Born Out of Character

But I always felt like, you know, again, it was born out of character. Truly. I, I can, I’ll be honest and say, I never really started saying, I wanna make a show about the woods in Delco. And, and, and in the same way, I never wanted to tell a story about a vagrant in the fifth episode. It was born out of, oh, my uncle is an ex priest, he’s a bird watcher now.

Right? It’s, it starts with a character and grounding that character in, in, in a way I can understand. And then out of that character, only out of the character am I taking the themes and stretching them. And the same with Robbie. I felt like, okay, who is this guy? He’s a trash man. He kind of lives out in the woods. Oh, he has a quarry. He swam in with his brother. This was their place of heaven that’s been snatched away from them that he’s always trying to recreate in some way. And so it was only out of that idea, Chris, that all the woods stuff came into play. And I think I’m always operating out of, out of a place of character. You know, again, I truly never said to myself, I wanna, I wanna make a show that’s out in the woods.

And it was like, where would Robbie go that I believe? Right? Oh, he’d have a little, like a little swimming hole where him and Cliff would go, oh, that’s cool. Oh, it’s a place of lost heaven. Well, that’s where Erin could die later, right? And so everything is born out of me trying to understand a character in a very granular way. And then only when I, I have that character in my head, then I’m stretching all these themes out. Like that’s where the vagrant came from. Oh, what if Tom saw this bird? It wasn’t supposed to be there. Oh, now I can use that as an entry point for him to bridge the gap between him and Robbie, and then I could use it again. And then it was the same with Robbie. Oh, I love this quarry. How can bring the quarry back?

Oh, that’s where he used to go with Billy. Oh, that’s where Erin goes to meet him. Right? And so I think when you’re starting from a place of character, all those other elements kind of, it’s like a snowball. They start to come into you, but it’s all coming out of the character.

- Brad Inglesby on Task, from the Watch podcast