HART HANSON on the set of .

I n p r o f i l e

How did a guy who wanted to teach college on Vancouver Island end up a giant of American television?

B y Curtis Gillespie

Photo: Dan Sackheim

40 EIGHTEEN BRIDGES SPRING 2012 WWW.EIGHTEENBRIDGES.COM WWW.EIGHTEENBRIDGES.COM EIGHTEEN BRIDGES SPRING 2012 41 The fifty or so buildings on the sprawling obsequiously. When this man steps into Though he is not the brooding, philo- carpet, a large desk, and some punched- Vancouver, Kamloops, Calgary, Fox Studio lot in Beverly Hills, California, the kitchen of the production office, people sophical type, Hanson enjoys those rare up couches and chairs. Hanson can STRAYS Winnipeg, and Toronto. The family his- take three primary shapes: the sleek glass do not presume that he is delivering fruit moments when he gets some downtime to usually be found behind his desk, Dogs of the world, anonymous tory is equally all over the map, and and steel of the executive offices in the and pastries, but instead try to secure think or write or read; he got a lot of those strumming his fingers either on the wanderers, moral conundrums, it’s no accident Hanson grew up to be southeast corner, the giant airport hangar- even a second’s conversation. moments sitting in the hospital recovering. desk top or lightly over one of the many I find them by the road, a storyteller. His father, for instance, like sound stages in the middle, and the Why do they do these things? As he did so, many in the world of popular guitars he keeps behind his desk, as scavenging milk cartons was such a fine track athlete in his low-slung two-storey apartment-style pro- The obvious answer would be because entertainment were wondering a few things he chats with, primarily, one or all of thrown from the bus: day that Hanson’s grandmother used duction offices along the west edge of the this man is Hart Hanson, one of television’s about Hanson and his creative arc. First, three people: his executive assistant, feist pups galled with mange, to claim her son’s high school had lot. Strolling through this environment is most influential and successful creative how long will the incredibly popular Bones Nick Larsen; his manager of creative old hounds, blind and lame, once won the state track champion- an exercise in compulsory humility. Were minds, the Canadian creator of the long- run (it was recently renewed for an eighth affairs, Josh Levy; or Stephen Nathan, at the end of their utility. ship, even though her son, Hanson’s you to ever feel insecure about how much running TV hit, Bones (a comedic crime season), and, more to the point, how long the executive producer and head writer father, was the only person on the money you make, how good-looking you procedural about a brainy female forensic might Hanson choose to remain at its helm? of Bones, and Hanson’s longtime friend Such I once whispered secrets to team. Hanson assumed this was are, or how much clout you have, you would anthropologist and an all-action male FBI Second, how successful could the Bones and collaborator. and begged to keep family hyperbole until many years later be well-advised to meander elsewhere. agent), and its popular spinoff, The Finder spinoff, The Finder, ultimately become? (As If any of these three are in Han- and was commanded when he happened to see some old Funky and purposeful technical people (a frothy crimedy about a decorated but recently as early April, no decision had been son’s office, particularly Nathan (who to lead into the woods newspaper clippings from the Potlatch, criss-cross the avenues and grassy areas. lovably damaged Iraq war veteran who can made on renewing it for a second season.) owns an air of wearied experience to execute and bury. Idaho daily, which noted that Hanson Tall executives in gorgeous shoes and find anything anywhere). But the real rea- Third, and perhaps most importantly, so profound you sense that even the And my father was not a bad man. pére had indeed won every single event designer labels strut about exhibiting their son people do these things, the reason why there is the question of what Hanson— appearance of the Devil before him And Saint John Perse wrote, at the state championships. “Except minxy locks, toned flesh and flawless teeth people appear to be drawn to Hanson and who is certainly one of the most successful would elicit nothing but a shrug and a “I had a horse. Who was he?” the relay,” deadpanned Hanson in the (as do their female counterparts). Creative- treat him more like a friend than a power Canadians in the history of television; to “meh”), business may ensue, but it will retelling. looking types—writers probably, though player, more one of the guys than the guy, date Fox has supplied him with nearly be preceded, interrupted, and post- Do animals have souls? Hanson’s mother also had a sense they could also be gardeners—loll around might just be because there are days, many half a billion dollars to create his shows— scripted by stories, jokes, anecdotes, My favorite channels of the fantastic about her. The first time dressed in carefully rumpled clothing. days, when Hanson still can’t quite believe might do next, regardless. Yes, he might gossip, and expletive-laden debriefings the spirit of Veronica Franco. she visited him after his move to L.A., Phalanxes of studly, stubbly assistants it himself. He laughs often and uniquely, keep doing Bones. Sure, he could keep of disparate events. In one such meeting Veronica Franco or Marie Duplessis. she was standing on the Fox lot with wear designer jeans and tight T-shirts. a laugh so infectious it should come with doing The Finder. He could even, and might between Nathan and Hanson, ostensibly She is orange, small, and elegant, him, taking it all in, marvelling out loud Even the aging Ecuadorean waiter at the an antidote, and he’s just as likely to stop even, do both while also developing new to talk about how to overcome a plot a golden-lab beagle mix— at the magic and strangeness of it all. cafeteria exudes the class and rectitude of and talk for ten minutes to the guy who network shows. Or, more tantalizingly, glitch in one of the final Bones epi- I do not know why she comes to me. “Well, mom,” said Hanson, “what do a Spanish James Mason. We haven’t even really is delivering the fruit and pastries as he could turn all or part of his creativity sodes of the season, Nathan (a show- I do not feed her and she is not my dog. you think?” come to the stars. Being gifted the sight he is to the network executive wanting to towards the darker, edgier world of cable, biz vet who launched his career by “I guess everybody has to try this of Sofia Vergara, in heels and a tight skirt, discuss a sixty-five million dollar season a move he acknowledges would satisfy originating the role of Jesus in the – Rodney Jones once,” she said. “I did it when I was mounting the short staircase to the Modern order. People pay attention to Hart Hanson part of his storytelling brain. musical Godspell off-Broadway in 1971), here in L.A. working as a chorus girl Family sound stage is to abruptly have one’s because he’s a powerful show runner, but “Hart happens to be on network now,” first offered up donuts baked by his dancer.” inner Neanderthal made flesh. Your flesh. people fuss over him because he himself his good friend, the SCTV alum Dave chef daughter, and then launched into “You WHAT?!” Amidst this live catwalk of the rich, can’t understand what the fuss is all about, Thomas told me one bright morning in the protracted, highly physical telling of a “That’s a relief,” said Hanson. She looked back at him, all 4’11’’ of her hip, and gorgeous, there is one person although if you follow the entertainment late January, as we sat outside at a Malibu joke he’d heard from Carl Reiner the night Nathan departed. Later that day, I utterly nonplussed. “Sure, I was a dancer, who appears oblivious to it all. He isn’t gor- news, you will know that due to recent coffee shop. “But Hart is an artist. He’ll be before, about two elderly Jewish gentlemen came across him in Building 1—he still a chorus girl, and I lived in Wittier, and I geous, doesn’t signal wealth and can’t be events there almost wasn’t a Hart Hanson on cable one day. The most exciting part sitting on a park bench, one of whom keeps had his pants on. always took the bus up here to this studio bothered to even learn what passes for hip. to fuss over at all. of watching him as a friend is wondering trying mightily, and failing, time after time and the other studios.” He is neither tall nor short. He wears plain On January 3, at approximately nine what he’s going to do next.” after time, to simply get up, all of which It remains undetermined if gypsy blood “Those are just a few of the stories glasses that are frequently askew. It is pos- a.m., the fifty-four-year-old Hanson was I asked Hanson, the next day, if he caused Hanson no end of merriment. The courses through the Hanson line, but it about my family that I thought couldn’t sible he’s modestly hiding rippling abs riding his motorcycle south along the cared to share his thoughts about his punch line (“What’s the rush?”) was funny, would hardly come as a surprise to find be true,” said Hanson, as we spoke on his under a wrinkled and baggy T-shirt—a Pacific Coast Highway between his home future. “I’m a network asset,” he told me. but wasn’t nearly as funny as Nathan’s per- it so. Given the famed impermanence of sunny patio high above Malibu beach. T-shirt that looks suspiciously like the one in Malibu and the Fox lot. He was in the “The network owns whatever I produce formance of the joke. Upon the conclusion of the Los Angeles lifestyle, it’s surprising “Only thing was, they were.” he wore the day before—but the available fast lane, heading inland onto Highway right now, so it’s kind of a non-issue.” the joke, the two discussed an episode plot to learn that his time in L.A. has by some physical evidence suggests otherwise. 10 doing sixty miles an hour, when the When, I asked, did this state—his point for approximately fourteen seconds considerable measure been the most Post-production Suite 12 at the Sony lot And Temperance “Bones” Brennan, the pickup truck he was following suddenly personal “overall” deal at Twentieth Cen- before Nathan stood up, a radical action stable period of Hanson’s life, at least in calls to mind the sort of movie theatre a main character of the popular Fox show jammed on its brakes and swerved wildly tury Fox, that is—expire? that seemed to spark in Hanson a note of terms of physical movement. Hanson was wealthy cinephile might place in the base- Bones, wouldn’t need to deploy even the to the right to avert a car stopped on the “I don’t necessarily think of it that tender concern for his friend. born in 1957, just outside San Francisco, to ment of his or her mansion; a large screen most basic of her forensic skills to con- left side of the freeway. Hanson had no way,” he replied. “Partially because I really “…Is this a pajama bottom day, a Canadian mother (who passed away two runs the show in loops up front, much as clude that the man either cuts his own hair escape path. The bike went under the car like the actors I’m working with. We’ve Stephen?” Hanson turned to me to ex- years ago) and an American father. They an ordinary cinema might, but at each of or pays someone else to create the effect. and he went over it, cartwheeling down created these shows together.” He sat plain. “On tough writing days, when he’s were about to return to Victoria, British the room’s three tiers are banks of com- Yet when this same man stops to the pavement like a gymnast on acid. He back in his chair. “But since you’re asking, just got to knuckle down and break a sto- Columbia, but decided to wait a few days, puters and screens and keyboards and chat, people stop to listen. When this man dislocated both hips and a shoulder, and my deal is up in June.” ry, Stephen has been known to put on his given Hanson’s imminent arrival. motherboards, each manned by a sound approaches the cafeteria door, the maitre’d broke his left ankle. Labelling it a close pajama bottoms. It’s the only way he can Hanson’s father worked as a travelling expert of some variety. It is the job of the does not direct him to the change room call is akin to observing that Charlie Hart Hanson’s office, in Building 1 on THE work sometimes.” salesman most of his life, and the family seven people in the room to ensure there to don a busboy’s uniform, but instead Sheen likes the occasional night out; far northwest corner of the Fox lot, is a Nathan shrugged. “It’s not at that (Hanson is the oldest of five children) are no glitches in the show and that the sweeps the door open and greets him Hanson knows it was a brush with death. spacious, low-slung room with brown point yet.” moved frequently, living in Victoria, music and sound effects match onscreen

42 EIGHTEEN BRIDGES SPRING 2012 WWW.EIGHTEENBRIDGES.COM WWW.EIGHTEENBRIDGES.COM EIGHTEEN BRIDGES SPRING 2012 43 events. “I’m in awe every day of every one Margolis, the executive in charge of Hanson told me, “or California squirrels and a cycling trip across Canada). “Those of these people,” Hanson told me later. “Of production at Twentieth Century Fox. aren’t as spry as Ontario squirrels.” The were actually really great times,” he said. everyone. The stars, the directors, the Margolis puts Hanson “in the same squirrel in question appeared to suffer no “We didn’t have kids,” added his wife technicians. Not a day goes by where I’m league, on the same pedestal,” as How- lasting damage; upon landing, it resumed Brigitte. “We thought we were rich!” not in a meeting or sitting in some room ard Gordon, the famous show runner of the chestnut hunt it had been carrying out “We had an apartment,” said Hanson. and it hits me that I’m the least intelligent 24, who is currently receiving accolades on the other side of the lawn. “I had a gig writing about bars. It’s prob- guy in the room.” for his new conspiracy drama, Homeland. I finally asked Hanson himself how ably the richest we’ve ever been.” Dan Sackheim, the director of the “I give Hart sixty million dollars a year he’d managed to achieve his current sta- But the key step had already been episode, sat munching grapes while and he’s never let me down.” tus without making any enemies, or, even taken; Hanson had had the fire of writing offering suggestions and self-mocking I asked Margolis to account for Han- more incredibly, while managing to have ignited in him while in the final year of criticisms. After each run-through of an son’s apparent popularity amongst the people actually seem to like him. Surely undergrad. He’d been scribbling away at act in the show, the technicians would dizzyingly diverse strata of people he it couldn’t be legitimate? Where was his some short stories and had a nascent idea stop and solicit feedback. A sample: necessarily has to interact with whilst dark side? CAN.ICONS for a novel. Then one day he saw that there Sackheim: “Hart? What about you, extracting maximum performance from “I have one,” he finally confided, as we was a reading later that night on campus anything from that segment?” them all. “Easy,” said Margolis. “He’s sat in his office near the end of a long day The BEAVER (held, believe it or not, at a U of T arts Hanson: “Yeah, at 18:15, that moment successful. He’s efficient. He’s accessible. on set. “I swear a lot at people, especially The DHC-2 Beaver bush plane is often credited with opening up the Canadian think-tank called Hart House), by the es- where Walter unlocks his underground He holds a point of view. He’s a model show the suits. A lot.” North. It was manufactured by de Havilland Canada in Downsview, Ontario, teemed Canadian novelist Jack Hodgins, vault. When he unlocks it and pulls it up, runner. There isn’t anything to not like.” Anger management issues, I wrote in between 1947 and 1967, yet it remains a common sight throughout the whose work Hanson knew and loved. That there needs to be a different sound. It’s “He’s a normal guy,” Emily Deschanel, my notebook. country due to its rare abilities. It’s easily recognized by its very loud “Wasp Jr” was when everything changed. too light. Too…I don’t know what I mean. the co-star of Bones, told me the next “The only thing is, I wait till I’m alone engine. Jack Hodgins (who has won nearly What do I mean?” Here Hanson looked day, when I spoke with her in her trailer in the car. Then I really let loose at people. Beavers have been called the workhorses of the North. Still used as air taxis every literary prize worth winning in to Sackheim and various technicians in between scenes. “He drives around in a It’s even better when it’s just me inside my between small communities and hunting and fishing lodges, they’re also Canada and who has produced exception- turn. “There’s a sound. I can’t describe car with no doors! He’s still the same guy bike helmet. Then it’s like it really is inside used to ship heavy freight, and were even designed to carry external loads al writing for close to five decades now) it. It should be more a clicky sound, like as when I met him seven years ago when I my own head.” (such as canoes or household furniture strapped to the outside). was, in 1981, probably the kind of figure clangy tumblers turning in a giant safe or auditioned for Bones. I’ve seen new layers Of course, there is always the conspir- At the end of World War II, de Havilland Canada decided to design a rugged Hanson imagined, or hoped, he might something. That sound. You know that of him unfold, but his success has not atorial brand of black humour he shares plane suited to the extremes of the North. They asked bush pilots across the someday become: a recognized novel- sound? Anybody know what I’m talking changed him at all to the core. He’s kind of with Stephen Nathan; together, they country what they needed and the answer was lots of power, combined with ist producing works of lasting literary STOL (Short Take-Off and Landing) performance and a design that could about? I don’t even know what I’m talking goofy. The guy is just real, and in this town bleed off a lot of the pressure that would value. Hanson attended the reading, and be fitted with skis or floats. Other suggestions included doors wide enough about! Somebody, help me. Please. The that’s very, very rare.” otherwise get sprayed over other people. to accommodate forty-five gallon drums, located on both sides to facilitate joined the party at a local pub after the longer you let me keep talking, the more The trouble with the picture being During the third season of Bones, Hanson loading no matter how the tied up to a dock. reading. Hanson approached Hodgins I’m going to prove I shouldn’t be running created by these friends, collabora- was in Nathan’s office when they at one point, carrying a copy of Hodgins’ All de Havilland Canada aircraft were named after animals at the time; after this show!” tors, executives and stars, of course, is happened to take a call from an executive some debate, it was decided the new bush plane was much like the hard- CanLit classic Spit Delaney’s Island, and Technician: “I think I know what you that it can’t be complete, since it would Hanson declined to name. Hanson put working beaver. announced himself a fan. “I’d been teach- mean.” Knobs were twirled, buttons were be humanly impossible for anyone to the executive on speaker phone as they ing for quite a while by then,” Hodgins—a Hollywood’s Harrison Ford flies his own Beaver and sings its praises. pushed, and in under a minute the loop achieve so much while alienating so few. tried to decipher what the suit was saying; famously generous editor—told me in a was replayed; this time the vault door, Where, I wondered, as I criss-crossed the something to do with the tone of a show. – Clive Holden recent email, “and I knew an enthusiast which sat like a manhole cover on a road, Hollywood landscape researching Hanson, “The point is,” said Hanson, “Stephen and when I saw one. He finally confessed to me unlocked and was lifted to the sound of was the coke, the hookers, the double- I were making faces, shaking our heads, that he wanted to write fiction.” crisply metallic spring-loaded sequential crossings, the spurned starlets, the finan- doing everything we could to not swear Hodgins offered to read some of Han- unlocking noises. It was a radically differ- cial malfeasance, the backstabbing, the or laugh, so that we could, you know, keep governed by a switch, Nathan stopped the University of Toronto, while his wife, son’s work, and Hanson later sent Hodgins ent sound to the previous one, and gave alcoholism? Anything? An OxyContin our jobs.” laughing, his face suddenly an ashen Brigitte, pursued biochemistry (though a short story. “I recognized true promise opening the vault a deeper and somehow addiction? A weakness for the ponies? A Near the end of the conversation, the mask. He stopped laughing because he she would eventually attend and gradu- in what I was reading,” said Hodgins. “I more playfully mysterious overtone. diet low in fibre? Anyone? Anything?? suit made a suggestion Hanson strenu- remembered they were seated in his ate from art school). He worked part-time gave him some feedback and eventually Hanson: “Magical!” To Sackheim: “I heard he kicked a squirrel once,” ously objected to, but which hierarchy office. And that that was his phone. at the Christie’s biscuit factory and ended invited him to consider attending a “How come you didn’t suggest that? Why Emily Deschanel told me, her voice low- and diplomacy compelled him to respond up giving up on his dream of becoming workshop I was scheduled to teach in do we keep you around here anyway?” ering a shade. “But I didn’t actually see to with: “Okay…that’s an interesting By the time Hanson was ready to attend a rock musician due, ostensibly, to an Saskatchewan.” Hanson applied, got in, Sackheim, laconically munching it.” Confirming this with Hanson in lieu suggestion…I guess we could always university, he was hearing the call of unfortunate incident with a fondue fork and spent two weeks in Hodgins’ fiction another grape: “I’ve often wondered that of alerting the SPCA, he told me that he consider that.” However, as he’d uttered Vancouver Island. He enrolled at the which caused paralysis in two fingers. workshop, an experience that helped give myself.” was merely testing the hypothesis he’d these words, he’d stood up, extracted University of Victoria, where one would “Luckiest break of my life,” said Hanson. him enough writing time, and confidence, Hanson: “We keep you here so that understood growing up in Ontario — and his penis from his trousers and begun think the logical thing for him to study “I wasn’t that good.” to apply to the graduate writing program somebody smart can run the show when which he shared with Stephen Nathan as to whap it against the phone, against the would have been literature or the perform- Hanson began to pursue his passion at the University of British Columbia, they fire me.” they walked on the lot outside the squirrel- cradled handset, against the number ing arts or perhaps Roma history. Which for writing, though he had no idea what to which he was accepted. Hanson also Sackheim: “That’d be a mixed bless- friendly Building 1— that it was impossible buttons. Nathan did all he could to contain was why he chose physics and calculus. direction that passion was leading him in set to work on a novel that he eventually ing.” to kick a squirrel due to their lighting- his laughter until the call ended a few “Yeah, that didn’t work out too well,” (after graduating he did technical writing finished, a novel, says Hodgins, “that a Hanson: “You’re my hero.” quick reflexes. The hypothesis failed at seconds later, at which point he and he told me. for his father-in-law, among other clients, major Canadian publisher took a long Sackheim: “I accept that.” the test stage; shoe met squirrel. “Either Hanson laughed so hard their stomachs Over the next few years, Hanson as well as columns for the Toronto Sun time admiring and considering” before The next day, I spoke with Bruce the theory is a complete falsehood,” hurt and tears formed. But then, as if managed to complete a bachelor of arts at on such diverse subjects as Toronto bars eventually turning down.

44 EIGHTEEN BRIDGES SPRING 2012 WWW.EIGHTEENBRIDGES.COM WWW.EIGHTEENBRIDGES.COM EIGHTEEN BRIDGES SPRING 2012 45 Still, a corner had been turned; Hanson couldn’t figure it out,” Solo told me. “I was Which led to higher profile gigs with Just over seven million people watched has always held Hodgins in great esteem, working with David Shore”—of House shows such as Joan of Arcadia and Judg- ROTHKO VIA MUNCIE, INDIANA Episode 9 of Bones in Season One. Nearly and he honoured Hodgins, in his own fame—“at the time, and he’d taken over ing Amy. Another project, which ended The 1980s. Beginning of the long decade, the century’s eleven and a half million people watched winking way, so many years later, by running this show called because up not getting made, led to him meeting late works. Snow on the grid, field bisected Episode 10. The day those numbers came naming T. J. Thyne’s character in Bones Hart was sick.” (Hanson was off work for the producer Barry Josephson, known by a late model John Deere’s progress in low gear in, the pressure started to ease. Dr. Jack Hodgins…and by giving the many months due to a kidney infection.) for getting movies like Men in Black and with a front-end load of straw bales. Its operator’s daughter “I think it was Preston who first came to character fantastic private wealth, three “I always wanted to meet the guy who’d Enchanted made, but also for being linked dons her brace, thinks her scoliosis the devil’s work me and said, ‘You know, there’s something doctorates and boyish good looks. The created Traders, but I’d call him and he’d to the Heidi Fleiss prostitution scandal on her, a not-good-enough Christian. Her mother talks about this show. No matter what happens feeling is mutual; when Hodgins was never answer any phone calls. I finally in the mid-nineties. Hanson, being an scripture on the phone in the kitchen and the kitchen to it, you just can’t kill it’.’” appointed to the Order of Canada in 2010, ended up going to Toronto for a film shoot, equal opportunity kind of guy, was happy smells of coffee and it smells of dog. Christmas lights Hanson is referring here to Preston he invited Hanson to join him in Ottawa so we met, somewhere really ridiculous, to meet Josephson, who gave Hanson a Beckman, the Fox Network Executive for the ceremony. like a Red Lobster or something.” documentary on a forensic thriller writer strung along the eaves of bungalows, vehicles moored Vice President of Strategic Program While at UBC, however, Hanson was Solo (who, with his untidy hair and named . Hanson took it to bungalows by their block heater cords. Rumours Planning and Research who is one-third taking a variety of courses. One of these disheveled dress, looks more like an home and watched it and said to himself, of drunkenness and corruption sunk the Democrat’s bid of the three-person team that decides was screenwriting, taught by Jake Zilber. overworked legal aid lawyer than a killer “Okay, there’s a show there.” for mayor: For we favour the simple expression of the complex what gets made and where it goes on Hanson had never really given much Hollywood agent) was impressed that This speaks to a rather common mis- thought. The large shape’s impact of the unequivocal. Flat the schedule. I met Beckman in the soft thought to the idea of writing for televi- Hanson put on no airs and expected no conception about Bones, which is that the forms that destroy illusion, reveal truth. Now the union’s eye glass and brushed steel of Building 101 has twilight in it, and the city dump will stay where it is. sion or film, but he enjoyed the class with favours. “He just agreed to pick up sticks show is based on Reichs’ books; it is not. It’s on the southeast corner of the Fox lot. I Evening falls, or rises, or emanates from the figures. his friend, Scot Morison, the respected and come, but the thing was that no one based purely on Hanson’s interpretation asked him what it is that has made Bones The SportsPlex and Model Aviation Museum, the Muncie Edmonton television and film writer. in L.A. had ever heard of him. Everything of the work and life of a forensic anthro- and Hanson so successful, and he noted Mall and both quadrangles of Ball State University Zilber, through his connections to the he’d done in Canada counted for nothing. pologist according to what he saw in that first that network success is usually shed their associations, perform an unknown adventure Canadian television industry, offered an You almost have to start over. And so I had documentary. He read the books later, defined by ad sales, whereas cable defines in unknown space. Halogens illuminate an anecdote internship every summer, and Hanson to ask him, this guy who’d created shows of course, and adopted many of the char- of the spirit. You won’t see his face around here again. success through critical reviews and sub- told me that Zilber offered the internship and won awards, to write a spec script to acters. But early on, Hanson expressed The violet quarry hosts a greater darkness further in, scribers. “Still,” he continued. “What’s to Morison, but that Morison had already show people in L.A. what he could do. He a fear to Josephson that would recur as a the White River sleeps in its cabin of pack ice. notable about Bones is how shockingly accepted a summer job writing for a didn’t complain. He just did it.” problem after the first year of production, Among the graduating class an abstract feeling develops, consistent the ratings have been over the magazine back in Alberta. Hanson was Solo invited Hanson to stay at his namely that the studio, Twentieth Century years. But it’s a smart, funny, fun show Zilber’s second choice (“Because Scot house when he came down to L.A. for Fox, and the network, Fox Television, an inclination to symbolism born of the fatal car wreck on that leaves you feeling good and good was the really talented one in the class,” their first set of meetings with the network would want to make it into a CSI-style New Year’s, a spike in requests for Bob Seger about yourself. You don’t finish an episode Hanson told me), and he said yes. suits. The only thing Hanson brought with forensic show, rather than the relation- to the call-ins from a quasi-religious experience of limitless feeling like you want to kill yourself.” “Honestly,” said Hanson. “I had no him was a spec script. It was his take on ship-based crime comedy Hanson envi- immensity. To achieve this clarity is inevitably As for Hanson, he said, “I think there’s interest in becoming a screen writer until Ally McBeal. “To this day,” Solo told me, sioned. Josephson endorsed Hanson’s to be misunderstood. Their lives take on the dimensions a modesty there, a bit of a twinkle in his then. It was that internship that allowed “it remains one of the funniest things approach, and so did the studio, more of the fields, the city, its facades and its plan, whose happiness eye, that maybe he doesn’t take it all too me to meet Brian McKeown, the guy who I’ve ever read. It was just fantastic, really or less. Dana Walden and Gary New- will be their own. Rent, food budget, sweaters seriously, although he’s very passionate ran The Beachcombers. When Brigitte got absurd and really funny, and yet the guy man, high-ranking studio executives, indoors. Basketball, basketball, and a second marriage. about what he does, of course. I get the pregnant and we needed some money, I just who wrote it was sleeping on the couch at were at that first pitch meeting, along feeling that he probably hasn’t changed – Karen Solie started faxing story ideas to Brian. I got to my old house. As soon as I sent the script with the head of network development, all that much from when he started. And write an episode of The Beachcombers, and out, people were crying laughing, and he Jennifer Nicholson Salke, and as a unit they I think he can distinguish between what then he hired me as a story editor.” got a job almost instantly.” listened to Hanson hum and haw and The three studio executives assured The network kept moving the show, he does for a living and what his personal That was in 1989. By 1992, he was Hanson set to work as a writer on shows twitch and fidget. Hanson they supported his vision, as did, which premiered September 13, 2005, tastes might be. He understands what his writing episodes of The Road to Avonlea, like David Kelley’s Snoops and a show run “You have to understand,” Hanson told initially, the network executives. They all over the timetable map, which wasn’t job is, and who he is appealing to.” by 1994 he was writing for North of 60, and by Rob Thomas called Cupid, establishing me of that meeting. “I’m the world’s worst ordered thirteen episodes, the show went helping, but the fourth episode, in which a Executives like Preston Beckman and by 1995, he’d developed Traders, a show himself as versatile, reliable and easy to pitcher. These people laughed at me. into production and that’s when the prob- bear was opened up to find it had ingested Bruce Margolis applaud Hanson’s work, that ran for eighty-three episodes from work with. The Cupid experience was They looked at each other. I kept talking, lems began. most of a human arm, proved popular but there is still the view held by some that 1996-2000, and which attracted the atten- invaluable, Hanson told me, because, due not even sure what I was saying. They “It became clear very early,” Han- with the audience. Also, the network his shows are the pack animals of network tion of Hollywood agent Matt Solo. to a falling out between Thomas and the interrupted me and said, ‘Umm, Hart, is it son told me, “that despite everything, found that no matter where they moved television doing the heavy lifting of bring- “I called him up out of the blue in two show runners, Thomas ended up as going to be…an hour long show?’ Yeah, they really did want a CSI-style show. I the show—Monday night, Tuesday ing in the numbers so that the sexier, 1998,” said Solo, his mouth creasing the last man standing…except for Hanson, yeah, I said, right…an hour. Sure, it’ll be an just kept telling people, ‘I’m not going to night—there were always seven or eight edgier work can be done by more high- into a wry smile as we sat in his eighth who happened to be standing there, too. hour. ‘And can you say something about, do it’. Honestly, I thought I was going to million people who managed to find it. profile Emmy-bait. Hanson’s friend Dave floor office at the William Morris “Suddenly, Rob is the show runner, and you know, the tone, maybe?’ Right, the lose my job a few times.” The pressure to The show was resonating with viewers, Thomas sees it that way. “I don’t think Endeavor offices on Wilshire Boulevard he makes me the co-executive producer. tone, right, yeah, well, it’ll be, well, like me, change the show was coming from every surprising the network, surprising the Hart’s shows are treated with the respect (WME is the template agency for the popu- Overnight, I’m sitting in on meetings with like my personality. They looked at each corner, but Hanson closed his ears and studio, surprising even Hanson some- they’re due by the network,” he told me. lar HBO comedy Entourage). “And he never studio bigshots, and I’ve only been in L.A. other. ‘Okay, can you perhaps quantify kept working. “I kept saying I wanted it what, given the fact that it was not being “Hart’s shows are the bread and butter of returned my calls. Ever.” for a few months. I learned so much those that in some way?’ Well, you know, it’ll have to be about the characters, and people in given preferential or even stable time television, and they wear their learning Perplexed, Solo (whom Hanson calls first six months. Even though the show some humour, some pathos, some bathos. suits kept saying things like, ‘You haven’t slots. Then, perhaps due to the positive and humour lightly, whereas something He Who Works Alone) continued to try only lasted fourteen episodes, at the end of But I’m not doing a CSI show. That’s not earned it yet with these characters. It has reviews of an episode just before Christ- like Terra Nova is a failed experiment in to reach Hanson, with no success. “I it I was a co-executive producer!” me. I’m not your guy on that kind of show.” to be more plot-driven’.” mas, the show made a quantum leap. network indulgence. Shows like Terra

46 EIGHTEEN BRIDGES SPRING 2012 WWW.EIGHTEENBRIDGES.COM WWW.EIGHTEENBRIDGES.COM EIGHTEEN BRIDGES SPRING 2012 47 a nad Ca s Nova hit you over the head with a baseball Hanson’s modesty in this regard counts, like…like helping blind people or e zin a bat, but people respond to Hart’s shows may simply reflect the tension he feels becoming a missionary or something?” g a M

because they’re good, smart, and, most between what he’s doing (entertaining “You want to do mankind a real of importantly, don’t insult me by overstating millions), and what he might think he service?” says the spokesalien. “Tell ark m everything. I’m telling you, Hart couldn’t ought to be doing but isn’t (creating lasting funnier jokes.” trade write stupid if his life depended on it.” works of art). “I’ve heard Hart imply Hart Hanson tells funny jokes. He tells stered i

that he considers what he does to be them to a mass audience. He might carry on eg r a s The making of even a single episode of somehow ‘inferior’ to writing great nov- with Bones and The Finder, he might move i nes a network TV show is a logistical night- els,” Jack Hodgins told me. “But I think to cable, he might even quit and go find a zi aga

mare; any given set at any given moment is he says that only because of the short publisher for the novel he wrote thirty-two M an crawling with dozens of extras, directors, life-span of a show in series television.” years ago. But whatever he does, we should i anad assistant directors, directors of photog- Assigning cultural value can be a bit of a ignore him when says his work glances off C ne raphy, assistant directors of photogra- mug’s game anyway, as Hanson’s friend us. He Who Works Alone seconded this i enu phy, makeup artists, producers, assistant Dave Thomas noted when I spoke with notion. “There’s every chance that Hart G producers, executive producers, carpen- him in Malibu: “I remember talking with could alternate between the kind of work ters, electricians, lighting crew, sound Marty Short about this sort of thing one we’re aware of and the kind of work that crew, prop masters, caterers, agents, per- time, and he was agonizing about whether will surprise people. I wouldn’t be shocked sonal assistants, and even occasionally he should take this part or take that to see him go in a complicated character one or two of the stars. And all of these part, and I said to him, ‘Marty, Jesus, in direction in the future, even though he people have opinions and egos. Someone the Year 2500 all show business will be loves the work he’s doing now.” needs to be there to make the trains run remembered in one paragraph with a “What’s going to happen in Hart’s on time while also steering the creative picture of John Wayne. It doesn’t fucking career,” said his friend Dave Thomas, “is vision. That’s the show runner. He or matter’.” that people he worked with will tell people, she has to be a cross between Stalin and Maybe not in the Year 2500, and I worked with Hart Hanson. Because the Mother Teresa. maybe not even in the greater or even the next thing he does is going to be better, But Hart Hanson on set appears to smaller scheme of things, but it might and the thing he does after that is going to be neither. He looks and acts like a sound matter to Hart Hanson, if only because be better still. And people are just going to technician, like some guy hanging around at every crossroads in his career, when be hoping some of it rubbed off on them.” waiting for someone to tell him what to do faced with a choice—leaving the sciences One evening, after a shoot for and when to do it. This would be okay, in university, moving to UBC to study The Finder, set in a church where the except that he’s the guy who is supposed writing, taking the internship with Jake lead character Walter and his brother to tell everyone else what to do. Walking Zilber, making the no-safety-net move to infiltrate an AA meeting to help them from the Bones set back to Hanson’s office L.A.—he’s taken the bold step. And then, find their long-lost mother, I asked TRADITIONAL. TRADITIONAL. one day, I asked him what it was like to be when he was finally given the opportunity Hanson if he truly wants to do something in charge of shows that tens of millions he’d waited so long to realize, the kind different, something darker or with more of people watch every week, whether he of opportunity that so few get and that complicated characters, or if he’s happy and felt that conferred any particular status or so many in the entertainment business content making people laugh and giving power. He shook his head vigorously. would not just sell but would subdivide them an hour’s entertainment once a week. “Absolutely not,” he said. He took a their first-born to get—namely, being “What I know I’m good at, is that hand off one of the crutches he was using given sixty million dollars by a major net- I can work fast,” he said. “Which is a to support his broken ankle and waved it work to create your own show—only to good thing in network television. But around the Fox lot to indicate the entire have the network turn around and almost I’d love to find out what would hap- operation. “What I do, what we do, these demand that you change the entire tone pen if I didn’t have to work fast. On are passing entertainments. My show, and thrust of the show, Hanson simply said cable, to do fewer episodes, to have the it just glances off people. Someone who no. “I’m just not that guy,” he told them. luxury of having all your scripts done writes a great novel—take a novel by Jack Hanson’s next step may, again, be before you even start shooting a season, Hodgins—that is a piece of work that the bold one, but the trick is going to be wow, I wonder what that would be like? might literally change someone’s life. A figuring out precisely what the bold step On network, a season is just a track you’re great novel is part of someone’s mental is; sometimes the hardest thing to do is sprinting on and there’s a train closing on furniture forever. Maybe he sells ten thou- to remain in the right place. In Stardust you. All the time, and faster and faster to- sand copies of a book, I don’t know, but Memories, Woody Allen, via his alter ego wards the end of the season. I guess I’d every single one of those people is going Sandy Bates, meets a group of Martians, be a bit worried about cable. I mean, what CANADIAN MAGAZINES MAKE YOUR INTERESTS MORE INTERESTING. From to remember that book, and probably be and he asks them what he should do with if I found out all I had going for me was changed by it. Millions of people might his life and talent, the implication being that I was fast?” Hanson paused, thought Women’s issues to Travel, all written from a refreshingly Canadian viewpoint you won't find watch my shows but an hour later they that comedy, film, art, all of it, is pointless about it for a minute. “But still, it’d be nice anywhere else. Just look for the Genuine Canadian Magazine icon at your favourite news- can’t remember what it was about. What in the face of human tragedy. “Shouldn’t I to work without hearing that train coming stand, or visit magazinescanada.ca to find what interests you. I do…it just glances off people.” stop making movies and do something that at you all the time.” EB

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