dark Wolf and now we're at its floor true
00:10:09
believer. First two episodes are are
00:10:11
edited already. So we're there'll be more edits
00:10:14
as we as we go and continue to refine.
00:10:16
But but right now like heads over in those.
00:10:19
But I believe Boozer was there when he goes over the side.
00:10:22
Were there two other guys that were also there?
00:10:23
Three of them go over. I thought so.
00:10:26
I thought there were were others, but I think you had said
00:10:30
some somewhere where like the entire Prava team was.
00:10:33
It was basically there. Yeah, now you have actual
00:10:35
availability. Can we trust the memories as
00:10:37
well? Because they had the unreliable
00:10:39
narrator part so we don't know what we can trust in those
00:10:41
flashbacks and memories of who's actually there.
00:10:44
And that makes sense for the headspace that he's in at the
00:10:46
end of season 1. And and the constraints you
00:10:49
mentioned Jack make a lot of sense.
00:10:50
One of my small gripes about the show is I could have used more
00:10:53
than 7 episodes and I'm sure there's a lot of reasons for
00:10:56
that, but man, I was hoping for 8910.
00:10:58
But what's amazing is this season, I think the brilliance
00:11:01
of the decision you, the team and and Chris had to go back in
00:11:05
time with Ben Edwards actually sets up True Believer in some
00:11:08
ways even better than the end of season 1 The Terminalist did.
00:11:12
I feel like it was intentional to put in so many Nuggets for
00:11:15
fans who know and love True Believer that we got a Vic
00:11:19
Rodriguez name. Drop the polygraph with
00:11:22
truthful, conclusive and deception indicated.
00:11:24
Now what a treat, an absolute treat for the fans of the books.
00:11:28
I wonder if you had a hand in pushing the script in that
00:11:30
direction 'cause I know you are a writer credited with the final
00:11:33
episode. But it was also genius in that
00:11:35
it set up things like Rafe in his Africa connections so well.
00:11:39
So anybody who didn't read the books knows these guys going
00:11:42
into True Believer and knows the dynamics.
00:11:44
Was that all intentional in the writers room?
00:11:46
Yeah, it was unintentional before the writers room.
00:11:47
It was intentional in the pit Amazon that we did in end of
00:11:50
October 2022, so just a couple months after the terminal list
00:11:54
came out. So that was intentional in that
00:11:56
in that pitch. So from the very beginning, we
00:11:58
want to tell those stories and then we can save that time to
00:12:00
tell the story of true believer without having to explain who
00:12:04
everybody is, have a flashback here or there, have a
00:12:07
conversation where they talk about it that some people might
00:12:09
miss. So this was a way to tell that
00:12:11
story without having to do it in true believer.
00:12:14
So there were multiple reasons to a spin off like this and that
00:12:18
was certainly one of the one of the fun ones.
00:12:20
Cause in True believer, I have a chapter and I talk about this
00:12:22
fallout, but I can be fairly general because what's important
00:12:26
is that there was a fallout that it involved an operation in Iraq
00:12:29
and somebody you going a little bit rogue and OK, you get that.
00:12:32
And then the story moves, moves forward.
00:12:34
But now we have to figure that out.
00:12:35
OK, what exactly was that to tell the story, knowing that you
00:12:40
can take some some liberties now as as well and telling this
00:12:43
story through a visual, visual medium.
00:12:45
And so that was all part of it from the get go.
00:12:47
Set up these characters, tell their back story, get those
00:12:50
connections with the with the audience ahead of time and then
00:12:52
roll right into true believer where they have major roles
00:12:57
there as well. So it was fun discovery along
00:13:00
along the way. Shiraz, who plays tall like she
00:13:04
was a huge discovery in dark wolf.
00:13:06
Amazing. Just I can't wait to see what
00:13:08
she does next. She's so wonderful and you
00:13:11
probably saw her for this is a spoiler because they put her in
00:13:14
the the rap video. The rap WR AP video came out the
00:13:18
other day. I just say goodbye telling
00:13:20
everybody that that true believers wrapped up and she's
00:13:23
in there. She says, you know, it's a wrap
00:13:24
on on true believer season 2 or whatever she says, but she's
00:13:27
fantastic. So you find little things like
00:13:29
that along the way as well that are, that are surprises that you
00:13:32
don't know at the outset when you see a character written in
00:13:36
in an outline or a character bio, or then you move into the
00:13:39
the scripts even. And then even when you cast
00:13:41
someone, you're not 100% sure what they're going to bring to
00:13:44
the role. And then somebody like Shiraz
00:13:45
steps in and just crushes it. Then you're like, OK, well, how
00:13:48
do we do a Shiraz MO spin off, you know, like that?
00:13:51
You're like, how do we how do we do this?
00:13:52
That'd be an amazing story to tell, you know, and I've have a
00:13:54
whole pitch for that ready to go.
00:13:56
And so, yeah, there's always discoveries like that.
00:13:59
Rich Hastings. I don't think we can.
00:14:00
I'm not sure we can say. You saw his back in in the rap
00:14:03
video for for True Believers. You don't see his face yet.
00:14:05
So I won't say, hey, you can probably guess, but amazing,
00:14:10
incredible. And I would love to tell that
00:14:13
story and whether it's through television or it's through some
00:14:16
books, maybe novellas, maybe short stories, maybe audio only
00:14:20
novellas, like that sort of thing.
00:14:22
Like have a whole plan to explore all these characters to
00:14:26
me as well and have interesting back stories that that span
00:14:29
generations as well. Contemporary 60s, seventies, 80s
00:14:32
time frame and then 30s, forties, fifties, 60s time
00:14:35
frame. So I have 3 generations now that
00:14:37
I'm focused on from two different family lineages,
00:14:39
Reese's side and the Hastings side.
00:14:41
So there's a There's a lot to work with.
00:14:44
Wow. And you're talking about
00:14:45
casting. I think one of the standouts was
00:14:47
MO Tyler and I were talking on our review of Episode 6 and
00:14:51
seven how he tells a whole dialogue with his face.
00:14:55
He can have the camera on him for one second and he tells a
00:14:58
whole story of his personhood, his background, his passion for
00:15:01
country. I I just think he was a standout
00:15:04
of the show, which surprised me. And again, that's a great tie
00:15:06
into to believe true believer. MO was just stand out this
00:15:10
season. Stand out.
00:15:12
Yeah, MO's Dar, such a great guy.
00:15:14
Everybody became such great friends over the course of the
00:15:16
the 7-8 months that it took to to film this.
00:15:19
And Dar's amazing. And I would have been at his
00:15:21
wedding, but I was at UFC for the for the show.
00:15:24
So Tom, what got Hopper went? But everybody's such good
00:15:28
friends. Everybody wants to hang out and
00:15:29
do more shows together because it was such a wonderful
00:15:31
experience and different than a lot of them have had in
00:15:34
Hollywood thus far. And that's something that's
00:15:36
repeatedly told to me over and over from everybody from hair
00:15:40
and makeup to to the armor is to stunts to, I mean, every single
00:15:45
department on set tells me how different it is to work on these
00:15:48
shows. And that's Chris Pratt, Santoine
00:15:50
Fuqua, it's David Digilio every day setting the tone up here
00:15:54
that really allows everybody to bring their A game because over
00:15:56
the course of 7-8 months, like life is going to happen to
00:15:58
people. This isn't just a quick like
00:16:00
couple week thing. This is a long time and you're
00:16:03
away from home, you're in, in this case, you're in South
00:16:06
Africa, you're in Toronto and you're in Morocco and life's
00:16:10
going to happen. Maybe a, a, a parent is going to
00:16:13
pass away, a child's going to be going to be born, a kids going
00:16:16
to go to boot camp, you're going to get married, divorced, all
00:16:19
sorts of things are going to happen.
00:16:20
And Dave Degilio in particular takes care of each and every
00:16:24
person on set. And so they just come up to me
00:16:27
and make sure they tell, let me know how much they appreciate
00:16:29
it. So everybody wants to keep
00:16:30
working together. So we'll, you know, we'll see if
00:16:32
things go off the rail at any given time.
00:16:33
You always keep that in mind as well.
00:16:35
But but right now things are looking pretty good.
00:16:37
Hopefully that that means more seasons or more movies in the
00:16:41
future with the cast together. What else?
00:16:44
I noticed that that like Jed had a Walther PPK in a scene and I
00:16:50
was curious as to how the show writing and the book writing
00:16:53
influence each other. So you just did your seventh
00:16:55
novel. Walther PPK shows up in there.
00:16:58
I didn't know if Jed having that pistol is is from that
00:17:01
influence. Same with like when when Reese
00:17:04
finds his dad's shotgun in the back of the Wagoneer and then
00:17:07
you had written you. I'm guessing you had written for
00:17:10
the show shortly after and then Ben has a shotgun.
00:17:13
So I was curious how they influence each other and and
00:17:16
bounce back and forth. Yeah, well, the Ben having one
00:17:19
was different is that we wanted to differentiate his character
00:17:21
from Reese. So that didn't come from the
00:17:24
books. That was like, hey, how do we
00:17:25
just how do we differentiate these guys visually as well as
00:17:29
just through what, through their actions.
00:17:31
So visually, oh, shotgun, that's different than two guys with ARS
00:17:35
running through this this compound.
00:17:37
And so, so that was really became his, his thing.
00:17:39
Actually, there were sequences that didn't make it into the end
00:17:42
of the show that are great in the writer's room.
00:17:44
But when it comes up against budgets, it turns into a hard
00:17:47
no. And that's happened.
00:17:49
That's happened every time so far.
00:17:50
It's probably always going to going to happen.
00:17:53
But yeah, there was a shotgun scene in in Dark Wolf that, that
00:17:56
that didn't make it. We'll, we'll, we'll see.
00:18:00
But then you tuck it away for the future, and I tuck them away
00:18:02
for, you know, for future books or for for future TV shows.
00:18:05
They just go in the They go in the file, that's for sure.
00:18:08
We got the Winkler, though. The Winkler made its way in.
00:18:11
No way you're cutting that. And I get James Reese back in,
00:18:14
you know, reintroduce him with the Winkler so that.
00:18:18
Cameo. And nice.
00:18:20
There it is, nice, amazing, amazing look.
00:18:24
At Gear Head. So not only is he the Land
00:18:26
Cruiser guy of the pod, he's also the gear head of the pod.
00:18:28
So fantastic alley for our Jack car fans out there.
00:18:31
Fantastic. Yeah, uses in the first season
00:18:34
is framed to my office, you know, in a frame.
00:18:36
Jared Shaw got it for me from first season and framed it and
00:18:38
sent it to me. So that's on the on the wall
00:18:40
just as you walk into my my library.
00:18:43
It might be offshot, but I have a true believer, the accidental
00:18:45
gorilla and once an eagle off once an eagle next to me.
00:18:49
Nice, did you see once Eagle went to #2 on Amazon after the
00:18:52
the show it was. I did.
00:18:55
I did notice that it also double S great as a doorstop too.
00:18:58
Because it's it. Does yeah blood impact weapon
00:19:01
doorstop. I want to do a have a do a new
00:19:04
my pitch it to my agent. I need to follow up with her
00:19:06
because I pitched it a couple years ago, but now I have some
00:19:08
data to back it up with a jump to #2.
00:19:10
I'd love to do a new edition of Once An Eagle where I read a
00:19:14
forward and incorporate some of the things that I used to put in
00:19:17
the letters to guys that I would give that book to when I was in
00:19:20
the SEAL Teams. Because I'd give them the the
00:19:22
book and then there'd be a letter in the front explain why
00:19:24
I was giving it to them. And then there'd be a letter at
00:19:25
the back that I'd sealed that explains my take on what they
00:19:29
just read. So I didn't pollute their
00:19:30
reading experience ahead of time with my take.
00:19:33
So I want to incorporate some of those things into a, a forward
00:19:36
or maybe a forward and an afterward that kind of
00:19:38
replicated some of the things that that I talked about in the
00:19:41
letters that I gave guys in the teams, but for a broader
00:19:44
audience, more general audience. So I would love to to do that at
00:19:47
some point, but we'll see. I need to need to get a cult
00:19:50
major. It's not only Nuggets like the
00:19:54
appearance of once an eagle in the book or even the the poem by
00:19:56
Owen Pity of War. All that just screams Jack Carr
00:20:01
and the even the line of you know, our fathers never heard.
00:20:04
They were appreciated from their officers, from their commanders.
00:20:07
And so James doing that putting in the show, I think humanizes
00:20:10
him, humanizes the relationships and and as an outsider who never
00:20:14
served, I just know like guys like you on the down range on
00:20:18
the front lines probably need that and thrive on that.
00:20:20
And 1 little subtle way that happened was when.
00:20:23
Ben calls Reese right before his final, his last stand.
00:20:26
Let's say we called it on our review, the Skyfall scene right
00:20:29
before his Skyfall last stand. He even says to him, like,
00:20:33
brother, you don't have to carry this alone.
00:20:35
And I feel like a lesser show that didn't know the mentality
00:20:38
of the brotherhood might say, where are you?
00:20:41
I'm coming to get you. And Reese did come to get him,
00:20:44
but that was only thanks to MO tipping them off and tall and
00:20:46
what she did behind the scenes. So it really took that team to
00:20:50
save the day at the end. But when Reese says, brother,
00:20:53
you don't have to carry this alone, it was such a different
00:20:56
refreshing style of writing. Do you?
00:20:58
I feel like over and over the writers room, whether you were
00:21:01
involved, David, Jared was involved, or anyone else, they
00:21:03
captured what it means to tell a Jack car story through and
00:21:07
through. So how was it trusting the guys
00:21:09
to write a script that's your universe, but not from the
00:21:13
books? Because I feel like they just
00:21:15
absolutely nailed everything that makes a Jack car story a
00:21:18
Jack car story. Yeah, I mean, there's, there's
00:21:20
certainly a lot of a lot of trust in there and we have an
00:21:22
amazing team right now. And the Owen poem, the the
00:21:25
poetry is in the pity bad one came from Max Adams, Army
00:21:29
Ranger. He incorporated that in for that
00:21:32
episode, episode 3 maybe. And and that's amazing.
00:21:35
I have that book of poems now right right next to me 'cause I
00:21:39
wanted to write a novelization of this, of this show.
00:21:41
I didn't get a chance to do it 'cause I was so embralfolved in
00:21:43
this, which took a lot longer than I thought for Cry Havoc.
00:21:46
I didn't realize it was going to take as long as it as it did.
00:21:49
So my novelization plans got got derailed, unfortunately.
00:21:52
But I have a a new plan to still do it if I can get organized
00:21:55
here over the next couple years. But yeah, I mean it the the
00:21:59
writers room is amazing. You have Max in there, you have
00:22:02
Jared in there, you have Dave Julio in there every day.
00:22:06
But even before that, we write that whole this one's Co created
00:22:09
by me and Dave Degiglio and we write that whole pitch.
00:22:11
We do that whole outline for the entire season before the writers
00:22:15
room even gets together. So we've broken down the
00:22:18
episodes at that point and then you just kind of take what you
00:22:20
have and you give that to the writers room.
00:22:22
So you get some more brain power into that.
00:22:23
Like what about this? What about this, what about
00:22:25
this? And at that point I'm off
00:22:27
writing the books and they're doing that and every day I'm
00:22:29
getting a report at the end of the day of everything that was
00:22:31
that was talked about and everything that was changed.
00:22:33
And then I dive in at night and give my, my notes back on that.
00:22:37
And so you go through the whole, through the whole, through the
00:22:39
whole season that way until you get to the, to the episodes.
00:22:42
And then those come in the same way.
00:22:45
And then Dave and I wrote ours after all the other ones were
00:22:49
done at this point. We didn't do it that way for,
00:22:51
for true believer because we got so busy last time, it kind of
00:22:54
got a little little crazy. But but all those come through
00:22:58
and you're making changes constantly.
00:23:00
And those are those are writers other than Dave, Max, Jared and
00:23:03
me go after the projects. So they leave.
00:23:06
And then it comes, all those fall back to us and Chris Pratt
00:23:09
and Antoine, the other executive producers, Kat Samic, who's
00:23:13
amazing. And those come back to to us and
00:23:15
we keep evolving those all throughout the entire season.
00:23:18
Then they don't stay static. And it's not like this actor has
00:23:21
to say exactly what's here because now they're getting to
00:23:23
know these characters and they're humanizing them and
00:23:26
elevating them from what's written on the page through
00:23:28
their performances. So it's got to be a living
00:23:31
document and it's got to it's got to evolve and got to get
00:23:34
better. And there's no egos.
00:23:35
That's the best part of this, this team.
00:23:37
There are no egos. No matter whose idea it was,
00:23:41
whatever idea is the best, that one wins every time.
00:23:46
But some of the things I wish we could, you know, time wise or
00:23:48
budget wise, I wish we could, you know, wish those work
00:23:51
constraints, but they they are. So that's just that's just how
00:23:54
it goes. We we talked a little bit about
00:23:57
the B roll, what's on the cutting room floor.
00:23:59
Man, I wanted the wood chopping montage.
00:24:02
Tom Hopper, Taylor Kitsch, no shirts chopping wood.
00:24:05
I was ready for like Rocky four level montage of like, you know,
00:24:09
hearts on fire play and these guys chopping wood.
00:24:11
And then I'm like, oh man, they only chopped one piece of wood
00:24:13
and cut. I just there's little Nuggets
00:24:16
like that. I can imagine.
00:24:17
We're 1 so much fun to write 2 so much fun to film.
00:24:20
And then the actors bring so much more.
00:24:22
So thanks for the peek behind the curtain.
00:24:24
Can we get a little peek behind the curtain on the opening music
00:24:27
sequence? In Season 1, we had James Reese,
00:24:31
his home. It's very family oriented, it's
00:24:34
very nostalgic. It's got so many mementos of the
00:24:38
the teams and everything he's done.
00:24:40
But now we get Ben and boy, what a stark contrast, what a
00:24:43
juxtaposition. Great artistic choice, great
00:24:46
visual choice. And we're seeing almost as
00:24:48
descent, the pill bottles, the alcohol, the boat where we know
00:24:51
a final stand is going to take place.
00:24:53
That's a great creative decision.
00:24:55
Any peek behind the curtains of how that came to be?
00:24:58
Yeah, I mean, we knew we had a high bar from first season.
00:25:00
People love that. And people tell us all the time
00:25:03
how they always skip intros and they never did.
00:25:05
They never did with Terminal List.
00:25:06
And we're like, OK, we need to do that.
00:25:09
We can't use the same thing obviously, but how do we keep
00:25:11
some of the same thematic elements but make it bend, make
00:25:14
it distinctly? What does that look like?
00:25:17
So when you do something like that, you have an outside,
00:25:19
there's a whole other company that comes in that just does
00:25:21
those intros. And so you give them like this
00:25:24
outline and ideas and all that. So you give them all of that and
00:25:27
then they come back to you and say, how about this kind of the
00:25:30
storyboard type thing? And then it evolves from there
00:25:32
into into the video. And then then it's on the video
00:25:35
and all of that stuff with everybody giving their their
00:25:38
their comments and notes throughout the whole process to
00:25:41
include Taylor as an executive producer on this one.
00:25:43
So he's very involved in all of this, just like Chris Pratt is.
00:25:46
It's so personal to him. It's not just an acting job.
00:25:49
He's obviously an executive producer, but same thing with
00:25:52
with Taylor Kitsch on this one is Ben Edwards so personal for
00:25:55
him. And once again, it's not just an
00:25:58
acting job for these guys. So they're intimately involved
00:26:00
with every aspect of these characters development, every
00:26:03
aspect of the story, every aspect of editing to include
00:26:07
doing those intros and the intros.
00:26:09
Yeah, it was it was awesome. Simple Man comes from from Jared
00:26:12
Shaw listening to that overseas as a seal very important song to
00:26:17
him. So that's why it was in first
00:26:18
season when we first introduced Ben and then they back here at
00:26:22
the beginning of these in these intros and got to keep some of
00:26:24
those thematic elements. And for those listening or
00:26:27
watching, if you watch the very end, there might be a little
00:26:29
shadow on the right side of your screen during the last.
00:26:34
The arm. The arm comes up.
00:26:36
So there's all sorts of little things in there that's that
00:26:39
means something. We try to make everything mean
00:26:41
something. You asked earlier about the
00:26:42
Walther PPK and, and, and that sort of thing that you had have
00:26:46
referred uses and we try to make everything mean something.
00:26:50
But then sometimes you're going so fast on these, you're
00:26:53
actually making a movie on a TV timeline.
00:26:56
And so it is crazy. It is so much work for for
00:27:00
everybody on set, just the pace of these things we're trying to
00:27:03
do with the cinevision team, television, we call it.
00:27:06
And, and so sometimes something just comes in because, guess
00:27:10
what, it's very hard to move all these weapons to Canada, to
00:27:14
South Africa, to Morocco, because each one of these
00:27:17
countries has a different laws, regulations, paperwork,
00:27:20
timelines, all these things. And you can't really replicate
00:27:24
exactly what you're going to do in each country with a whole
00:27:26
nother package because that would be astronomical in price.
00:27:29
So sometimes things do slip in for for whatever reasons, just
00:27:33
be out of necessity and you don't have an extra because it's
00:27:36
held up in customs in with the version with the the South
00:27:40
African version of ATF. What are we going to do?
00:27:42
Well, we have this, OK, use that.
00:27:44
So sometimes things like that happen.
00:27:46
So like the Tom Hopper, he gets a gift and it was supposed to be
00:27:51
a 1911 and then it didn't make it because it was in Toronto or
00:27:55
Morocco or something like that. Wherever we were filming that
00:27:58
didn't didn't make it. So we had to switch.
00:28:00
So things like that do happen, but we try to make every single
00:28:04
single thing, every single movement, every single piece of
00:28:08
gear, every single piece of clothing, every line of dialogue
00:28:11
obviously, but everything has to mean something on some level.
00:28:15
And but then sometimes, hey, something's stuck in customs and
00:28:18
you got to adapt. So that's just how it goes in
00:28:21
life. Yeah, I actually saw a comment
00:28:24
in in a couple of couple of posts that somebody was like
00:28:27
Rafe needs in 1911 and. Yeah, I mean, that's in the
00:28:30
script and it was supposed to be, you know, they can talk to
00:28:34
the, I don't know, whoever it was like hungry, I guess it was
00:28:36
hungry. They can talk to the hungry,
00:28:38
ATFI guess. Like I'm sure we'll get it down
00:28:41
the road when it's on screen more and maybe more important of
00:28:43
a character development or character feature.
00:28:46
Yeah, but it was, yeah, it was supposed to be there, but, you
00:28:49
know, once again. And then of course, the whole
00:28:50
world can now point it out. So thank you everybody.
00:28:54
The Internet comments are never going to stop, you know that.
00:28:58
But almost all positive for this show.
00:29:00
I feel like it's really crazy. The numbers, yeah, the numbers
00:29:03
from Amazon were real positive on season 1.
00:29:05
This one already shot to #1 on streaming every episode, it
00:29:09
seems like after an episode dropped, boom, we're up to #1 I
00:29:12
can't see a world in which the numbers here don't blow season
00:29:15
one out of the water. This thing is just picking up so
00:29:17
much steam. Rightfully deserved.
00:29:20
Yeah, it's interesting because Season 1 dropped for to binge
00:29:23
and this drops one a week. So you're not comparing apples
00:29:25
and apples. So it's interesting to do a you
00:29:27
can't really do a direct comparison, unfortunately,
00:29:30
because I would have liked that too.
00:29:31
It would have been really interesting too.
00:29:32
And you have one less, so one less hour, you know, multiplied
00:29:36
around for every viewer. So it's not exactly right.
00:29:39
But had it been 8 episodes and had it all dropped binge able,
00:29:42
then you'd be able to more directly compare.
00:29:45
But and now you you can't really do that directly.
00:29:48
But but yeah, the comments have been so positive.
00:29:53
I mean, there's always going to be a couple but that are crazy,
00:29:57
90, like 98, I would say percent in looking at them like that.
00:30:01
I was not expecting that. I was expecting, you know, kind
00:30:03
of like more like, yeah, positive.
00:30:05
But I've never seen any show, not just of you know,
00:30:10
terminalist universe, I've never seen any show or book get as
00:30:15
many positive comments on the social channels as I've seen for
00:30:18
dark wolf. It's really astounding.
00:30:20
And Tom Hopper, I think it's 100% across the board on Tom
00:30:23
Hopper as like I have not seen one bad comment and he was so
00:30:27
nervous. I'm texting Tom like and he
00:30:28
doesn't get on socials really much.
00:30:30
And so I'm texting him stop and be like, bro, you crushed it.
00:30:32
Look at this response. I've never seen anything like
00:30:34
this. And and so he's very happy with
00:30:36
that. He put so much work into it and
00:30:37
knows when he accepted the role. He like was, I think it was
00:30:41
after he accepted the role where he really got to know how
00:30:44
important this character was to the audience and to the
00:30:47
readership and the listenership. So he like he was got, Oh my
00:30:51
gosh, what am I taking on here? Can I do this type of a thing?
00:30:54
And then he came in and crushed it and it was so awesome to see
00:30:57
cuz also he's such a great dude. And we all ride motorcycles and,
00:31:01
and hang out and we got to work, you know, working out together
00:31:04
in, in Budapest and we just really got to know each other.
00:31:07
And he's such a such a great guy.
00:31:09
So I can't wait for people to see him in, in True Believer
00:31:11
because his character's on a journey as well.
00:31:14
And he's in this kind of flux state.
00:31:16
We kind of made him and not exactly from the book True
00:31:18
believer because in the book he's only kind of in it more at
00:31:20
the end. And then this one, he's more
00:31:23
there throughout the entire season.
00:31:26
So it's it's going to be pretty cool, a little, little different
00:31:28
Rafe Hastings than than people might expect.
00:31:31
Yeah, I enjoyed, I enjoyed Tom as Rafe in in Dark Wolf
00:31:35
especially. I was happy to see we got a
00:31:36
torture scene, which is very typical Jack Carr, which is it's
00:31:42
just nice to see the features from the books show up in a
00:31:44
season of the show a little bit more, a little bit more obvious
00:31:48
or or readable than that maybe in the first season.
00:31:50
Something I did notice real quick about the first season is
00:31:54
that on the 4th of July this year it had a huge resurgence
00:31:57
where it jumped into like top 10 or top five in on on prime,
00:32:01
which was pretty awesome to see. Number one.
00:32:03
Was it was it 1? I couldn't recall how high it it
00:32:05
made-up. Yeah, that's that's pretty
00:32:09
insane when it comes to cry Havoc.
00:32:13
If you know, you said you didn't realize how big of a lift it was
00:32:15
going to be writing through the lens of 68 and you thought you
00:32:20
knew about Vietnam until you started researching it and
00:32:22
realized maybe how much you had to learn to to get the novel
00:32:26
going and enough to push the deadline and or push the release
00:32:29
rather. Do you think had you known how
00:32:31
big of a lift it was going to be?
00:32:33
Would you have maybe shelved it and picked a different topic for
00:32:35
this this book? Or you were you like dead set on
00:32:38
Vietnam no matter what happening regardless?
00:32:40
Yeah. No, I would have.
00:32:41
I would have started earlier. I would have, yeah.
00:32:46
It's just so crazy. There's so much going on right
00:32:48
now. So we're doing the best I can as
00:32:49
far as arranging my day and juggling things and and all the
00:32:52
rest. But I need to do a better job at
00:32:54
that for sure. But had I realized just how much
00:32:58
it was going to take, I would have arranged things a little
00:33:01
differently because it took, it certainly took the full, the
00:33:04
full year to do. I'd like to get to a point where
00:33:06
I can do them in six months, but I'm just there's too many
00:33:09
projects right now that are just so crazy and jump back real
00:33:12
quick. Maybe it was top 10 for terminal
00:33:14
list on 4th of July weekend, I can't remember.
00:33:15
Things are conflating in my mind as well right now.
00:33:18
Oh, and I have coffee being delivered.
00:33:19
Thank you. Amazing.
00:33:21
Yeah, early morning pod for people who didn't realize I had
00:33:24
the coffee here. I'm glad you're you're joining
00:33:25
the coffee crew. Amazing.
00:33:28
Thank you. But.
00:33:30
Cry havoc, Can I ask you something?
00:33:32
Because it needs no introduction the Jack car or needs no plug
00:33:35
the Jack car channel. You released more than just the
00:33:38
prologue this time on on your podcast, a preview for Cry
00:33:42
Havoc. So even before the publication
00:33:44
date, you guys can go listen to a big chunk of it.
00:33:47
And I was so glad about that 'cause sometimes these previews
00:33:50
give you so little and it's like, I just wanted a little bit
00:33:53
more. But no, we get full on on the
00:33:55
ground in Southeast Asia. You are master painting a
00:33:59
setting. What was it like?
00:34:00
Totally writing a different setting time wise, but also
00:34:03
geographic wise, 'cause I don't remember too much of of Reese in
00:34:06
Asia, particularly Southeast Asia.
00:34:08
So you nailed it in that in that intro.
00:34:11
I just read 3 chapters of it or heard Ray Porter.
00:34:14
Amazing. Read 3 chapters of it.
00:34:16
It might be the number one Jack Carr book that I need more of
00:34:19
like I can't put down. What was that like?
00:34:22
Thank you. It was crazy.
00:34:23
And I thought I knew a lot about Vietnam going into this.
00:34:25
Just academic standpoint, pop culturally.
00:34:29
I thought I knew about the the 60s.
00:34:31
I heard stories from my parents growing up just having all that
00:34:34
influence from the late 70s through the 80s, movies,
00:34:38
television, other thrillers and I so I thought I had a good
00:34:42
foundation, which was I think why I was like, oh, I can work
00:34:45
on this script. I can do that.
00:34:46
OK, then I'll get back to the book.
00:34:47
And then and I was just, it was just so crazy.
00:34:49
A lot of editing Dark Wolf, finishing up Dark Wolf last
00:34:52
October, mid-october and diving right into those, the post
00:34:56
production side of that while I'm trying to write a book at
00:34:59
the same time. And then everything else that
00:35:00
you're juggling with family and and all the rest of it is just
00:35:03
life in in general. But I wanted to write this book
00:35:07
through the lens of 1968. I didn't want to just say that
00:35:10
listening to Creedence Clearwater Revival and say it's
00:35:13
1968 and then have essentially A contemporary thriller just
00:35:16
without cell phones set in Southeast Asia in 1968 like that
00:35:21
was not going to do it for me. I wanted to transport people
00:35:24
back to 1968. I wanted this to be a time
00:35:27
machine. I didn't want to write something
00:35:29
with the benefit of 50 plus years of hindsight.
00:35:32
I learned every character to only bring their life experience
00:35:35
up until 1968 to a particular line of dialogue, to a
00:35:40
perspective on a situation or an event.
00:35:43
That means that if there was a a doctor that I have in this book
00:35:46
from for it was in Paris during World War Two.
00:35:49
Well, what would make him leave and end up in Saigon?
00:35:52
And how would he get to Saigon? What's going on in the world
00:35:55
that would have impacted him and made him work for a foreign
00:35:58
intelligence service there? And so I have this whole back
00:36:01
story on him, but he can only have a life experience up until
00:36:05
1968. I only have that to draw from.
00:36:08
So that took a lot longer than anticipated.
00:36:11
And I was, I got a dictionary from 1969 that I found I
00:36:14
couldn't find the right 1968 one, but from 1969.
00:36:18
And I had maps from the 60s, I have books from like, like
00:36:23
pamphlets that the military would make back then kind of
00:36:25
like to give to to soldiers before they would go over
00:36:27
overseas, like customs and culture of the mountain yard
00:36:31
tribes and, and that sort of a thing.
00:36:33
So I wanted to make sure that all the gear was was, was period
00:36:36
specific and correct. And if I wanted to fudge
00:36:38
something a little bit, I talk about it in the author's note at
00:36:41
the end, like there's a couple, there's a specific pistol that
00:36:44
comes in to play at the end that probably wasn't there in 1968.
00:36:49
But I talk about it like, well, maybe it was a it was this Gru
00:36:54
character maybe got one to test early, a year early, like he got
00:36:58
a prototype, you know, so like little things like that.
00:37:00
But I explained it in the prologue.
00:37:02
So I want someone who lived through the 60s to realize I put
00:37:05
the energy, the time, energy and effort in to try to capture the
00:37:08
feeling of 1968 and and all and just realize that I didn't just
00:37:13
say 1968 Credence Clearwater, throw some Hendrix, whatever.
00:37:16
And then write a regular story like that was not what I was
00:37:19
going for. And it just took longer than I
00:37:21
than I thought. So that's why we're talking in
00:37:23
October and not June. Yeah.
00:37:25
Can can I ask about that decision to go back and tell the
00:37:29
Tom Reese story 1, I think it was perfectly timed where we
00:37:32
were in the James Reese saga to to do that.
00:37:36
But the seeds were planted so much earlier and that we had the
00:37:39
little clues of the gun case like Ty mentioned in the
00:37:41
Wagoneer. We had the watch right going
00:37:43
back to we first hear about it probably in the terminal list
00:37:46
and. Right here, there it is.
00:37:48
Where are you? Did you feel like the creative
00:37:50
muse was speaking to you the whole term?
00:37:53
You were writing this project of like Tom Reese's this ever
00:37:56
present backdrop that needs to pop up because in the blood I
00:37:59
think it was he was making more apparitions to James or or more
00:38:03
things coming up or only the dead.
00:38:04
When we get the dock scene, we actually see him and the poet
00:38:07
state, right. So it was books ago.
00:38:09
You were really planting seeds and developing a world in which
00:38:12
Tom Reese lived. Was that just a creative muse?
00:38:15
Like you knew you had to go in that direction?
00:38:17
What what really took you in the Tom Reese direction start to
00:38:20
finish? Yes, before I even started
00:38:22
writing the books, I knew that I would do that and I got that.
00:38:26
I'm sure from a couple different, but for sure from
00:38:29
Stephen Hunter and Bob Lee Swagger and writing multi
00:38:31
generational characters there seating them.
00:38:34
Even if he didn't intentionally do it.
00:38:35
Now that I'm friends with Stephen Hunter, even if he
00:38:37
didn't intentionally do that, it worked out that way.
00:38:39
So I very intentionally seated characters that would allow me
00:38:42
the opportunity to to explore the ones that were interesting
00:38:47
to me to readers in the future when the time was right.
00:38:50
Certainly from Tom Clancy as well from the early 90s and
00:38:53
Without Remorse, we get to go back to the 70s in that in that
00:38:56
book to explore the back story of a fan favorite character,
00:38:59
John Kelly, John Clark. And I remember when that I was
00:39:01
so excited when I heard about that because I was already on my
00:39:03
path into the SEAL teams. I want to do that since I was
00:39:06
seven years old and also knew that I was going to write
00:39:08
thrillers after my time in the military.
00:39:10
So for me, that character, John Clark, John Kelly was was just
00:39:14
one of the one that I gravitated to in the books.
00:39:17
He starts in Carnal, the Kremlin.
00:39:18
I think he's introduced certainly clear present danger.
00:39:21
But then to find out how I did at the time, probably through
00:39:23
Entertainment Weekly or something like that, with a
00:39:25
little tiny blurb on the side that says Hey, Without Remorse
00:39:28
is coming out and it explores his back story.
00:39:30
It was probably somehow something like that is where I
00:39:32
found out about it. And then being so excited for
00:39:35
that book to come out and then that one up at the time, it only
00:39:38
takes you back, you know, about 1520 years maybe, maybe tiny bit
00:39:41
more. And so now I'm a little farther
00:39:43
removed from that, but something similar.
00:39:45
I wanted to do that. So it was very intentional from
00:39:48
the outset. And after I finished Red Sky
00:39:50
Morning, I just knew it was the right time to do that.
00:39:54
And now I go back to James Reese and figure out how do I bring
00:39:57
him back into the fold after he's had such a complete arc
00:40:00
that ends when that book 7? That's it, That's authentic,
00:40:03
that's real to the reader. It's not disingenuous.
00:40:05
Like I'm just going to pick him up.
00:40:06
So I need to write some more books with James Reese.
00:40:08
It can never be that way. And I know we've all read books
00:40:11
that just get to 100 words and wrap up or someone's like, I
00:40:14
feel like I've read this one before by this author because
00:40:18
it's book 20 at the same person. Like I want to avoid that as
00:40:22
much as I possibly can. I'm very aware that that can
00:40:25
happen. I never want this to turn into a
00:40:27
business. I'm very entrepreneurial in
00:40:28
nature, but I'm not a businessman and and I want to
00:40:32
make sure that I'm always writing the best story I
00:40:35
possibly can. And yeah, that is because people
00:40:38
are trusting me with time they're never going to get back.
00:40:40
But I don't write it for them, I write it for the story.
00:40:44
And that's very different, I think, 'cause I'm not chasing a
00:40:46
head and I'm not worried about writing something that's going
00:40:49
to offend someone. I'm not doing any of that.
00:40:51
I'm not worried about, oh, our long chapter is not in anymore.
00:40:54
Or people like shorter ones. No, none of that ever.
00:40:57
The chapter takes as long as that chapter takes.
00:40:59
It can be very long or very short, doesn't matter.
00:41:01
The story dictates every time. And that's the way that I honor
00:41:04
that reader and that listener that's going to spend this time
00:41:07
that they're never going to get back.
00:41:08
So that's something I really think about, but it's never
00:41:10
about, oh, I want to write this for the fans, I'm like this
00:41:13
because they'll like this or I think this is short chapters
00:41:15
work better now. Never ever ever is always 100%
00:41:20
the story out of respect for that audience.
00:41:24
With with Cry Havoc I I didn't get an advance advance copy or
00:41:29
anything so I'm not aware, but do you?
00:41:31
David Brown didn't send you an advance copy.
00:41:33
We'll get on to text him immediately.
00:41:36
That's the podcast. Yeah, I got the one, but we got
00:41:38
to hook tie up next time. Yeah, you're listening to this,
00:41:41
which I know you will. Come on.
00:41:42
I if I can be if if I can be a beggar and a chooser I would I
00:41:46
would request a publication box however.
00:41:51
I have left, I decided before I left.
00:41:53
I've been on the road for almost a month now, go to Paris to East
00:41:58
Coast stop and it's directly into book tour.
00:41:59
So hopefully I'm going to give my wife one of my pieces of
00:42:02
luggage to take take home as I tour here so I can whittle
00:42:05
things down a bit. But I had to sign all those
00:42:08
before I left. I'll see what I'll see what we
00:42:10
can do. I know we'll probably see the
00:42:14
Rolex stuff and some hatchet squadron and maybe where the
00:42:17
Tomahawk comes from. Mines and Omega today so.
00:42:20
It's nice, love it. Yeah, it's the No Time to die
00:42:22
one, but. Nice nice, I have that one at
00:42:25
home too, it's a great watch. It's fantastic, but do we see
00:42:30
anything from Tom's father? Any bread crumbs laid for Tom's
00:42:33
father? I know he's a World War 2
00:42:35
veteran. I know your grandfather was a
00:42:37
World War 2 veteran who who passed away during the war.
00:42:42
I can't remember what he what. What aircraft was he in?
00:42:47
Like this and they folded up like that's been on aircraft
00:42:50
carriers or the show called Black Sheep Squadron came out
00:42:52
the late 70s. I watched in syndication with my
00:42:54
dad in the early 80s about Pappy Boy played by Robert Conrad back
00:42:57
then. I just loved that show.
00:42:59
So yeah, very naturally. So you've probably seen in Dark
00:43:02
Wolf also, there's a compass in In Dark Wolf, a waffle compass
00:43:06
that is there from Vietnam, from Reese's dad that he gives to to
00:43:10
Tom Hopper's character Wraith around this fire scene, this
00:43:13
scene that I love in in Dark Wolf.
00:43:16
But yeah, we'll see about that. We'll see about Seiko watches.
00:43:19
We'll learn where this watch came from.
00:43:22
And in the earlier books, this is one of those ones where
00:43:23
you're kind of like, maybe I should have left it a little
00:43:25
more general. I think in one of the books I
00:43:27
say that he got it at the PX like a, a military.
00:43:31
They were in my head anyway, that's what I thought because I
00:43:32
knew a lot of Seals, Vietnam era Seals that said they got GM TS,
00:43:37
Rolex GM TS and Rolex submariners at the PX in Saigon.
00:43:41
And I remember it was like 150 bucks or 225 for one of them,
00:43:44
but it was they should have bought like 30 back then.
00:43:48
You 120 bucks or 150 bucks at 1400 bucks was a was a lot.
00:43:52
So I think in my head, whether I put it in the book or not, I
00:43:54
can't quite remember. But he got it at the PX and then
00:43:56
I got to that part like that's not very exciting.
00:43:59
What's up? The way, way cooler way to tell
00:44:01
this story that gives this a back story that's really
00:44:04
significant. And so I got to leave that in as
00:44:08
well. That plays into mountain yards,
00:44:10
plays in to Army Special Forces, plays into a poker game that he
00:44:16
were. Tom learned to play from his
00:44:19
father. And this goes back to World War
00:44:21
2 because I thought, OK, I've done this with James Reece.
00:44:23
I planted some seeds. Well, what was the relationship
00:44:25
like between Tom Reece, Vietnam and Thomas Reece, his dad in
00:44:29
World War 2? And how do I differentiate these
00:44:31
things so I'm not just changing the dates?
00:44:33
And so I thought about the World War Two generation and how a lot
00:44:36
of them came back and got to work and built this country into
00:44:39
what it is today with all these options and opportunities all of
00:44:41
us have. And there wasn't there wasn't
00:44:44
social media and there wasn't anybody giving them a helping
00:44:46
hand. There was the GI Bill.
00:44:48
And so I thought about what would his path have been like
00:44:50
and how did he get to and from these theaters of war?
00:44:53
Oh, on a boat. What did they do on the boat?
00:44:54
Oh, they played poker. Maybe he passed that along to
00:44:57
his son and he passed along lessons from life through poker
00:45:00
rather than the way that James Reese's dad Tom is doing it more
00:45:03
direct, passing on these wisdom. Well, that World War Two
00:45:06
generation, maybe a little more silent.
00:45:07
Maybe children were supposed to be seen, not heard back then.
00:45:10
So how do I generationally pass something along?
00:45:13
Or maybe even the kid didn't realize he was being taught
00:45:15
lessons. And so I had that happen over
00:45:17
over a poker table. So it's anyway, it was really
00:45:20
fun to to write that sort of thing.
00:45:24
I really like that one other kind of creative and we're going
00:45:26
to respect your time here because I know you got other
00:45:28
busy things, so we'll let you go but.
00:45:31
About books and reading and TV shows and movies all day long.
00:45:35
David has me all day. It's crazy.
00:45:37
Up till 4:00 PM. There's no breaks.
00:45:39
David in his schedule, but. I mean, you are the hardest
00:45:43
working man in in media, the empire you've built and the
00:45:46
amount of connections. And something we talked about
00:45:48
earlier is how your your dialogue, your stories, your
00:45:51
characters have this humanity and that comes through that.
00:45:53
You also built that in the team around you and the team working
00:45:56
on the show, how they're there for each other.
00:45:57
And David Degiglio is so important.
00:45:59
The guys are taken care of. I feel like that's why the
00:46:02
comments are so positive. The Rotten Tomatoes audience
00:46:05
score, it's due to 1, the amazing product being put out.
00:46:10
But that's not all of it. What elevates that product is,
00:46:12
you know, the people behind it are brothers, sisters, cousins,
00:46:15
fathers, parents. And you respect that in their
00:46:17
craft and in their work. And I think that humanity shines
00:46:21
through. And you said it on another
00:46:23
podcast, Novellas might come into play down the road.
00:46:26
You even use the word novella before.
00:46:28
And the number one that I keep thinking of a savage son.
00:46:31
There's that period of Reese in Siberia on the loose.
00:46:34
It might be my favorite single paragraph you ever wrote.
00:46:37
And I was like only a paragraph. It's haunting.
00:46:39
It's poetic. He's a spectre in the night.
00:46:41
I feel like that writing you were you were on another level,
00:46:44
consciously or subconsciously, you're you're writing.
00:46:46
Your creativity just took a big jump.
00:46:48
Have you felt like you want to unpack that?
00:46:50
Because I've heard you say that might be a novella down the road
00:46:52
when you know, we have a little more time.
00:46:54
Yes, it is on my list. I have a strategic plan that I
00:46:57
keep adding to. It's this living document that I
00:47:00
that I have and that's been in there for a while.
00:47:03
But you're right, I got to that. And in the outline there was a
00:47:06
for Savage Son. I've done every book the same
00:47:07
way thus far with a title, with a theme, with an executive
00:47:10
summary. With that, I read and ask
00:47:11
myself, is this worth the next year, year and a half of my
00:47:13
life? And then read it again and say,
00:47:15
if someone was walked by Hudson News, would this be worth them
00:47:18
spending time in the pages that they're never going to get back?
00:47:20
And if I the answer is yes and yes, then that's the then that's
00:47:23
the project. When I take that executive
00:47:25
summary, I turn it into the outline.
00:47:27
And in the outline phase, there was a big chunk that is Reese
00:47:31
moving across Siberia. And then I got to that stage and
00:47:34
was like, oh, this is a whole nother book.
00:47:37
This is a whole nother at least part, and it doesn't really fit
00:47:41
with the story, doesn't move this plot forward.
00:47:43
It moves the character forward and develops that character.
00:47:46
But it is a very significant chunk that is only going to do
00:47:49
that and not move this story forward that people have been
00:47:52
invested in, that I've been invested in.
00:47:54
And so it just very naturally became this poetic chapter that
00:47:58
I loved writing that was so much fun to do because it was
00:48:04
different than the other chapters, but I needed it to be
00:48:07
different because it had to take the place of an entire part that
00:48:10
is now not going to be there. And so once again, it's not
00:48:14
something that I wrote and said, this is not going to going to
00:48:17
fit here. I got to that part and it was
00:48:19
very clear that it was not going to work.
00:48:22
And so I made a little note to myself that, hey, maybe go back
00:48:26
and do novella, maybe do another book, maybe do a short story,
00:48:30
maybe do an audio only. Maybe there's options today for
00:48:34
that when I can figure out my schedule and time, but very
00:48:38
perceptive that is on that is on my list.
00:48:41
And oftentimes my outlines don't guide the entire.
00:48:43
I mean they get the guide but there it is not written in stone
00:48:46
like in We should wear spoilers here, right?
00:48:49
We said spoilers. Of course, yeah.
00:48:50
Yeah. So in the outline for True
00:48:53
Believer, Freddie lives and Freddie was living all the way
00:48:57
up until I got to that part in Odessa.
00:48:59
And I put Odessa in there because I've been to Odessa in
00:49:01
1993. I remembered it.
00:49:03
Same with Morocco. I've been to Morocco.
00:49:04
I traveled through there before I went in the military because I
00:49:06
wanted that World Travel experience that was that my
00:49:09
parents had essentially in the 60s before I joined this thing
00:49:13
called the military where I was going to have essentially no
00:49:15
rights for however long I was going to be in there.
00:49:17
No freedom, essentially. That's why I viewed it at the
00:49:19
time. So, so that's how Morocco got.
00:49:22
And I remember the sights, the sounds, the smell.
00:49:23
The same thing with Odessa. I'd been in the catacombs that
00:49:25
they used in World War Two there.
00:49:27
So were there and I'd been there personally.
00:49:29
So I remember the smells. I remember how it felt in there.
00:49:32
So I got to work all that stuff into, into into the novel.
00:49:36
So point being the outlines, things do change in those
00:49:39
outlines. And like, just like in the
00:49:42
Devil's Hand, those two guys that surveil Reese around in the
00:49:44
van in the Devil's Hand, those guys were 100% going to die.
00:49:48
It wasn't even a question. And then I put them in
00:49:50
conversation with one another throughout the book and I got to
00:49:52
like them. And by the time I got to park in
00:49:55
the outline where Reese is supposed to kill them, it no, I
00:49:58
couldn't kill those guys. They were too like I've gotten
00:50:00
to know them too well. They're a little bit goofy.
00:50:02
They weren't the brightest, or at least one of them wasn't, but
00:50:04
I liked them and so I I ended up not not killing them.
00:50:07
So so things do morph and change.
00:50:10
The outlines are, are just a guide, but I find them, find
00:50:12
them helpful. I like to know where I'm going.
00:50:14
And that fits Reese, though, like you said, you only write in
00:50:16
universe. You having that idea is also
00:50:18
Reese's idea, like you're inhabiting him.
00:50:20
So yeah, you thank you for writing in Universe, because
00:50:23
that makes a better product for the fans instead of pandering to
00:50:26
some external political nonsense, you know?
00:50:29
Yeah, that's not good. That's not going to happen.
00:50:31
It's not. It's not in me.
00:50:33
Appreciate that and we appreciate you spending the time
00:50:35
with us. So thanks.
00:50:36
Thanks so much for coming on. We didn't get to talk too much
00:50:39
Mitch Rap years ago when we first spoke, we waxed poetic
00:50:41
about Mitch Rap and Vince Flynn, but we're getting new Mitch Rap
00:50:44
lives, the third book in the American Assassin trilogy.
00:50:47
So maybe we'll talk to you at some point about what you
00:50:49
thought of that, because I know you're also big fan.
00:50:52
Huge fan. I have all the the the Vince
00:50:54
Flynn, Mitch Rapps have the now I have the first editions to
00:50:56
include the first two term limits, first editions when he
00:50:59
published on his own and then the one that Emily Besler does
00:51:02
through Atria. So I have all those signed and
00:51:05
in my in my library and they have the honored position up
00:51:08
there. Now I'm collecting all those
00:51:09
books that were so influential to me growing up and I just in a
00:51:12
couple minutes we have left. Another thing might, people
00:51:14
might, might find interesting to this one is that it was also
00:51:16
inspired by authors in the past. And, and for me, I feel so
00:51:20
fortunate that I got to grow up reading these guys that I got to
00:51:23
grow up reading the the Clancies and the Demills and the Morels
00:51:27
when they were contemporary thrillers in the 80s.
00:51:29
Now they take you back if you're to read them take you back to
00:51:31
the 80s in many, in many cases there.
00:51:34
But this one in particular, I thought, I want to do something
00:51:37
a little different with Cry Havoc.
00:51:38
I want to take an espionage story, which I haven't really
00:51:40
done before and drop that into the heart of the Vietnam War,
00:51:44
specifically the heart of Saigon, specifically in 1968,
00:51:47
which was the bloodiest year of the war.
00:51:49
So how do I do that? And I thought, no one's really
00:51:51
done this for a long time. And I don't know how many people
00:51:55
in my readership have, have read The Quiet American by by Graham
00:51:58
Greene or have read I Had Tears of Autumn, even though I've,
00:52:00
I've referenced it many times in, in the past by Charles
00:52:03
Mccary, that was 1974. The, The Quiet America was 1955.
00:52:08
And then The Honorable Schoolboy by John Le Carre, which is 1977.
00:52:11
So we haven't had an espionage thriller in Southeast Asia for
00:52:16
quite some time, at least none that I've read or know of them.
00:52:19
They might have been some, but I don't know them.
00:52:22
And so I wanted to do that. I wanted to, you know, build
00:52:24
upon what those guys essentially left for me, what they taught me
00:52:28
because they became part of my experience very early on in
00:52:31
life, just as did the the masters from the from the
00:52:36
Clancy's to the Devils to the morals to the Louis Lemoore, to
00:52:39
AJ Pi, AJ Quinnell, JC Pollock, Mark Old and all these guys who
00:52:43
were so influential to me growing up to become part of my
00:52:47
experience. So I wanted to do a hat tip to
00:52:49
those guys and I talked about that in the acknowledgements and
00:52:51
authors note at the end as well. So wanted to drop this espionage
00:52:55
thriller into that, into the heart of Saigon.
00:52:57
So we'll see how see how people people react to it.
00:53:00
But certainly my heart and soul went into to every single word
00:53:03
in this book. Louis Lemoore, last of the breed
00:53:06
for that Siberia scene. I mean, look.
00:53:08
I wish they made that a movie. Well, I wish they made that a
00:53:10
movie in the 80s. You know, that would have been
00:53:12
amazing. I'm like, it was perfect timing
00:53:15
too. People are coming off the summer
00:53:16
of Rambo in 1885. And then you get, I think the
00:53:19
last of the breed was it maybe 86 paperback, maybe 87.
00:53:22
Anyway, it's in that time frame right there.
00:53:25
And Oh my gosh, that would have been so you.
00:53:27
Can relive it with with James Reese.
00:53:29
Very different take on it, but. You can.
00:53:31
Give an homage. You're definitely inspired and
00:53:34
I'll definitely talk about that. On the author's note, it'll be
00:53:36
the acknowledgements. And you know, tip my hat to a
00:53:39
little more in that book in particular, Last of the Breed.
00:53:43
Thanks so much Jack. We appreciate you taking the
00:53:44
time. It's always a blast.
00:53:46
Really enjoyed it. Yeah, thanks for all you guys do
00:53:48
appreciate everything. I always love talking books and
00:53:50
movies with you guys so so anytime, anytime.
00:53:53
Much appreciated. You guys take care.