Steve Cuden: On today’s Story Beat

Marsha Scarbrough: The director I learned the most from was Clint Eastwood. And I learned many, many things from him. He is an absolute master and he would not ever want to do more than four takes. Now, uh, you work with some directors who will do 20 takes. He would only do four. He would want the crew to be perfect on those because he said the actor’s best performance is within those four takes. And a lot of times he would print the first take and move on. Like, not even a backup, not even a take two, just like, uh, we’ve got it, print Move on.

Announcer: This is Story Beat with Steve Cuden, a podcast for the creative mind. Storybeat explores how masters of creativity develop and produce brilliant works that people everywhere love and admire. So join us as we discover how talented creators find success in the worlds of imagination and entertainment. Here now is your host, Steve Cuden.

Steve Cuden: Thanks for joining us on Story Beat. We’re coming to you from the Steel City, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. My guest today, Marcia Scarborough worked in Hollywood as an assistant director on major motion pictures and primetime television for almost 20 years. As a graduate of the prestigious Directors Guild of America’s assistant Directors training program, she supported many directors including Clint Eastwood, Leonard Nimoy, Blake Edwards, Colin Higgins and Carl Reiner. And she worked directly with stars like Pierce Brosnan, Dolly Parton, Burt Reynolds, Jenna Rowlands, Gene Wilder, Farrah Fawcett, Mary Tyler Moore, John Travolta, and more. Marcia is also the author of two award winning memoirs about her spiritual medicine, Dance and Honey and the river, Both available at Amazon.com As a journalist, she’s had over 100 articles published in national magazines. Marcia was a contributing editor of written by the magazine of the Writers Guild of America west and the Spain correspondent for International Living magazine. Marcia’s third memoir, uh, 20 Years in Tales to Tell is being published in installments on substack.com to read her tales about working with celebrities, please subscribe to her Substack blog and Adventures of a Roaming Crone. I’ve read Marcia’s book Inside Breaking Bad and as that is one of my favorite TV shows ever, I found her perspective on that production and uh, of the amazing people she worked with to be fascinating, entertaining, revealing and educational. All those reasons and many more. I’m greatly privileged to have the multi talented assistant director and writer Marcia Scarborough join me on Story Be today. Marcia, welcome to the show.

Marcia Scarborough: Hi Steve, thanks for having me.

Steve Cuden: Oh, it’s a great pleasure to have you. Trust that. So let’s go back in time just a little bit. At what age did you become interested in show business?

Marcia Scarborough: Well, as a child I used to like to act out the westerns I saw on TV the next day with my friend across the street. And then even in junior high I was writing little plays. And then in high school I was in the drama department and that kind of thing. Uh, after I, I went to university as a journalism major. And after I graduated, uh, I wrote advertising copy for a long time and some fashion journalism. And then I decided I really wanted. I started producing commercials. I was writing for a department store and they needed someone to be the liaison with because they were going to start doing commercials with the commercial producers. So I did that. And then I quickly figured out I could cut out the producers and produce it myself. And I did that. And, um, then I decided I really wanted to be in theatrical. And the only way I could find in was this assistant director’s training program,

Steve Cuden: which is a very vibrant program and still happening today.

Marcia Scarborough: It’s very competitive. And I took the test four years in a row before I got in.

Steve Cuden: Wow.

Marcia Scarborough: And they like that. I’ll just say that for anybody who’s thinking of trying that. They like that you try multiple times because it shows that you’re persistent and determined, which is one of the things they’re looking for in assistant directors.

Steve Cuden: I, uh, was going to say that’s. That is one of the traits that they’re looking for is do you give up easily or do you stick with it?

Marcia Scarborough: Can you take rejection?

Steve Cuden: Can you take rejection? Well, when I applied to graduate, uh, school at UCLA’s screenwriting ah, program, um, they accept very few people on their first try. It’s the same thing. They want to see if you want to stick to it or not. So I think that’s. That’s a bit of a good proving ground for yourself, isn’t it?

Marcia Scarborough: It is. And it’s a skill you’re going to need. You’re going to need to be able to let things roll off your back if it doesn’t go your way.

Steve Cuden: We’re going to talk more about being an ad in a bit. But yes, that’s for sure. You need to have that ability to have a thick skin and not let things really trouble you too much, especially when the pressure’s on. Um, so when you went to school, where did you go to school for journalism?

Marcia Scarborough: I went to usc. I had a scholarship to the journalism

Steve Cuden: school and I was a USC undergrad mate.

Marcia Scarborough: Uh, this was undergrad too, in theater.

Steve Cuden: So I don’t know what people call me. They’re either calling me a Brogen or a Truan. I don’t know what I am. Cause I have on both camps. Um, so, uh, when you were at school, you were learning how to write at that point. So that’s been a training, uh, part of your training for quite some time.

Marcia Scarborough: And I wrote for the high school newspaper and won awards for that. So, yeah, I’ve always been writing.

Steve Cuden: Well, what told you as you were doing this, at what point, whether in school or out, did you think to yourself, you know what, I am a pretty good writer? Did you have an epiphany like that where you knew you were decent at it?

Marcia Scarborough: Well, I think I kind of. Even in high school, because I had won some awards, I knew I was pretty good at it.

Steve Cuden: Got it. So, yeah, early on, it wasn’t something that you, uh, had to think about very long in your life. You knew early on that you were decent at it.

Marcia Scarborough: Yeah, I actually. And this, I don’t tell many people this. I actually wanted to be an actress, but everyone said you’ll never make a living and you’re not pretty enough and all that. And I was good at journalism too, and that seemed like it was more practical. So that’s, uh, the way that I went.

Steve Cuden: Well, the legion of humans who have been told they shouldn’t go down that road is massive. And the truth is that’s actually pretty accurate. Most people don’t succeed at it. Correct?

Marcia Scarborough: Yeah, yeah.

Steve Cuden: It’s a very difficult business.

Marcia Scarborough: It’s a very precarious life, I think.

Steve Cuden: Well, being an AD is a precarious life too. And being a writer of, you know, blogs or whatever, that’s a precarious life. There’s no stability in it, there’s no certainty to it, uh, unless you suddenly find yourself super famous and in demand, which is really rare.

Marcia Scarborough: And a lot of that is luck.

Steve Cuden: And a lot of that is, in fact luck, because there are really a lot of fine actors, directors, producers, writers, et cetera, who just don’t catch that break. And that’s just the nature of Hollywood, uh, show business, whatever you want to call it. Do you think of yourself primarily as a storyteller?

Marcia Scarborough: Yes, absolutely. Because all of those things are telling stories, you know, acting, writing magazines, And that’s like doing stand up for five hours, you know what I mean?

Steve Cuden: Yes.

Marcia Scarborough: Being a teacher is a performing art. That’s really demanding.

Steve Cuden: Yes, I did, I did that full time for 10 years as well. So I get it. Yes. It is like it is a performance. You’re in front of A crowd. You’re both, uh, educating them and entertaining them at the same time.

Marcia Scarborough: Yeah, you have to hold their attention for a long time.

Steve Cuden: No question about it. So how did you get into show business, then? How did you get into that? Was it the training program at the DGA that got you in?

Marcia Scarborough: Yes. Yes. So the dga, uh, assistant director’s training program is an apprenticeship. And you do 400 days on the set as an apprentice assistant director. And at the end of the 400 days, you get into DGA as a DGA assistant director as a second AD. And then during the 20 years that I was doing it, I rose to, uh, become a first AD and did that for a while.

Steve Cuden: Well, let’s talk about what being a first AD is. Um, for those who don’t know broadly, what does a first AD do? What are your main responsibilities?

Marcia Scarborough: Well, the official job description of the assistant director is that the assistant director, uh, relieves the director of administrative and logistical problems so that the director only has creative problems. And God knows they have enough of those.

Steve Cuden: Yes.

Marcia Scarborough: So the assistant director team, and it’s always a team that includes the production manager, the first ad, the key second ad, and then other ads. Second. Second ads under that, depending on the logistical challenges of any particular day, they do the budgeting, the scheduling, the planning, the ordering, and then they run the set. They are actually on the set during principal photography, uh, managing it. And so the first assistant director stands next to the director, communicates with the director about what the director wants and needs, and then the first AD passes that information to the key second assistant director who executes it. So the first AD is on the set, the seconds are running around in the periphery at the base camp, where the trailers are in the makeup trailer, in the wardrobe trailer, at the catering truck, uh, wherever, passing information, because things are constantly changing and everybody has to know what’s going on, and notifying actors of when they’re going to be needed, what that where they should be in their process, um, making sure that everybody’s got the. What they need for what’s coming up, when it’s coming up. And then you do all the paperwork, which is the call sheet, the production report, the time cards, the extra vouchers. Uh, and you usually do that standing up in the rain.

Steve Cuden: So you do it whenever and wherever as you have to do it. Right.

Marcia Scarborough: And before principal photography begins, the assistant directors are the ones who break down the script into the shooting schedule, which is that you completely blow the script apart and then reassemble it into the most Cost efficient way to shoot it. And I always love that part. To me that was the most creative. A great big puzzle with all of these elements that uh, you logistically have to move around and figure out, aside

Steve Cuden: from the first ad, who the director is speaking to. Who does the director then also speak to? Does he speak to the cinematographer? Who does he speak to? Who he or she?

Marcia Scarborough: The cinematographer, the um, camera operator. Often he um, can he speaks to all the actors giving directions?

Steve Cuden: Sure.

Marcia Scarborough: He probably may consult with the art department, although a lot of that will go through the first AD Art department or sound or wardrobe. But usually that’s communicated through the assistant director. So directly he’s speaking to the cinematographer and the actors mainly.

Steve Cuden: And what is the major difference between the first AD, who does all of the work that you just spoke about, and the unit production manager or the line producer? What are the differences between those responsibilities?

Marcia Scarborough: Well, the production manager, who could also be the line producer is in the office. And so we’re on the phone to them all the time reporting how we’re doing or how far behind we are, uh, asking for things that may have been added. Uh, they are calling us with problems that have come up, maybe with budget or uh, somebody who’s suddenly not available or things like that. So they’re in the office, assistant directors are on the set and we’re constantly communicating.

Steve Cuden: Mhm. The functions have overlap. That is to say, the first AD is going to be dealing with everything that’s happening on stage. But the line producer, the unit production manager, whoever it would be, is, needs to take care of everything that the first AD says we need done.

Marcia Scarborough: Well, I mean, it depends on like if it’s something that needs to be done right now on the set, the second assistant directors are doing it. If it’s a budgeting problem that’s coming up next week, the unit production manager

Steve Cuden: is on it, arranging for things to happen off the set, uh, for different materials to come in, for different vehicles to come in, et cetera. The unit production managers dealing with that not bothering the first AD.

Marcia Scarborough: Exactly. And then there may be like high level negotiations between studio suits and the creatives on um, the set. And that usually would go through the unit production manager. They would be buffering the director from that.

Steve Cuden: What do you think are the ideal characteristics for a first ad? What makes a great first ad?

Marcia Scarborough: Uh, the ability to have the emotional intelligence to remain calm under high, high press and the ability to communicate clearly, uh, and think clearly. And then diplomatic skills of dealing with big egos because you’ve Got maybe a famous director, maybe a famous cinematographer, big stars in Hollywood.

Steve Cuden: There are egos in Hollywood in a diplomatic way. And so, okay, you’ve obviously done a lot of that work, and we’ll talk about that in a moment. But when you are under hellacious pressure, which is par for the course, what do you do? How do you handle pressure?

Marcia Scarborough: I try not to think about it. For me, I mean, there’s so much to do. If I just keep working, I’ll, uh, get things done. That’ll relieve some of the pressure. So it’s like, don’t think about it. Just do it. Just. Just act.

Steve Cuden: Have you ever been in a situation where it was just too overwhelming?

Marcia Scarborough: Some of that. There are emotional situations where someone’s getting really angry and blaming everybody else and tends to run downhill and land on the assistant directors. And I think the strategy I used for that was just to take the blame. Whether it was my fault or not, whether it was even possible for it to be my fault, I would just say, oh, my fault. I’m sorry. And that would tend to defuse it. So I think that’s a good skill to have that. Again, that’s letting it roll off you. You know, it wasn’t your fault, but you just say it was so that everybody can calm down.

Steve Cuden: I’m willing to bet you’ll correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m willing to bet that that made you almost a hero in the eyes of all the people who you were protecting.

Marcia Scarborough: Uh, a lot of them, yes. And I have gotten fired, you know, uh, and I think if you’re a good assistant director, you will get fired. There’s a million reasons you can get fired. There’s, like, there’s no protection for you, and there’s somebody else that’s a cousin of somebody, the production manager, that wants your job anyway. And so sometimes it’s just. You’re just the collateral damage.

Steve Cuden: So it’s A set is a swirling animal. It’s always moving. Everything’s happening all the time.

Marcia Scarborough: A boiling cauldron at all times.

Steve Cuden: Very good way to say it. Uh, how fast do you have to be as a first AD on your feet?

Marcia Scarborough: Well, the first AD is going to stand in one place near the director. He even has a chair with his name on it or her name on it. So they have to think fast. They have to solve problems mentally really fast. Second ads, we wear tennis shoes and we run, like. We literally run all day long between dressing rooms, makeup, trailers, the set, uh, everything. So, yeah, you have to have Physical stamina. And these days are really long because the crew is on a minimum 12 hour deal memo. Minimum 12 hour. The assistant directors have to be the first ones there and the last one gone. So on a good day, you’re working 14 hours. If you’re going into overtime, you’re working way more than that. You’re maybe going to get four hours sleep before you do it again.

Steve Cuden: And what do you do to physically prepare yourself? How do you deal with the physical part of it?

Marcia Scarborough: Well, once you’re in it, all you can do is sleep whenever you can. Like your whole weekend is just sleeping. And it’s just like, you have to be in good shape. I mean, if you’re not in physically good shape, you really can’t be an assistant director.

Steve Cuden: It’s too physically taxing otherwise. Uh, okay, so once you’ve been hired, you’ve booked a job, um, where do you typically start in your discussions with the director, the producer, whoever you’re talking to? Where do you begin? Typically?

Marcia Scarborough: Well, you read the script and, um, there’s. It starts with usually two things. One is a table read with the actors where the director is there listening. You will run that as the first AD but you don’t have input in there. That’s between the director and the actors. And the other is the production meeting. So in the production meeting, the heads of all the department is there and the director. And the purpose of that is you go through the script page by page. Department heads bring up any questions they have for the director and get them answered right there. So all of this has been discussed before we’re ever out on the set. So the questions are like, okay, you’re going to shoot this guy in the chest and he’s wearing a white shirt. How many times do you want to try to do that? Because special effects one needs to know how many bullet squibs they’re going to have to have. Wardrobe needs to know how many white shirts they’re going to have to have. You know, so it’s like, that’ll come up. Someone will raise their hand, like, how many times? Four times, three times? Uh, and that’s money, right? You can’t just say 10 times, because that’s a lot of money. So, you know, the director has to make all those kinds of decisions in the production meeting.

Steve Cuden: Well, have you ever gotten in, uh, a bind where the director says five times, but they get to the fifth time and they want to do two more? Has that ever happened?

Marcia Scarborough: Well, yeah, usually they can’t. I’m sorry. You’re going to have to take one of those. That’s.

Steve Cuden: I think this is an important lesson that the public doesn’t really ever know. And that is once you see a finished movie or TV show, it is as good as it’s going to get once it’s done and out in the world, that’s it. But within it, there are probably dozens, if not hundreds of little things that were not quite what the director, the writer meant, what. Whatever. The actors maybe didn’t think they did as great a job, but that’s it. That’s what they get. And it’s permanent. It’s there forever. What do you think is the most, one or more important lessons that you’ve learned from the great directors you’ve worked with? What lessons have you learned from them?

Marcia Scarborough: The director I learned the most from and I enjoyed working with the most was Clint Eastwood. And I learned many, many things from him. He is an absolute master. And I think because he was an actor first, he has a really sympathetic, uh, approached the actors and he’s very supportive of them. And he would not ever want to do more than four takes. Now, you work with some directors who will do 20 takes. He would only do four. He would want the crew to be perfect on those because he said the actor’s best performance is within those four takes. And a lot of times he would print the first take and move on. Like, not even a backup, not even a take two. Just like, we’ve got it. Print, move on.

Steve Cuden: There’s a. There’s a famous story. There’s a famous story of the, uh. I can’t remember which of the Dirty Harrys I think it was. It might have been the Deadpool. I can’t remember which of the Dirty Harrys where the. His partner in a scene, they do a walk and talk down the street and they get to the end of the first take and he calls cut. And the actor says, oh, you know, I think I could do that better. Could we do it again? And he looks at him, he says, okay, everybody back to one. And they go back to the beginning and they do it again. They get down to the end of the take and the actor’s acting his heart out. And Eastwood says, okay, print one, because that’s the way he was, right?

Marcia Scarborough: One thing that, uh, like an incident that I experienced was that, you know, the assistant directors, the other thing they do is they set the background. All of the extras that are behind the action are directed by the assistant directors. So, like if you’re in a restaurant you have to make a map of where everybody’s sitting, of the extras at these tables. Because as the camera goes in different angles, you have to match it and put them in. Right. So that it’s that level of precision for editing.

Steve Cuden: Sure.

Marcia Scarborough: Um, so we were doing a scene. It was, uh, at night, two men talking with cars going through the background, the headlights. So I have set the cars. I’m tracking the cars as he’s shooting. Uh, he finishes, he sends, says, print 1 and 4. And I know they don’t match. I know that on 4, the driver missed the cue, and he didn’t go through at the right time. I have to go to Clint Eastwood and say, hey, I messed up. Sorry, Clint. My bad. I messed up. 1 and 4 don’t match in the background. And, um, he looks at me and he says, if the audience is looking at headlights in the background and not the performance of my actors, we’re in deep shit. Move on.

Steve Cuden: Absolutely true. If they’re looking at the background, there’s something wrong in the foreground.

Marcia Scarborough: Right. And so that was a really big lesson for me on how unimportant perfectionism is and how much time, energy and money gets wasted by perfectionism.

Steve Cuden: I think he’s the ultimate example of someone who practices just what you just said.

Marcia Scarborough: And we finished that. That was. The movie was Bird the Life of Charlie Parker with Forest Whitaker. Clinton was just directing. He wasn’t acting. We finished it 10 days early.

Steve Cuden: Wow.

Marcia Scarborough: Which is unheard of in Hollywood. And it’s quite a challenge for assistant directors because at the lunch break, he’ll say, I’m gonna get all of today’s work in the next hour. Start getting ready to bring people in for tomorrow’s work.

Steve Cuden: Wow.

Marcia Scarborough: And it’s a period film. They have to have haircuts and they have to, you know, have wardrobe fittings and all this stuff. And you’re just like, holy, Whoa. Let’s go. And, you know, very challenging, uh, as far as you having to move really fast to get ahead of schedule.

Steve Cuden: Is it true that he never calls action or cut?

Marcia Scarborough: Oh, no, not never. He does. Sometimes he doesn’t call action, like if he’ll. Because he’ll also shoot the rehearsal without the actors knowing they’re being shot. And so in those cases. But like, one time I was setting background in a restaurant, getting everybody’s name as I’m making the map of nightclub of the who’s sitting at what table. And on my headset for my walkie talkie, the first AD says, drop to the floor. He’s rolling on the floor of the nightclub.

Steve Cuden: Out of frame. Presumably out of frame. Uh, can you think, uh, of a moment when you had a gigantic challenge you had to overcome that was beyond what you’ve just told us? That was just massive. And how did you overcome it? What did you do?

Marcia Scarborough: I think you. You can’t waste time worrying about it.

Steve Cuden: You just move.

Marcia Scarborough: It is, like you said, it is what it is. You’re going to do the best you can do with it. It probably won’t be perfect. Um, so, like, you know, more Clint Eastwood stories where we were filming on the beach at night. They had set up these two towers with the big, uh, spotlights to light the ocean because otherwise you can’t see it at night. And as we’re getting ready to roll, a drunk, a surfer comes and heading for the water, and it’s actually transportation. Tells me, you’ve got a bogey. I run. I’m in the water up to my knees, trying to stop this surfer and get him out. He’s really, really drunk. And he’s like, you bitch. And goes out. And I go to Clint, like, um, I’m sorry. You know, I tried to stop him. I couldn’t. And he’s like, marcia, did he swear at you? And I’m like, yeah, well, yeah, but Clint, I’ve heard worse. Like, you don’t have to defend my honor. And he’s like, turn off the lights. Maybe the mother will drown. So then you’re sitting there waiting for the surfer to drown. And when you’re making a movie, the last thing you want is to be waiting for anything. That’s the kiss of death, right? Because time is money. You’re paying this whole crew. You’re paying expensive actors. You don’t want to be sitting there waiting.

Steve Cuden: Especially for a director who is 10 days ahead. He’s very efficient. That is a super efficient director. Um, what do you have in your arsenal that you as a first AD that is indispensable?

Marcia Scarborough: Again, be calm. Don’t let anybody push your buttons, because you do get insulted, you do get sworn at, you do get blamed for things you didn’t do. And you just have to have the emotional intelligence to not get excited about that. Never cry in front of the crew. Lock yourself in the bathroom if you’re going to cry.

Steve Cuden: Uh, what physical things do you need? Is it a clipboard? Is it a what. What physical things are indispensable to have? Is it certain kinds of shoes?

Marcia Scarborough: What. What.

Steve Cuden: What’s indispensable?

Marcia Scarborough: Certain kinds of shoes? You have to have really comfortable shoes. You have to have. You’re using a walkie talkie. I like to use it with a headset so that the. The actors can’t hear when the director is insulting them. A clipboard. And usually it’s a clipboard, uh, with a cover on it so that if you’re out in the rain, your paperwork’s not getting wet. A fanny pack that has pens and pencils and whiteout.

Steve Cuden: And would you still need whiteout today?

Marcia Scarborough: Today, no. Today everything’s on computer.

Steve Cuden: Yes, that’s what I said.

Marcia Scarborough: They have now they have, I think, tablets strapped to their arms. The assistant directors, they have tablets like.

Steve Cuden: Like iPads.

Marcia Scarborough: You mean like iPads, right?

Steve Cuden: Strapped to their arms.

Marcia Scarborough: Call sheet and the production reports on the, uh. On the iPad, yeah.

Steve Cuden: So that give us an idea of. Of, um, lessons you learned from the great actors you’ve worked, whether it be a Pierce Brosnan or Travolta or Mary Tyler Moore. What did you learn from them about what it takes to be a star?

Marcia Scarborough: Stars really work hard, and they have huge responsibility. And I think that people who want to be actors don’t understand this. It’s all riding on them. They have to be so emotionally secure, because if they can’t do it, if they. The whole crew is being paid for doing nothing, or they have to shut down if. If they’re in everything, like, assistant directors are good at. Like, if, you know, Johnny, uh, Depp is sick, you bring in Angelina Jolie and let him go home or whatever. But, uh, sometimes they’re in everything, so it’s all on you. And that means you have to be on time, you have to be prepared. You have to know your lines, you have to remember your blocking. You know, so there’s a lot that they’re doing that’s a huge responsibility. So they can’t really get sick. They, you know, m. It’s a lot.

Steve Cuden: It’s a big responsibility, and they have to have broad shoulders. Now, you, as the first AD or even the second AD would be interacting with the actors in some way. Uh, what, do you treat the stars any differently than you do, um, secondary characters or background people? Do you treat them differently?

Marcia Scarborough: So the second ads probably interact with the actors more than anyone because you’re at the dressing rooms and the makeup trailer and you’re passing. You’re the. All the information passes through you when you’re the second ad, so you’ll get actually quite close and intimate with some of them, uh, depending. Um, they have contractual things that have to Be met the big stars, right? A certain kind of motorhome, certain hours, maybe certain food, like considerations. And you, you have to meet all of those for sure. My personal approach was to always to treat everybody the same. And my personal approach was always to tell everybody the whole truth. And I think that made a difference. I think that the, uh, difference. I think the actors really appreciated that with, again, with Clint Eastwood. I have so many Clint Eastwood stories. At one point, his assistant who had been with him, like personal assistant who had been with him for many years, said to me, you’re the only person I’ve ever seen who can manipulate him. And I was like, manipulate him? That would be a fool’s errand to try to do that. Like, the only thing you can do with Clint Eastwood is tell it to him completely straight. But I think that, that some people did try to manipulate him and, um, that. That looked like, you know, that didn’t work. I mean, he’s way too smart for that.

Steve Cuden: Well, he’s probably got a superior BS meter.

Marcia Scarborough: Oh, for sure. I mean, he’s like a super zen master shaman guy. So I think that because I was just always completely straight about what’s going on, that I think he had a sort of rapport with me, that there were other people he didn’t trust.

Steve Cuden: You somehow managed to get him to find respect for you. And in doing so, he then treated you like, yeah, you know what you’re doing. I’m going to talk to you like you know what you’re doing.

Marcia Scarborough: Also, you know, he’s very intuitive. He works from a really. That in the way that he’s really quiet like that. He has a really deep intuition. He doesn’t like to talk. He doesn’t like to try to explain things to people. And so I kind of picked up on that. And like, for me it was like, be quiet, look where he’s looking. You know, pay attention to what he’s paying attention to. And so then I think he felt like he didn’t have to explain things to me. He could say just like, Marcia and a point. And I would see what he was seeing and go take care of it. Like, I would call it maybe mindfulness. Like, he’s like so aware of everything, so intuitive about what could happen. Because assistant directors, you’re trying to anticipate. This is the name of the game, anticipate the problem and fix it before it happens.

Steve Cuden: So, so, so give us a difference between Clint Eastwood, who’s of a very specific, uh, uh, attitudinal thing, he’s who he is. He’s very secure in who he is, and everybody knows who he is. As opposed to a Blake Edwards or a Carl Reiner, where you’re probably doing more comedic things. What are those differences like?

Marcia Scarborough: Well, Blake Edwards was, uh, also always very contained. He didn’t really interact much with anybody. Also working from a deep intuition. Carl Reiner is more of a performer, like, and he would kind of get up there more and, uh, you know, try out jokes and be more entertaining kind of. Also, sometimes you work with really, uh, bad directors. Uh, this is one thing that oftentimes in those cases, the assistant directors know more about making the movie than the director. And you’re sort of coaching the director into doing his job, you know. So you can also learn a lot from really bad directors on what not to do.

Steve Cuden: Well, frequently you learn much more from things that are fails than are successes because you’re seeing what not to do. Uh, and that can spur you on. So without naming names, give me an example of something that was a bad director thing. What happened?

Marcia Scarborough: Well, one time, um, I was a key second, and the first AD and I were in a van with the director scouting locations for car drive bys, right? Where you’re just filming the police car going by or something. And, uh, so we’re in the band driving, and, um, the director says to the first ad, how many shots are in this scene?

Steve Cuden: Oh, my goodness, that’s a bad sign.

Marcia Scarborough: That’s a bad sign because he’s supposed to tell us how many shots are in the scene. And so we didn’t respond and we kind of looked at each other. And then he said it again, like, really irritated, like, how many shots are in this scene? And the first ad said, 4. And he said, like, okay, thank you.

Steve Cuden: Uh, all right. So most of your work on a set is in collaboration with not just one or two, but many people. You’re collaborating with many people every day, all day long, right?

Marcia Scarborough: Yeah. And I mean, a crew could be 100 people, like 80 to 100 people. And you might have a thousand extras too.

Steve Cuden: Right. And you’re dealing with, in some way, shape or form, all of the departments.

Marcia Scarborough: Yeah, all the departments. Yeah. As assistant director, you have to know what every department does.

Steve Cuden: Exactly. So what makes a good collaboration work? What should collaborators do to be successful or to avoid?

Marcia Scarborough: Communicate. Communicate, tell. Make sure that when something changes, that everybody knows that it’s changed because it affects what everyone does. So have you pass that information to everyone and have you listen to their feedback, because they may say Hey, I haven’t got it, or I can’t do it or something like that. So it’s communicating, listening. A circular, uh, loop of information feeding back on itself always. And with the actors, too. I mean, the actors need to know what’s going on, when they’re going to be needed, why they might. May not be needed. So, you know, I always try to keep the actors as informed as possible also.

Steve Cuden: Well, I think that’s. That’s very useful because then they don’t feel like, what am I supposed to be doing? And when and where, uh, all. Ah, right. So let’s talk for a bit about Breaking Bad inside Breaking Bad. The book that you put together, which was, was a, was a publication of a, an article that you wrote, or was it. Did you write it as a book?

Marcia Scarborough: Right. So after I had left being an assistant director, I was, uh, at a contributing editor on, Written by. And that was a professional journal of the Writers Guild. So it was like interviewing all of the really successful screenwriters. Uh, so on Breaking Bad, I felt I had really scored this program that I thought was incredible. And I convinced, uh, Vince Gilligan to let me in the writer’s room. And usually they don’t let anybody in the writers room to see that process. I convinced him to let me in the writer’s room. So that was then I wrote this long article, um, and then the editor of the magazine decided it was too long, and he cut it way down, way down. And I was mad. So then I published it because I had the rights to it. I published the entire article as an ebook.

Steve Cuden: Okay, so tell the listeners what’s. What’s about. If they find it and read it, what, what, uh, what are they going to get?

Marcia Scarborough: So the, it’s about the writing process, how the writers work together to write Breaking Bad, because it’s not just one person. So Vince Gilligan was the creator. He came up with a concept and he wrote the pilot. Uh, and then he has a whole team of writers working to write the whole season. And they sit together in a room, um, with a big whiteboard and index cards, and they break the story, which is to plot out the entire season. After it’s plotted out, then they give the episodes to individual writers to go away and write the full script. Those come back to the writer’s room and get rewritten by the team. So that’s the way writers room works.

Steve Cuden: So tell us about Vince Gilligan. What makes him unique and special?

Marcia Scarborough: Uh, Vince Gilligan is a Southern boy. I think he’s from Louisiana. Or something. And, uh, he had been on the X Files before that went into a fallow period, was trying to sell feature spec scripts, couldn’t sell any, and was kind of desperate and made a joke about, like, maybe I need to start cooking methods to make some money. And that sparked this, like, whole idea of, you know, so, again, you have. Or you have your main character who has the problem. What is he going to do to solve the problem? He has a pregnant wife. He has a handicapped son. He’s a high school teacher. He doesn’t make any money. He doesn’t have health insurance. He has cancer. He could be cooking meth. And so that was the thing that. That generated the whole idea that turned into Breaking Bad.

Steve Cuden: And then he pitched it as, uh, Mr. Chips becomes Scarface. This is a famous line of his, which I’ve heard him say personally, that Mr. Chips becomes Scarface, which is totally unique at its time. I mean, people tried to emulate it, but nobody had ever taken a, uh.

Marcia Scarborough: Well, and he said his idea was to take the hero and, uh, turn him into the. The villain. Over, uh. Over five seasons, I think he always thought it was gonna be five seasons.

Steve Cuden: Nobody had ever taken a white knight and turned them into a black hat. Nobody had ever done that before.

Marcia Scarborough: And that was the brilliant, brilliant idea. And, I mean, it’s, in a sense, like, almost to me, Shakespearean or operatic.

Steve Cuden: Well, it is totally. It’s very Shakespearean. And, uh, um. Strikes at the heart of what everybody thinks of as classic storytelling. And yet he pulls it off so brilliantly. That whole team did. And they couldn’t have done it without Bryan Cranston, who’s been a guest on this show. But, uh, they couldn’t have done it without him. That is a superior actor finding the heart of that character.

Marcia Scarborough: Uh, absolutely. Totally agree. And also Aaron Paul. And Aaron Paul, that was also. He was also brilliant in that. Yeah, it was revolutionary at the time, I think.

Steve Cuden: And, uh, did you need to do deep research beyond sitting in the writers room, or was that enough for you, working on the show and then sitting in the writers room?

Marcia Scarborough: I didn’t work on the show.

Steve Cuden: Oh, you didn’t work on the show?

Marcia Scarborough: I, um, sat in the writers room and I went to the set and I interviewed actors, uh, on the set. I interviewed Vince Gilligan on the set, uh, and in the writers room.

Steve Cuden: So this was strictly a journalistic enterprise. Yeah, got it. I don’t know why I thought you had worked on that show, but. But, uh, being in the writers room, that would be enough. For me, yeah, that was.

Marcia Scarborough: It was. That was what I really wanted to do. So I did it for myself.

Steve Cuden: So. So tell us about your other books. Tell us about what listeners can expect if they read Medicine Dance and Honey in the River. What are they all about?

Marcia Scarborough: Uh, so those are memoirs. And, um. In my classic midlife crisis, around 40, uh, when my parents were dying, my marriage was falling apart. I got fired from a job by somebody I really trusted. My ad career was kind of on the downhill slide. And then I had a bad mammogram. Um, someone said to me, there’s a Native American medicine man in town doing private healies. Do you want one? And I said, at this point, I’ll try anything. I have no idea what that is. So I went to this healing with this medicine man. I know now that it was energy work. At the time, I didn’t know what was going on. The next day, I went for the ultrasound on this bad mammogram. And they were like, why are you here? There’s nothing there. You know, there had been a lump like the day before. So I thought, okay, this is really interesting. Whatever this guy’s doing, I want to learn more about. About it. So I started studying with him. And, like, over a period of years, um, got pretty deep into this Native American healing methods, uh, that involve sweat lodges and these long dances where you dance for four days with no food or water. And, um, it’s all about vibration, right? Because we know that from quantum physics that we’re made of vibration, right? We’re not really solid. And so, uh, sometimes our vibration falls out of harmony. That’s dis ease. And then we, these indigenous people. Use other sacred vibrations to realign our vibration for health, right? So this is drumming, dancing, chanting. So there’s a lot of that involved, kind of overlapping with that. So that’s Medicine Dance is that whole story. Um, then overlapping with that, I met a West African shaman from the Yoruba tradition of what is now Nigeria. And started, uh, studying with him. And he also used drumming, dancing and chanting as his main healing modality.

Steve Cuden: Interesting.

Marcia Scarborough: But the Yorubas have a very complex and interesting mythology. That, to me, echoes Jungian archetypes. And they have certain rhythms and songs and colors. That invoke these archetypal energies that then you embody. And so that book has a soundtrack with it that you can get on Spotify. If you buy the book where it’s footnoted, it tells you so you can hear these songs, songs for these different archetypal energies.

Steve Cuden: Give Us an example of what archetypal energies we’re talking about.

Marcia Scarborough: For example, the orisha, which is like, maybe we would say a saint, uh, a person who’s divine but not God necessarily, was a. Was a human who ascended to a divinity. The orisha of love and eroticism. Oshun is the river. So fresh water is, ah, also the goddess. Goddess of love and eroticism. So she has her own songs, her own dances. Her color is yellow. She likes gold things, she likes mirrors so she can look at how beautiful she is. Um, and she likes, you know, yellow flowers and honey. And so if you want to, um, heal your love life, you put honey in the river. You give the goddess the honey to make her sweet.

Steve Cuden: You literally put honey in the actual river.

Marcia Scarborough: You put honey in the actual river.

Steve Cuden: That’s not a metaphor. That’s something you actually do.

Marcia Scarborough: It’s both. It’s a metaphor and then you make it. And this is what ceremony does in all cultures. It makes abstract ideas concrete.

Steve Cuden: And both books are about that, uh, taking abstraction and turning them concrete and

Marcia Scarborough: using vibration, song, dance, rhythm, um, for healing.

Steve Cuden: And both books are about healing?

Marcia Scarborough: Yeah, in two entirely different cultures.

Steve Cuden: Have you become a healer yourself?

Marcia Scarborough: Kind of. I don’t say that, but I say that I studied with people who were real shamans, that I saw them do amazing work healing things.

Steve Cuden: You don’t practice that as a. As a regular thing?

Marcia Scarborough: Not. Well, I kind of do, but not on the level they did. Like, you know, you’re on different. It’s a learning curve, of course. So, you know, they’re way up the curve. I’m, um, a beginner.

Steve Cuden: And as we said, both of those books are available on Amazon, so you can find them quite easily. Is it, Is it. Do both books give you a sense of. Because I have yet to read either of them. But do both books give you a sense of what you can do personally as a reader to help heal yourself?

Marcia Scarborough: I hope so. That was the intention.

Steve Cuden: Cool. So let’s talk about your sub stack right now. Uh, 20 years in Hollywood Tales to Tell. That’s under. Correct me if I’m wrong, it’s under the substack Adventures of a Roaming Crone.

Marcia Scarborough: Right. And so that, uh, the 20 years in Hollywood Tales. To Tales, the paid subscription under the substack of Adventures of a Romy Crone. And then there’s also free. Free content.

Steve Cuden: Great, great. So what. What can people that want to pay for 20 years in Hollywood Tales to tell? What. What can they expect to find there?

Marcia Scarborough: Well, a lot of these same Stories like I was telling about Clint Eastwood today, and, um, more detail about what assistant directors do and how they do it. And then working with, uh, the different stars and big directors that I worked with with, like one of your former guests, Norman Steinberg. I worked with Norman twice. Like, it’s so cool when you say, yeah, my. My boss wrote Blazing Saddles.

Steve Cuden: Yes. And Johnny Dangerously and My favorite Year. So, I mean, yeah, pretty cool stuff. But Blazing Saddles alone is quite a calling card, isn’t it?

Marcia Scarborough: And then, um, Mary Tyler Moore, I worked with twice, Pierce Brosnan, Dolly Parton and Burt Reynolds on the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. And that was also cool because the director, Colin Higgins, and you’re like, oh, my boss wrote Harold and Maude and Nine to Five.

Steve Cuden: Yeah, well, uh, Harold Maude is one of those really great gems that I think people in the know, know about. But I think it’s generally fallen out of the public eye, and I think people should find that movie. It is extremely extraordinary. Harold Mutt and directed by Hal Ashby. So, uh, you know, I mean, just phenomenal stuff from back in the day. I mean, it’s what got to be 50 years ago at this point. I’m not sure anyone could get that made today. Do you?

Marcia Scarborough: Probably not. Probably not. Um, I don’t know. Maybe Netflix, but.

Steve Cuden: Yeah, I was going to say maybe cable or Netflix would do it, but. Or, uh, Showtime or something like that. But it’s very hard to get that into a theater today, that kind of a story.

Marcia Scarborough: But. So the assistant. My life as an assistant director. You know, it’s the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. I mean, sometimes you get Clint Eastwood, sometimes you get Dolly Parton, and then you have to work with Steven Seagal, you know, I mean, so it’s like everything from the wonderful, brilliant people to just nightmare people.

Steve Cuden: Do you want to tell us what the. What the problem is with Steven Seagal, or would you rather not?

Marcia Scarborough: Well, I certainly go into it in the book. I mean, he’s, um. Uh. One of the locations you use a lot in LA is the Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills. And so we used it in both Bird with Clint Eastwood and Hard to Kill with Steven Seagal. And we had done Bird first. Well, the thing about the Greystone Mansion is you have to park the equipment in the parking lot, and there’s a long stairway down to the house. So everything has to go up and down the stairs, including the actor. Right. So they have to go up and down this big stairway all day. So Clint Eastwood was like, great I don’t have to do the StairMaster tonight. You know, just go up and down the stairs. Fantastic. Who was like 60 at the time, you know, and then Steven Seagal was like, I can’t go up and down those stairs. I’ll get too tired. I need my Cadillac limousine to drive me from my trailer to the front door of the house.

Steve Cuden: Um, and so you just kind of deal with it, don’t you?

Marcia Scarborough: Yeah. Like, okay, I’ll call the limousine.

Steve Cuden: But it had to be a limo. It couldn’t be a golf cart. It had to be something special. Right. Let’s talk about your process as a writer, because you’ve done a lot of writing at this point in your life. Um, what do you use to capture new thoughts and ideas? Do you carry around with you your phone and you do notes, or do you have paper and pen? How do you remember things or do you just have a really good memory?

Marcia Scarborough: I do have a good memory, but I like, post it notes.

Steve Cuden: Post it notes?

Marcia Scarborough: Yeah, and I put things on post it notes and then I put them on the mirror or the window and I can rearrange them and reprioritize them. And I started doing that as an assistant for, um, scripts.

Steve Cuden: And do you carry post it notes on you?

Marcia Scarborough: No, I remember things.

Steve Cuden: You remember things?

Marcia Scarborough: Yeah.

Steve Cuden: Do you ever get frustrated where, you know, you’re supposed to remember something and you don’t, as I do all the time.

Marcia Scarborough: It’ll come back. Relax.

Steve Cuden: You’re very fortunate, I imagine that your years as a first ad, a second ad, you had to have a pretty good memory.

Marcia Scarborough: Yeah. And also there’s a constant reprioritizing in the assistant director job. Like, you accomplish one thing and then that changes what’s important next. And so I bring that into the rest of my life too. Like, just. It’s always going to. The priorities are always going to change. And, uh, if you have a system to organize that, that really helps.

Steve Cuden: Are you. Are you methodical in your approach to organizing an article or a story or a book? Are you methodical about it? Do you have a method?

Marcia Scarborough: I do outline, yes. I don’t know if you call that methodical, but I do.

Steve Cuden: Sure. That is definitely methodical.

Marcia Scarborough: Yeah, I do definitely outline things.

Steve Cuden: So I speak to, I’ve spoken to, I don’t know, a couple of hundred writers on this podcast. And, uh, it’s sort of split between those that do outline and those who do not. And I’m an outliner. I. I don’t know how you do it without outlining. Do You.

Marcia Scarborough: Well, no, and all the professionals I know, well, using cards or post it notes and then going to the outline from that is what all the professionals I’ve worked with do. I have been told in writers group that that’s not creative.

Steve Cuden: Oh, that’s nonsense. Some of the greatest books and movies and TV shows ever written are heavily outlined. So what does that mean, not creative?

Marcia Scarborough: I mean to me you’re going on a journey and you have to have a map.

Steve Cuden: When you’re working on a film as an ad, you know, the script is your, is your map, your, that’s where

Marcia Scarborough: you begin and then your shooting schedule after you’ve rearranged it.

Steve Cuden: Sure. And, and, and that enables you to then alter things or punt or go down a totally different road if something

Marcia Scarborough: doesn’t work and then you didn’t get that scene and you know, you have to move it into one of the upcoming days. So you have to keep reprioritizing again.

Steve Cuden: So you have to keep, you have to have organization in order to be able to reorganize. And no, under no circumstance can you go into a high budget production and be disorganized. That will not work.

Marcia Scarborough: Right. So now let me just tell you about how I learned the most about writing. Dramatic writing, not like writing an article, but writing a screenplay, a novel, a play, an opera, you know, whatever. I was working as an AD on this sitcom, uh, and one of the actors was, the character was an elderly man. And this is elderly man actor named Bill Idleson. And the director, producer Pat Hazel, a comic, told me that Bill is a, uh, famous award winning comedy writer. He teaches comedy writing privately in his home. And I have taken his class and it’s really great and you should talk to him about it. So I talked to Bill. Bill, uh, started as an actor and he played in the original Dick Van Dyke show. He played Herman Glucher, who was Rosemary’s boyfriend, if you go back that far. So his background was acting. It’s a precarious life. He went to writing. He was very successful. He won the Actors Guild, the Writers Guild Award. He acted in like or he wrote like for um, ah, Odd Couple. Love Americana style, Get Smart, um, Gomer Pyle. He wrote for all of those and won awards. Um, so I talked to Bill about taking his class. He said, yeah, you, you know, you can fill out an application. You had to make an application to be in his class. So I filled out the application and one of the questions on the application was, have you ever been in psychotherapy? And of course I have been in psychotherapy and marriage counseling and Yoongi and dream groups and everything. So I put, yes, I have been in Psycho. I got into the class and it’s a small group, uh, of writers. That’s one reason he has to, like, sort of. And he said the reason that question is there is because he believed that if you weren’t interested enough in yourself to go to psychotherapy, you are not interested enough in other people to be a good writer.

Steve Cuden: Interesting.

Marcia Scarborough: Yeah. And I noticed, and I was going to say that, uh, your interview with, uh, Dan, uh, Silverman, who’s a therapist.

Steve Cuden: David Silverman.

Marcia Scarborough: David Silverman. Psychology and screenwriting go together very well,

Steve Cuden: that is for sure. If you don’t understand the psyches of others, it’s pretty hard to create characters.

Marcia Scarborough: Bill’s thing was always that the comedy comes from the conflict and the characters. It’s not just writing jokes. And so this was all about structuring conflict and character. Uh, so on the first day of the class, Bill, who at that point was 80 years old, very curmudgeonly, stood up in front of a whiteboard and he drew a stick man. And he was like, what’s this? And people like, uh. Or I think first he said, what’s a story? What’s a story? And people like, it’s a beginning, middle, end. It’s a, you know, like, uh. And he was like, no, no, I’ll show you what a story is. And he drives a stick man. He said, people are like a stick man. And he’s like, no, no, no, no. He goes, this is a hero. And then he draws a little bit away from that. He draws a star, and he goes, uh, oh, what’s this? And be like, oh, it’s a star. No, What? It’s a. This is the goal. The hero’s goal. And then in between, he drives a triangle and he fills it in as black. And he goes, what’s this? What’s this? It’s the obstacle, right? So there’s the hero, the obstacle, the goal. And he draws an arrow from the hero over the obstacle to the goal. The story is this. The energy of the hero overcoming the obstacle to the goal. To make this story stronger, you increase the hero’s desire for the goal, and you increase the obstacle. That just stuck with me. To me, that was like a revolutionary pictogram forever burned in my mind.

Steve Cuden: That’s a perfect example of storytelling, 101, that is for sure. That’s the most basic thing I was taught when I was at UCLA by the Great. Hal Ackerman, who’s been on the show twice, um, that his thesis premise, in terms of what storytelling must have, is certainly conflict. And he had a wonderful formula for conflict. And the formula was C equals D plus O, conflict equals desire plus an obstacle. And that’s what this fellow was talking about. It’s all about conflict and overcoming obstacles.

Marcia Scarborough: And it’s in the whole script and

Steve Cuden: it’s in every scene, every moment, every atom. There can be no moment in a story that’s going to succeed, I think, that doesn’t have some form of conflict and something that a character must overcome until you get to the very, very end and then you can kind of release, but not up to that point. And it’s the only way to keep the audience’s attention. Right.

Marcia Scarborough: Well. And Bill would say, it’s like they’re paying for the E ticket ride.

Steve Cuden: Right? Exactly.

Marcia Scarborough: They want to vicariously experience, ah, these emotions that they’re afraid to experience in their life or, uh, whatever. And so that’s you. You’re getting their juices flowing. That’s what they’re paying you for.

Steve Cuden: And not to be too pointed about it, but you just dated yourself by saying an E ticket ride, because nobody knows what that is anymore. E tickets were what you paid at Disneyland to get on each individual ride. If it was the great rides, they were E tickets. Those less great rides were A’s, B’s.

Marcia Scarborough: Matterhorn was an E ticket ride, an E ticket.

Steve Cuden: The Matterhorn was E ticket. Space Mountain would be an E ticket, that kind of thing. But nobody. They don’t have E tickets anymore and haven’t been quite some time. Well, I’ve been having just the most marvelous conversation with, uh, Marcia Scarborough, and we’re going to wind the show down a little bit. And you’ve already told us these tremendously fun, funny stories, but I’m wondering if in your experiences, you can share with us at least one more experience that’s either weird, quirky, offbeat, strange, or just plain funny.

Marcia Scarborough: Well, when I was studying with Bill, and then we had these, uh. After you finished 13 weeks of classes that he taught, which were, uh, writing assignments which I think were sketches from Love American Style that we would go home and write and bring back, and then he would critique. And then you got to go to Bill’s table and he ran a writing table where you brought in your own material and you had the other, uh, writers in the group read it and you listen to it and Bill and would comment on it. And so after one of those sessions on something I was working on that, uh, I was talking about with them after particularly like it. And he said, the problem with you is that you avoid the emotional moment, and you do it in your writing, and you do it in your life. And I went out to my car. I drove to the parking lot at the Will Rogers State Park. I sat in my car and cried for an hour and a half because it was so accurate. So to me, that was an example of a great teacher who’s teaching you way more than how to write a script.

Steve Cuden: But you also had the wherewithal of years of dealing with difficult people and their issues, and you allowed the emotion to come out. But it didn’t wreck you.

Marcia Scarborough: Right,

Steve Cuden: because some people would be wrecked by that. They would be destroyed by it. That’s great that you didn’t allow that to happen. All right, so last question for you today, Marcia. Um, along the way here, you’ve given us a tremendous amount of fantastic advice. I’m just wondering if you have a single solid piece of advice or a tip that you like to give to those who come up to you and say, how do I do what you’ve done? How do I get in? Or maybe somebody’s in a little bit, and, uh, how do I move up to that next level?

Marcia Scarborough: Well, one thing where I think a lot of people get caught is courage, right? I mean, you have to have some kind of talent. You have to have the discipline to put your ass in a chair in front of a computer for hours and hours to write something, but you also have to have the courage to put that out in the world and be judged. And I see so many people that I think have the talent that don’t have the courage, and they don’t do it because. And recognize if that’s. What if that’s happening with you, are you not writing? Are you not finishing projects because you’re afraid to be judged and go to therapy?

Steve Cuden: I think that that’s extreme, extraordinarily wise advice, because there are plenty of talented people out there that are just afraid to show it to people. And you. It’s one of those things in the arts. It doesn’t. The circuit doesn’t get completed. From your inception of something to your creation of something, the circuit, uh, isn’t complete until you give it to an audience to have as their own in some way. And that comes saddled with judgment. And sometimes that judgment is hard to take. So what you’re talking about is very valid and viable and useful advice, because you have to be willing to put yourself out there.

Marcia Scarborough: And it applies if you’re a musician, an actor, a writer, a painter, uh, you know, anybody who’s in the arts, you have to find that courage. And I see so many people that, like, don’t write the thing because they’re blocked because of that, you know, and that’s where I think, you know, therapy, like, know yourself. You’re going to be scared. You’re going to be judged for sure. Probably some of it’s going to hurt. You have to be able to, again, let it roll off your back and go out and do it again.

Steve Cuden: There’s nothing more difficult, I think, psychologically than overcoming very negative criticism of you, your work, whatever. Um, but it is part of what you must have if you’re going to be in the arts, because you have to put yourself out. And people are going to critique it one way, shape or form. And it isn’t always going to be pretty or pleasant. This business, I’ve said forever, is neither for the weak of heart or weak of stomach or faint of heart. And for sure, that’s part of it, is that you have to have the willingness to let people say what they want to say.

Marcia Scarborough: Yep.

Steve Cuden: Marcia, this has been just a wonderful, um, uh, time today on the show on Story Beat with you. And I can’t thank you enough for your time, your energy and your wisdom. And for those of you that are interested, please go out and check out Medicine Dance and Honey in the river at Amazon.com and Adventures of a Roaming Crone on substack.com. marcia, thank you so much for your time today.

Marcia Scarborough: Steve, my pleasure. Thank you so much for your great questions.

Steve Cuden: And so we’ve come to the end of today’s Story Beat. If you like this episode, won’t you please take a moment to give us a comment, rating, or review on whatever app or platform you’re listening to? Your support helps us bring more great Story Beat episodes to you. Story Beat is available on all major podcast apps and platforms, including Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, and many others. Until next time, I’m Steve Cuden and may all your stories be unfold forgettable.