Dennis Lehane on 'Black Bird,' How to Write a Realistic Serial Killer and End the Movies

Life is a series of trials and errors. If you're lucky, you can follow your passions from interest to interest until you've accumulated a multitude of experiences. Dennis Lehane, award-winning novelist, playwright, producer and screenwriter, has done just that, carving out an enviable career in a wide swath of the entertainment industry. His novels have been adapted to the cinema; his films have been critically acclaimed; his television work has elevated some of the best shows of this century.

But for years, the next item on Lehane's to-do list was showrunning. The writer of "The Wire" and "Boardwalk Empire" episodes had tried several times to develop and air his own series, but bigger forces held his dream at bay (including a TV show built around his beloved characters, Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro, which almost came to fruition).

Now, with the six-part Apple TV+ limited series "Black Bird," Lehane can add that key credit to his resume - and better yet, even as a first-time showrunner, he loved doing it.< /p> Related Related

"Not everything that could go wrong happened, but a lot of things that could go wrong did go wrong during filming," Lehane said. “And it was so much less stressful and scary than I expected. I was continually surprised at how much fun I had. I was having the best time of my life, even in total chaos. And that's southern Louisiana. It's hot as hell. Lightning. We had a hurricane. We've had COVID surges left and right. We had all of that. And yet, I loved it."

"Black Bird", an adaptation of James Keene's memoir "In With the Devil: A Fallen Hero, A Serial Killer, and A Dangerous Bargain for Redemption", was originally created by HBO. With five scripts ready to shoot, Lehane said the network eventually moved on, but let the series go to former HBO chairman and CEO Richard Plepler, who turned it over to Apple as an independent producer. . Lehane said that once Taron Egerton signed on to play the lead role — Jimmy Keene, a criminal with a chance to go free if he could get a confession from suspected serial killer Larry Hall — "it was like , 'Oh wow. My God. It's happening.'”

Lehane has assembled a writers room made up of "people who aren't afraid to speak truth to power, smart, bright people" including Riccardo DiLoreto, Sean K. Smith and Steve Harris. He fell in love with the casting process, went to the set every day, and planted himself in the editing bay for post-production. He stuck with the series from start to finish, and now, as "Black Bird" is the first, IndieWire has told Lehane why he was so keen on telling this story, what she says about the compulsion men to 'weaponize' objectification, the one line that made co-star Paul Walter Hauser 'crumble', what's next on his to-do list and, yes, how Lehane fell in love TV showrunning.

“I feel like I wrote my last movie,” Lehane said. "I'm a TV guy. I'm just a TV guy."

The following questions and answers have been slightly edited for brevity and clarity.

IndieWire: Knowing you wanted to be a showrunner, did you get any advice when you were working in TV on what to look out for on your first show? Pitfalls to avoid?

Dennis Lehane: I'll give you a perfect example. So Greg Kinnear plays [Detective Brian] Miller, and we wanted to show, not tell, with Greg's character. So why is he so passionate about putting Larry [played by Paul Walter Hauser] behind bars? This is the relationship he has with his daughter. There are only two scenes with the girl - it's not big, it's small - but I know how it will sound in production. At this point, I know the scenes that are cut, that are not running. I know there's going to be a time when we're all going to say, “It's too hot. We went over budget. We are [behind] the schedule. Cut the scene of the little girl in the park. And I answered "No".

These two scenes seem like alien scenes, and maybe only someone who watches the show three times will really understand what we're trying to do. But I was like, “These scenes remain. Nobody cuts these babies, no matter what. And they tried it.