Hey everyone, welcome back to the Screen Ready Life. I'm Meg Lafour.

And I'm Lorian McKenna, and today we're really excited to be welcoming veteran actor-turn

director, John Werthas, to discuss his incredible work in front of the camera and behind the camera, especially in TV.

As an actor, John has done just about everything you can do, from small guest roles to series regulars on beloved network kits,

including playing Detective Kavi Esposito on Casa. regulars on

Beloved Network kits, including Playing Detective Harvey Esposito on Castle and Miguel Rivas on This is Us.

In addition to acting, John has added directing to his resume,

including directing episodes of This is Us and other shows like The Rookie Feds and Tracker.

John is joining us today to discuss his career, as well as how different departments of TV production like actors and directors work with writers.

Hi John, welcome to the show.

What's happening? Thank you for having me.

We're really excited to jump into our conversation, but before we do, John, I believe you've agreed to talk to us about your week or what we like to call Adventures in screenwriting. Are you up for it? Sure.

All right, good.

Loring, you go first.

Why was your week?

My week, I had a really good week.

One reason is that I'm really struggling with the engine of a pilot I'm writing and I have been trying really hard to recognize what those struggles are so that I can just sort of notice what they are like, oh, I don't know what the fucking show is is how can I write it if I don't know what the show is which is I don't have an engine like I have a great concept at great characters but like what is the show so I'm having to sort of figure out what works for me in the show. So I'm having to sort of figure out

what works for me in the past,

talking it out with a friend, trying not to overcomplicate the outline.

So I'm in these steps right now,

and then I realize today that what I need to be doing, which is what I'm doing,

is just writing the scenes that I love that I have in my head and not worrying about those seeing,

...