Hobart and William Smith Colleges

24 August 2019 Falchuk 93, L.H.D. 14 Profiled in WSJ

Brad Falchuk 93, L.H.D. 14 has quietly become one of the television industrys most influential and in-demand producers, Wall Street Journal Magazine reported this month in its profile of the award-winning co-creator of Glee and American Horror Story and executive producer of American Crime Story.

In Why Brad Falchuk Is Hollywoods Best-Kept Secret, Falchuk discusses his personal and professional life, his ambivalent relationship with fame, and his new and ongoing projects including his forthcoming Netflix series The Politician and the second season of the FX drama Pose, which explores the LGBTQ ballroom subculture and communities of color during the peak of the AIDS crisis in New York City.

At HWS, Falchuk was an English major with a concentration in theater. He launched his writing career during an independent study with Associate Professor Emeritus of English Elisabeth Lyon when he wrote the script that helped him secure admission to graduate school at the American Film Institute.

The full article is reprinted below.

Read more about Falchuks career and his life of consequence.

Why Brad Falchuk Is Hollywoods Best-Kept Secret

The press-shy man behind Ryan Murphyand husband to Gwyneth Paltrowhas signed a major production deal of his own with Netflix. How the writerproducerdirector, out with The Politician, is carving his own path

ByAlex Bhattacharji

Updated Aug. 14, 2019 3:10 pm ET

On the secondfloor of Building 12 on the Fox Studios lot in the Century City section of Los Angeles, home to Ryan Murphy Television, Brad Falchuks office sits beside that of his mentor Murphy, who first hired him as a junior writer onNip/Tuckin 2003 and with whom he has worked on more than a half dozen series, includingGlee, American Horror Story, American Crime Story, Scream QueensandPose. The two workspaces are similar in size and dcor. However, one contains a trove of Boston Red Sox and Bruce Springsteen memorabilia and Falchuk himself, a trim, muscular man in a white V-neck tee, paint-spattered carpenter pants and work boots, who straightens a stack of scripts before making his way to a story meeting.

The 48-year-old writer-producer-director warmly greets his friend Tim Minearthe two, along with Murphy, created the Fox hit procedural9-1-1. Literally, I googled my name yesterdayas one does, Minear says, gently needling Falchuk, and the first thing that came up was Brad Falchuks freaking Wikipedia page.

Id be happy if that was the first thing that comes up, says Falchuk, aware hes trending because of an association of his own. You wouldnt believe some of the bullshit I see.

Over the past several days, news that Falchuk and Gwyneth Paltrow, 46, his wife of nearly nine months, spend several nights a week apart in separate houses has spread across the internet and social media. The latest fuel on this mid-June day: Meghan McCain deriding Falchuk and Paltrows living arrangement as rich people stuff, ignoring that Paltrow and Falchuk stated this setup was made in deference to the needs of their teenage children from previous relationshipsIsabella and Brody, from Falchuks marriage to Suzanne Bukinik; and Apple and Moses from Paltrows with Coldplay frontman Chris Martin. Such are the perils when the person you love and are married toand yes, for now, live with four days per weekis not just an Oscar-winning actress and the CEO and founder of Goop but also a go-to target for celebrity gossip pages.

Falchuk is concerned with more pressing matters. Wait. When isPosepremiering? he asks as he takes a seat. Is that tonight? After the office assistant confirms that the second season of the hit FX seriesabout New Yorks LGBTQ ballroom subculture and communities of color during the height of the AIDS crisisis indeed coming back this evening, Falchuk nods and returns to discussing the scene at hand for9-1-1: Lone Star, 9-1-1s newly greenlighted Texan offspring. Falchuk, who has collected two Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe (as well as a combined 10 nominations), is no stranger to multitasking. In addition to his series on air, he is putting the finishing touches on the highly anticipated Netflix showThe Politician, which starts streaming in September and stars Ben Platt, Jessica Lange and Paltrow. He also has numerous projects in various stages of development, both in collaboration with Murphy andnow that he has launched his production company, Brad Falchuk Teley-Vision, and signed a reported four-year deal with Netflixon his own.

For all his proximity to fame, Falchuk has preferred to operate in the background. On this day, while Murphy is in New York doing a press tour for Pose, Falchuk will hunker down in his office and write a scene about the pain of trans parenthood for the eighth episode of the new season. For nearly two decades, this has been a mutually agreed upon division of labor. Im not the person out front. Never been my thing, Falchuk says. But its to a fault. It has cost me.

Still, Falchuk has quietly become one of the television industrys most influential and in-demand producers. His deal with Netflix is reportedly in the high eight figures. Netflix didnt merely want to keep the Murphy-Falchuk producing team together, they wanted Falchukwhom Ted Sarandos, the companys chief content officer, calls a remarkable individual creative forceto pursue his own projects. Indeed, in the weeks since the deal went into effect, Falchuk has already set three new shows, with more in the offing. Long averse to attention, Falchuk is venturing far from the shadows now. Im launching a company, and people need to understand who I am, Falchuk says. Ive operated as a light next to a very bright light.

To be clear, Falchuk is referring to his work partner, not his romantic one. In fact, Paltrow bristles when her husbands contributions are slighted. She says that while filming a promotional video forThe Politician, she was asked: What is your favorite Ryan Murphy show? I was like, Excuse me one fing second! Paltrow recalls. People think Ryan is a one-man band. Its never bothered Brad, but at the same time, he is invested in creating his legacy.

Paltrow is hardly the only one who encouraged Falchuk to strike out on his own and become more visible. My agent always pushes me, he says. My brother. My friends. And Ryan always pushes me.

Turns out, it takes a village to raise a reluctant television titan. Hes already won and been successful at launching things, says Murphy. Because I am front and center, I do probably get too much credit. None of the shows that we have would work or be successful without Brads leadership.

Theyre going in,theyve got to save the day, Falchuk says, digging into the pilot of9-1-1: Lone Star, which will star Rob Lowe and air on Fox in January 2020. Falchuk, Minear and two producers jump back and forth between scenes and dead-end more than onceall what Falchuk calls invisible steps toward what they hope will be yet another hit.

The palpable progress results from Falchuks sixth sense. Brad somehow cannot just see a hole in a story, he can smell that somethings wrong, says Ian Brennan, who co-createdGlee, Scream QueensandThe Politicianwith Falchuk and Murphy. And indeed, in short order, Falchuk sniffs out the gaps in Lowes character, a fish-out-of-water New York fire chief. 9-1-1. Hello, whats your emergency? Every one of our characters needs to have an answer, Falchuk says. The problem with Rob is that theres an air of perfection about him. But beneath that, whats his emergency?

A few minutes later the meeting breaks when Sarah Paulson, who has starred in eight seasons ofAmerican Horror Storyand also inAmerican Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson, comes in bearing hummus. The acclaimed actress is willing to trade dip for script help with her titular nurse inRatched, Murphys forthcoming prequel toOne Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. In the past, Paulson has sought out Falchuk to craft a scene, most notably one between the conjoined twins she played onAmerican Horror Story: Freak Showthat she calls one of the greatest acting challenges of my life. According to Paulson, the key to Falchuks writing is his otherworldly ability to sense human emotion. Brads an extraordinarily great listenerhe picks up on all the tiny things that you may not mean to say, she says. Its actually whats so great about his writing, that ability to read nuance. Its just about authenticity.

Although Falchuks sensitivity came from within, it was shaped under Murphy, who uses his position to create work that celebrates diversity and the LGBTQ community. At times, Falchuk has been the lone straight man in the writers room. I feel so lucky that I am mentored by a gay man whos powerfuland coming from a place of looking to elevate people, Falchuk says. The only way to have compassion is to understand [peoples] livesto hear their stories.

WhereGleebroke ground in representation,Pose, a show co-created by Steven Canals, a first-time producer and queer person of color, stands as a towering tribute to empowered storytelling. A lot of writers in Hollywood believe they can write anything, says Janet Mock, the acclaimed memoirist, who is a writer, director and producer on the show, but Brad understands that Steven and me, we are the authorities on the specific experiences that we go through. He can listen in the room and he can translate the themes and the points of injustice that I faced, as a trans woman of color, into the character.

The old assumption that embracing a niche subculture would limit a shows commercial appeal is, thanks in part to Murphy and Falchuk, starting to fall away.Poseattracted critical acclaim in its first season, and just one episode into its second, it was preemptively renewed for a third. For its part, Netflix sees the audience-building benefits in Falchuks storytelling. He seems to have an amazing ability to understand and to tap into the human condition and tell stories about people that are so specific they become universal, Sarandos says via email.

Falchuks storytelling is informed by a personal narrative that is marked by a few emergencies. In 2008, at 37, Falchuk was found to have a mass on his spinal cord. Doctors told him it was cancera misdiagnosis, which could have killed him. Had he gone forward with radiation treatments, the massin actuality a collection of abnormal blood vessels called a spinal cavernous malformationmight have bled out. Luckily, he got properly diagnosed thanks to Best Doctors, the medical consultation service founded by his father, an internist and a professor at Harvard Medical School, and run by his brother. Following a second opinion from a neurosurgeon, Falchuk underwent surgery, which saved his life but left his spinal cord permanently damaged.

Fortunately everything important works, Falchuk says. However, the surgerys after-effects still reverberate throughout his body. Theres just pain, constantly, he says. Sometimes I want to crawl out of my skin, or my hand feels like its stuck in a beehive. Whats more, Falchuk lives with another potentially fatal cavernous malformation in his brain, which could start bleeding at any time. Its like walking around with a guy with a gun at the back of your head at all times, he says. At any point, he could pull the trigger. He probably wont, but he could trip.

Although cavernous malformations are only sometimes hereditary, he inherited the condition from his father, Kenneth, who died in 2018, at 77. Kenneth was raised in Maracay, Venezuela, and moved to Brooklyn at 12. He eventually attended Harvard Medical School, became chief resident at Bostons Brigham and Womens Hospital (then Peter Bent Brigham Hospital) and joined the faculty at his alma mater, where he emphasized open-minded observation in diagnosisa tenet he brought to Best Doctors. Falchuks mother, Nancy, worked as a nurse and later at Hadassah, the Jewish womens organization that supports open-access health-care initiatives in Israel; she eventually rose to president of the organization. His younger sister, Aimee, once a lobbyist, is now a psychotherapist. Falchuks older brother, Evan, left a partner-track post at a Washington, D.C., law firm to run Best Doctors, which later sold for more than $400 million. In 2014, he made an unsuccessful run for governor of Massachusetts as a representative of the United Independent Party, which he founded.

Amid this accomplished family of academic achievers, there was Falchuk, the middle child, a good kid with bad grades. If his test scores were low, his self-regard was lower. In high school, Falchuk played baseball, lacrosse and basketball and shot horror movies on a VHS camera, but, he says, I was not the guy you could point to and say, That guys going somewhere. For a time, though, he did stand out. In a private school full of progressive kids, Falchuk wore a jacket and tie and, going against his beliefs, declared himself a Republican. Thats what a smart person looks like, Falchuk says of his conservative costumery. I was just playing a part to cover up a deep insecurity: I know Im not special, so what can I do to make myself seem special?

During his sophomore year at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Falchuk was diagnosed with severe dyslexia. He says it was true catharsis. Having named the cause of his pain and perceived failures, he could address it. For the first time, he began getting positive feedback from professors, particularly on his writing.

After graduating, Falchuk drove cross-country to attend film school in L.A., at American Film Institute, and never left. It took him a half dozen years of spec scripts and pitches to land a writing job at a second-rate sci-fi show (Earth: Final Conflict), then another (Mutant X). Things changed when he was hired onNip/Tuck. Within a year, Falchuk had ascended to Murphys right hand. He was a star then, and hes a star now, says Murphy. He and I will always be working on something [together] until Im lowered into a coffin in the ground.

While working onNip/Tuck, Falchuk and Murphy became writing partners and producedPretty/Handsome, a show about a trans gynecologist. The pilot was shot for FX in 2008 but never aired. I dont have any regrets, Falchuk says. IfPretty/Handsomegoes, we dont doGlee. That genre-bending series, which ran six seasons, fundamentally altered Falchuks personal and professional lives. He met his future wife when Paltrow guest starred on the show in 2010, and he found his groove. When we didGlee, Murphy says, we used to say I was the brain, Brad was the heart and Ian the funny bone. And I think thats true. Brad is the heart of every show hes worked on.

Falchuk is prepared to play that part, and others, as he strikes out on his own. Everything is coming together for him, Murphy says. He did the emotional and creative work to get all these things. Im excited to see where he is going to go, because he always surprises me.

Falchuk grants that hes in a good place, albeit an unfamiliar one. Im going to have independence, he says. I have my own company. Im stepping away from the people Ive allied myself with and where Ive had a lot of successand thats terrifying. So my emergency is: Am I good enough to do that? But thats always been my emergency. Am I good enough?

Its Lunchtime, nearlya day after we last met, and Falchuk is sitting in the Grill on the Alley in Beverly Hills. The intervening hours have unfolded in typical fashion. He wrote a poignant scene forPoseand then went home and cooked dinnera recipe from a Goop cookbookbut only he ate. (Paltrow is on a cleanse.) Then the two took a sunset walk on the beach in Santa Monicawhere they went unrecognizedand returned home to watch the finale ofChernobylbefore turning in early. Theres a media version of her and me, Falchuk says, but were just home cooking dinner. Or shes just cooking me breakfast. Thats all. We could not be a more normal couple.

The two rarely discuss headlines, no matter how annoying they may be. Gwyneth has a very tough skin. Shes like, Youve got to relax, he says. At the end of the day, were getting into bed togetherand nothing from the outside world or anybodys opinion means anything.

If the celebrity commentariat had checked, they might have learned that Falchuk just sold his house in Brentwood a few days before. Im moving in September. Weve just done it slowly, he explains. Divorce is terrible, even when its the right thing to do. And its really hard on kids. Blending their families is going well precisely because they havent rushed matters. Come September, he says, were all gonna Brady Bunch it up, and itll be great.

That same month, he and Paltrow will be under the microscope again, asThe Politicianairs on Netflix. The series follows Payton Hobart, an overachiever determined to rise to ever-higher elected office, with each season tracing a different campaign, starting with student council president and including, if all goes to plan, a run for the White House. Its probably, everything told, my favorite thing ever that Ive done, Falchuk says.

Its a satire in which no character is spared, including Paltrows. She plays Hobarts adoptive mother, which Falchuk wrote as a much darker version of his wife. I steal from everyone, he says, and I know her better than she knows herself. Their time on set was terrific, except, he says, She gets a little handsy. After a moment, Falchuk second-guesses his humor and adds: Only with me. Not with anybody else. I shouldnt have made that joke.

Its true, says Paltrow. I was handsy.

At first, when Falchuk said he was writing a part for her, Paltrow didnt think he was serious. Although she acts less and less these days, she couldnt turn it down. Scheduling was difficult; working with Falchuk was not. We have such a strong friendship and deep knowledge of the other, so it was very easy, she says. I can be very impatient with acting these days, and he was really good at wrangling that impatient side.

In addition to working onPoseand9-1-1and the rest of his collaborations with Murphy, Falchuk is busy writing pilots and proposals to produce at Netflix. Hes gearing up to announce a full slate this fall, which will consist of a mix of comedy and drama, miniseries and documentary, and feature film projects. Hes just coming into his own now, Paltrow says. I said to him, Youre the best-kept secret.

Although Falchuk has come to terms with the need to raise his public profile, he has no interest in creating a two-celebrity household. That whole world of fame is her world, says Falchuk, who, with all due respect to Paltrow, doesnt mind having the occasional moment away, especially with his children. I always tell my kids, we have it greatbecause if I need to get us a dinner reservation in Rome, its easy. But when we get there, nobody knows us. I can operate anonymously in the world. And I like that.

A moment later, a group of diners pauses by the table in front of Falchuk, then breaks into smiles and nods of recognition before continuing toward the exit. Falchuk shakes his head. Look, he says, with a laugh. They must think Im Zach Braff.