What makes a successful writer tick? How do they handle bad news? How have others changed their lives and how do they pay it forward?
If you want to learn from the best, you’ve come to the right place. Read on below for a deep dive into the mind of Jonathan Groff, writer and showrunner for such series as Black-ish, Happy Endings, Scrubs and How I Met Your Mother.
FD: Do you have any projects in development right now?
Jonathan Groff: I do. I’m still at 20th. I was at ABC Signature for many years and then they got folded into 20th last fall and they extended my deal. I’ve done a lot of work for them over the years. Sometimes I’m in a sort of supervisory role all the way from the very beginning of an idea through the development of it. Sometimes I come in a little bit later. And then I have my own projects, too.
FD: Do you have a life or career motto of any kind?
Jonathan Groff: I think a good career motto is the idea that success is working on stuff you like with people you like. And then other success generally will follow. I’ve been very, very blessed. I haven’t had toxic work environments. When I first started out, I had a couple experiences early on that were less positive, so I learned early that when I’m in charge, I’m going to try to make it pretty positive for people. So that’s one motto.
My brother also said one that I like a lot. He’s a wonderful writer, and he may have borrowed this, but it’s: just do the next right thing.
FD: “Do the next right thing” is a great one. There’s a productivity hack called The Hunter Method that leans into that idea of only focusing on ‘the one’ task before you. Nothing else exists until you complete that one thing. Supposed to help a lot with procrastination.
Speaking of procrastination — what’s your go-to when you find yourself procrastinating or side-tracked?
Jonathan Groff: I try to turn my procrastination into something positive, so then I see it as not really being procrastination in that way. Like I try to go and do something, exercise, take a hike, and that actually, if I let it, can also be this great way to clear your brain and get past writer’s block or to think about something differently, because I’m literally getting the blood flowing. It’s nothing new, but, you know, I think it was Madonna who said, “If all you do is exercise in a day, at least you’ve exercised.” So you’ve got to give yourself credit for the things you do get done.
Also, though, like all writers, I do have a little bit of the chores/cleaning disease, but just a bit. My wife will tell you that I don’t have it as acutely as she would like.
FD: If you had to do a cross-country road trip with a fictional character that you’ve written for before, who would you choose and why?
Jonathan Groff: Fictional character that I’ve written for before. Hmm? It’d be pretty fun to hang out with one of the Happy Endings characters. Like Brad or Max or Penny. But that’s partly because I know those actors are so fun to hang out with. It’s hard for me to separate the fictional. But I have a feeling if I were to take a road trip with Jenifer Lewis, who played Ruby on Black-ish, it would be pretty wild. I would see the world differently. We might not survive it.
FD: What are you reading and watching right now?
Jonathan Groff: I’m weirdly rereading. My list sounds like an AP English reading list — but I’m rereading Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.
FD: Do you have a favorite fiction book, something that’s stayed with you, or something that you love to give as a gift?
Jonathan Groff: I have so many favorite fiction books. It’s hard to say… It feels corny and obvious, but I always find myself rereading The Great Gatsby, even though it’s now become reviled and people want to take it off of the cannon, which I totally understand, but I think it’s such an iconic American story, and I’m fond of it, too.
I read it in high school and again in my 20s, and then I was on working on this TV show Ed, and there’s a whole story where Julie Bowen’s character who teaches at the high school, she’s teaching the Great Gatsby, and she meets the new principal played by John Slattery, and they clash over the way she’s teaching Gatsby. So I reread Gatsby for this episode of Ed, and it made me realize that I was looking for a way to do a single camera television show that was a little different, and I thought, how about doing a first person narrator who’s not telling his own story? Which is Nick in Gatsby. So I did a series that ended up being very cool called The Jake Effect. We made seven episodes for NBC. It starred Jason Bateman and Greg Grunberg. It never aired though.
Nonfiction, I’ve recently gotten into reminding people to read Southern California: An Island on the Land. It’s the history of Southern California, specifically L.A., written by an LA. Times journalist named Carey McWilliams. It explores the idea of what LA means in the national consciousness and what its different identities have been — the mission origin of it, the land speculation, and rise of Hollywood and agriculturalism. It’s just a great “what is this place” kind of book.
FD: Do you have a favorite older or classic TV show you like to rewatch?
Jonathan Groff: I’ve had the fun of rewatching shows with my kids when they’re watching them or rewatching them. I dropped in as my daughter watched 30 Rock or my son watched The Office. They both watched The Sopranos for the first time, so we get to rewatch a lot of those with them.
FD: Is there anything you can’t live without?
Jonathan Groff: I really like almond butter. And I really like avocados. I claim to have invented avocado toast, and I want to get that out there.
FD: We’re making it official.
Jonathan Groff: I started putting avocado on toast and smashing it and salting it and putting some Tajin or maybe some sriracha on it a long time ago, before it started showing up in Millennial coffee shops.
FD: What are your thoughts on posting on social media for writers?
Jonathan Groff: I don’t think you have to do it, but I have a daughter who’s doing sketch comedy in New York, and they post good stuff. In the heyday of Twitter, it was really good for joke writers. Maybe that’s BlueSky now? I think it can be an important part of the currency of what you need to do in comedy.
FD: Do you have a favorite thing that you’ve written?
Jonathan Groff: One of my favorite pilots is a pilot I wrote that never got made called ‘The Private Lives of Public People’. My dad was an Episcopal priest, so I’ve tried to go down the road of what the impact on a family is when the family business is religion. It was partly inspired by this idea of “who are the celebrities in our lives?” Because sure, we’re fascinated at what Lindsay Lohan and Kim Kardashian are up to, but, “Oh, my God, I ran into my kids’ kindergarten teacher. She was at an ATM taking money out, as I was getting gas across the street at midnight. And, like, what was she doing??” Or “I ran into my rabbi at Gelson’s supermarket, and he was wearing a fanny pack. Like, he wears a fanny pack??” You know what I mean? It’s this idea that the real celebrities in some ways are these people who have a special place in the community, and how they’re scrutinized.
FD: Do you remember the first story you ever wrote, something pre-TV when you were just a kid or your first experience writing a story?
Jonathan Groff: I remember writing a short story about an evil genius who wanted to take over the world when I was in the third grade or something.
FD: Do you have any plans to revisit that story?
Jonathan Groff: I don’t even know where it is. But I am doing a rewrite on a movie right now, an animated movie, and there’s a big, dumb villain character in it, and it’s fun to write that kind of character. A comically narcissistic villain.
FD: Do you have a go-to for when you get bad news?
Jonathan Groff: I think you kind of go: what can I learn from that? What can I repurpose from some of the ideas there? You’re always kind of filing ideas away, looking at the carcass of things that have been picked off and not going forward, and you go, well, I can use that, and I could use that. And I still believe in this relationship, but just maybe need to put it in a different context.
FD: Do you have any thoughts on what it looks like to pay things forward to the generation that’s coming up?
Jonathan Groff: I’m a big believer in paying it forward. I spend a lot of time just talking to people and giving them advice, but the advice has definitely tempered over the last few years, because boy, it’s tough. And you have to be realistic about expectations. Conan has said this over the years, there’s no guarantee. You can’t assume that you’re gonna have success. It doesn’t owe you anything, you know, there’s no fairness. I’m a big believer, though, in building your tribe, more than ever.
Conan had another great motto — “Don’t be cynical. Work hard. Be kind.” And I think that’s really great. Build your relationships so that people don’t just remember that you’re funny and smart and have great stories, but also that you’re nice. That you have integrity. That you’re fun to be in a room with. Because ultimately we should be working with good people, and having fun doing this.