Always Take the Meeting

“Always take the meeting” is one of those show business (and life) truisms that’s been uttered so many different times that it’s hard to know who said it in the first place.

It implies going into things even when you’re not sure, and the best recent example might be the unlikely success story enjoyed by writer Jay Dyer when he took a meeting for a project that – even to a Hollywood outsider – would sound a little preposterous.

Dyer isn’t someone who’s spent a lot of time in Mexico. He’s not up on all things soccer (or futbol as it’s known in Latin America). And perhaps biggest of all, he doesn’t speak or write in Spanish.

And yet, he was the man in demand when it came time to find a writer/showrunner/executive producer for the set-in-Mexico Club de Cuervos, Netflix’s first Spanish-language program, about, yes, a Mexican soccer team and its feuding heirs.

The show, which debuted August 7 with 13 episodes on Netflix, is a comedy/drama about Mexican siblings (and one mistress) feuding over the family owned soccer team, the Cuervos (“Crows” in Spanish.) The team means everything to its working class town and the show – shot on location in Mexico – isn’t just ground-breaking as the first Spanish language offering for the streaming champion Netflix; it’s a big deal for Mexican television, so long used to over-the-top telenovelas.

At the time of this interview, Dyer was excited about the audience reception in Mexico and hopeful about a second season. He also had some wise words about the rewards brought by persistence and patience in this business.

Q: What was it like to be approached for this? What was the process?

The process started when I [sought] representation that “got” me and I first met with Chris Noriega and the people at Verve, and I said I wanted to find challenging and more interesting projects.

A little while later, he said “there’s this really interesting project, it’s going to sound strange but just listen because you might really enjoy this.”

He told me that Netflix was interested in doing their first Spanish-language program. It would be shot in Mexico and done with this incredibly successful and talented director, Gary Alazraki.  Netflix had approached Gary to do this television series so he’d come up with the show with his friend Mike Lamb but they hadn’t really had experience doing a series before.

[They asked me because] Gary had done movies but a TV series is a different beast.  I thought, but I don’t speak Spanish and soccer? I know you kick a ball – but I  wasn’t well versed in the sports world.

Chris told me, “Yes, it is set in the world of soccer but you’ll enjoy what they are trying to do. It’s about the characters and the situations. They want to do a dark US cable- like program and they really responded to your writing.

So I watched Nosotros de Novos (The Noble Family, directed by Alazraki) and go and meet with these guys. I loved the movie but thought, I’m not going to get this job.

Still, I enjoyed it so much I went into the meeting just thinking I will have a nice meeting with this really talented director. And you never turn down a meeting. I went in with no expectations because superficially I did not think I would have hired me.

Q: And how did the meeting turn out?

A: During the meeting, I thought, “oh, I am perfect for this job!” It was probably the best meeting I ever had in my life. It just felt like we instantly got on the same wavelength.

I was pitching, we were literally breaking stories and dissecting the series right there, saying what we thought would happen. Netflix had just greenlit the premise so there was really nothing there but a show bible so we were just diving in at that first meeting.

Q. So now that you’re in it and have been for the first season, what is the writer’s room like, when you’re doing a Spanish-language show? What’s different and what overlaps with other work you’ve done?

A. I would say that it is very similar to a standard writer’s room. The only difference is in the production and in the translation of the scripts. We write the scripts in English and we break the stories in Los Angeles.

The five of us – me, Gary, Mike Lam, Alessia Costantini and Russell Eida – we just created a TV series.

Since Gary was in the room, he knew exactly what we are going for so if there were specific Americanisms that might not have translated well, he was providing translations to find the appropriate Mexican equivalent.

We didn’t want to have a bunch of American writers deciding what Mexico would be like, we wanted it to be as real as possible.

Q: It’s pioneering for Netflix and in a way for Mexican TV, too, in that it’s not a telenovela and it feels like a cable show even though it’s not on cable.
How did bring that cable sensibility where it wasn’t – did you have to study – or did you just dive in?

A: It was very important to Gary to not do a telenovela – as a smart human being who lives in Mexico, he was frustrated with the programming choices offered to him. He and a lot of his friends and his parents all watch American cable shows: Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Better Call Saul.

They watch all the shows that I watch. Part of what he wanted was to do a Mexican show that had a sensibility of the cable shows he loves.

So then we had the characters and the world we’d created and said, let’s tell the story the way we would tell it if we were writing for AMC or FX of Netflix. We wrote it like it was an American program.

I’m trying not to talk in generalities because what is an “American” show. And I’d also draw the distinction between Mexican films and television because in cinema you obviously have these amazing auteurs and the cinema is extremely sophisticated – moreso than American cinema frankly.

But on Mexican television you find a lot of sports, game shows, variety shows and a lot of telenovelas. If you want a sophisticated program and you are in Mexico City, you are most likely using your satellite and watching HBO or using the internet and watching Netflix –Orange is the New Black is really popular there, so is Game of Thrones.

So we just referred to those shows and said let’s write it like those. Obviously it’s a different genre but we wanted to write it smart, not talk down and do the best possible version of this story.

Q: Do you have a standout from shooting the show, maybe a moment when it just clicked that you were in the right place?

A: There are many examples but the one supreme example happened a bit later in the season. I won’t give anything away but everything was firing on all cylinders, we were thrilled at the work Gary was getting from his actors, and then I was down in Mexico either in January or February and we were filming this very crucial scene for episode 9.

It was very important to me but I was also nervous because it went to a place that was surprising and/or shocking just in terms of how it played out. [I wasn’t there when it was shot] but that night we got together for dinner and Gary showed me the scene on his iPhone and I thought oh my gosh, it’s perfect.

Luis [Gerardo Méndez, who plays Chava Iglesias] did a spectacular job, Mariana [Treviño, who plays his sister, Isabel] was amazing.

Then I promptly forgot about the scene – I won’t say I was drunk but we were having fun.  The next morning I went to the editing bay and all the editors were standing around the monitors saying “Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh.” And they were talking to the monitors and I thought, “What are they looking at?”

And they were looking at the scene I’d just watched on the iPhone. That to me was so great because they’d read the script and the scene they were watching so they were just reacting to the visceral filmic nature of the scene.

And I thought, “Wow, if these entertainment professionals who are allegedly jaded because they’ve seen it all -- if they were that excited and vocal about this scene viewed out of context -- I just cannot wait to see what the audience does when they get a chance to look at this. And I realized we had something incredibly special.

Q: As an English-speaking viewer in the United States, I found that the show was instantly absorbing, while also feeling truly authentic and not as though it’s pandering or guessing at Mexican culture. What would you say to a potential viewer who might be hesitant to watch?

A: I think the fact it’s in Spanish might throw people but it’s subtitled all around the world so even if you don’t speak Spanish, I think you can enjoy the show.

It’s a comedy and it’s a drama and we cover the whole spectrum, with the human emotion and the comedy coming from our characters. We wrote it so it didn’t rely on verbal quips and turns of phrase, everything comes from the characters. If you can read a subtitle and get involved with great actors, you can enjoy it immensely.

Q: It sounds like you’ve had quite a year. Are you working on anything you want to talk about?

A:  I’m working on a movie with Gary and a Broadway musical but that’s top secret.

But I’m switching gears because basically I wanted to do something that wasn’t another television series right away. My heart is with Cuervos and I wanted my television brain to remain in the land of Cuervos.

It would feel like I was cheating to work on another show right now.

Q: So, you took a meeting for  a job you thought you wouldn’t get. Given that the Academy fosters the career of young TV professionals, what’s lesson to your experience for younger people starting out or the moral of the story?

A: The moral of the story in terms of my career and trajectory is to keep your eye on the prize. I’ve been writing for a long time, on sitcoms, on cable shows, on movies -- none of which got made, they were in development hell -- but I did a lot of writing. I’ve had up years. I’ve had down years. I’ve always kept myself focused on the writing.

I knew what kind of writer I was, and what kind of projects appealed to me and I kept thinking if the right project doesn’t come along this year, the right project will come along next year or next month.

I just kept myself open to all possibilities. Because one part of being a writer is yes, you want a job but also we’re artists and there’s something very special about what we do.

Even though it’s a craft and we’re trying to make a living and feed our families, at the same time we do want to see that part of our souls that just blossoms and needs that creative expression.

I always felt that one of these days I was going to find that perfect show and perfect situation and it came in the most unexpected place, that’s for sure.

I didn’t expect for this to turn out to be my dream job but it’s certainly turned out to be that.