Scott Z. Burns Talks Writing On ‘No Time To Die,’ “Pressurized” Blockbuster Writing & Other Projects In The Works [Interview]

Basically, the filmmakers or studios have fucked themselves, and the clock is ticking for them. Right? [laughs]
Yeah. Although, you know what? Sometimes it’s tough to tell if you fucked yourself or not until you get that far down the line. So as you start to spool out any story in any production, unfortunately, it only really reveals itself through the process. There’s a massive humility that I also think comes with that: I don’t walk into those situations thinking I’m any smarter or better or have answers that other people don’t. They just have been looking at it from one angle for so long that they may not see it any other way. If you can bring that new perspective to the party, then that’s also great. I’m thrilled that I got to play a hand in some of those movies. When you feel like you left them in better shape than you found them, it’s really great. I mean, I’m thrilled for the part that I played in ‘The Bourne Ultimatum,’ and a number of other films I got to work on.

Did you see the “No Time To Die” trailer today? [editor’s note: see how long ago this is?]
I haven’t seen it yet, but I’ve got to go watch it. I mean, look, Bond was a really… I mean, the unfortunate thing about it was “The Report” came out in January at Sundance [of that year]. So I couldn’t really go and engage with [the Bond producers] until after Sundance. So that was February. They were starting at some point in March. So I just didn’t have as much time as I would’ve liked to, to really stick around and be a part of it.

That’s really pressurized.
Yes, but it’s one of my favorite franchises there is, and I love that character and getting to talk to Daniel Craig about it and getting to talk to someone like Cary Fukanaga, who I knew a little bit socially but had never worked with that deeply, it was great. Barbara Broccoli is really a force of nature. It was fun to work with her and everybody. The only thing I wish I could have done more was work with Phoebe because she’s so extraordinarily talented. But she was in New York doing “Fleabag” on stage and writing when she could. I was at Pinewood in London, working with Cary. So we never actually got to sit down together and do the fun stuff.

Is that when you directed some of “The Loudest Voice” right after that? That was part of the pressure of your hard out in March?
Yeah, I actually flew directly from London on the Bond set to New York and started directing prep the day that I landed. So yeah, those two were right against each other. That was a great experience.

That was really underrated. Russell Crowe was a beast on it and didn’t get his due.
Yeah, I hope that guy returns to action because he’s such a great actor. Also, I didn’t realize the chops that Sienna Miller had. She was incredible. It’s hard when you’re in scenes with Russell, but working with her was great. Naomi Watts is the real deal too. I had the experience of working with Meryl Streep, Annette Benning, and Naomi Watts all in one year. That’s really great.

I’ve got to ask about something else that people probably forget. HBO’s “Vinyl” was executive produced by Martin Scorsese. A huge show, a huge budget, something that should have been a big flagship HBO show but wasn’t. You were named the showrunner of season two, and then, boom, it gets canceled while you’re working on it.
Yeah. Look, the way that “Vinyl” happened was that I had initially sold the “The Report” idea to HBO. They came to me and said, “We love ‘The Report,’ but we’d love to be more deeply involved with you.” [HBO execs Richard] Plepler and [Michael] Lombardo sat me down, and the first thing I said was, “This is someone else’s show, and I need to know that this is okay with Terry Winter because this is really his.”

Right. Terence Winter, the creator of “Boardwalk Empire,” which Scorsese also exec-directed— “Vinyl” was essentially another one of their packages. He co-created it with Mick Jagger, Scorsese, a few others and was the showrunner, but then got fired at the end of season one. [editor’s note: Vinyl seems troubled from day one, Brian Koppelman and David Levien were the original season one showrunners before “Billions,” and they too were fired before the series was actually shot]
[Winter and I] never spoke directly. It turns out our lawyers know each other. He was gracious enough to send me a note saying, “It’s okay and good luck.” Which I thought was cool of him. I’ve still never met him, but I’m a massive admirer of his work. That show began as an older movie idea that Mick Jagger and Martin Scorsese had.

So, like many shows that end up being great, “Vinyl” struggled to find its feet during that first season. It had great moments, and it had moments that were clearly indicative of trying to find what the show needed to be about. I was super excited about doing that. I love stories surrounding music. So it was a place that I was really excited to park my brain. I think what started to happen was “Westworld” started doing super well. “Game of Thrones” finishing was adding pressure. Just the amount of money that it was taking to make episodes of some of those bigger shows HBO had really put “Vinyl” in a difficult spot for them to continue investing in it. I think that something had to go; they just weren’t going to spend that much money per episode when they had other shows that were already very expensive that already had massive audiences.

Right, they were big hits.
It was a bummer because I was so excited about it. The writing staff that we put together was great, and I felt like we had figured out a way to refocus the show. So that was a very heartbreaking day when that went down.

I guess that probably goes with the territory for you guys a little bit, right?
Yeah, I think if you do this job and you’re not doing it because you like to stand around on a red carpet and have your photo taken, that’s not a career. That’s not what this ever feels like. If you like getting up in the morning and trying to tell stories, then that’s where you have to put your focus. Because that’s the only thing you have control over is that discipline. So I get up, and I write, and I hope that something that I write gets made, but I also recognize that that requires a lot of things in the universe to line up just so. So, I think you need to, like any job in the world, you need to distinguish between the things that you can control and the things that are external to that and keep your head down and keep going.

Yeah, Ridley Scott has like 12 projects on the go at one time with 12 different writers. That’s harder when it’s just you, though. You don’t work like that.
Yeah. I’m painfully aware of the limitation in terms of the scale of what I can do. It goes to, again, what we talked about earlier about what kind of choices do you make? Is this a thing that you’re passionate enough to spend four or five years pushing up the hill? Because that’s what it’s going to take.

Absolutely. I wanted to ask one thing before I go. A little birdie told me that you had met with Christopher Steele [editor’s note, the ex-British intelligence officer and man behind the infamous Trump Dossier]. I was curious as to what might be happening with any of that?
Wow [long pause]. You have some interesting birdies that you talk to. That’s fascinating. I can’t really comment on that. I wish that I could but watch this space.

I’ll say this. The place to look isn’t at Christopher Steele per se. It’s at the article that Jane Mayer wrote in The New Yorker.

Okay. Off I go to dig into that; sorry to put you in a box like that, but you were here, and I had you. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it, Scott.

[editor’s note and a minor scoop which is now old and possibly outdated: I’d heard at the time, the meeting with Steele and this New Yorker article was set to be a Smokehouse Pictures project—George Clooney’s company with his producing partner Grant Heslov. Smokehouse and Scott were both angling for Steele independently; both realized they were working on this story and decided to join forces. Who knows if that’s still a thing these days, and maybe the moment on Trump and the dossier has passed? One last nugget: Mark Boal, screenwriter of “The Hurt Locker,” and Kathryn Bigelow’s writing partner, had also meant and spent time with Steele for some undisclosed project. Who knows what will come of these would-be things, but they were gestating at one point]

Burns is currently one of the co-creative execs on HBO Max’s “Dune: The Sisterhood” series and has many, many projects in the works, including his AppleTV+ climate change anthology series, a OneCoin scheme movie he’s trying to direct with Kate Winslet, and so much more.