Noah Oppenheim on writing 'Jackie' and running NBC's 'Today'

The Business

KCRW

Tv & Film

4.6 • 676 Ratings

🗓️ 26 November 2016

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Noah Oppenheim spent his 20s working on NBC news shows. Then he left, hoping to make it as a writer in Hollywood. After a stint as an executive in reality TV, his first-ever script, Jackie landed on The Black List. Six years later, the film is finally premiering. Oppenheim tells us about watching Darren Aronofsky hand the project over to Chilean director Pablo Larrain, and his unusual career path, which has now taken him back to NBC, as a senior vice president in charge of Today.

Transcript

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0:00.0	A jail stint can really disrupt someone's life.
0:03.0	You can lose a job, a relationship, or thousands of dollars on fees, fines and bail.
0:08.0	Have I ever gone to jail?
0:09.0	Yeah, I just got out, actually.
0:10.0	If he doesn't show up the court, we've got to pay the $50,000.
0:13.0	No degree exchange, no kiss the bride.
0:16.0	There's no glamour in a jailhouse wedding.
0:19.0	Off the block, all six episodes tracing the path from city block to jail block and back
0:24.1	are now available on KCRW's iTunes page.
0:30.5	From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Kim Masters and this is the business.
0:37.2	At various points in the process, and I've told Pablo this, but I would say to my wife, I would say,
0:42.3	this guy is either a genius and this is going to be amazing or he's a lunatic and this is going to be a disaster.
0:48.3	Noah Oppenheim thought he was living a screenwriter's dream when Darren Aronofsky agreed to direct Jackie, his first ever script.
0:57.8	But the project stalled for years until Aronovsky handed it off to Chilean director Pablo Lorraine.
1:03.5	That was good news, though, Oppenheim wasn't entirely sure.
1:07.4	Oppenheim has had an exceptionally varied career.
1:10.4	He started in TV news, quit to become an executive in reality television, Oppenheim has had an exceptionally varied career.
1:14.9	He started in TV news, quit to become an executive in reality television,
1:17.8	quit that to become a full-time screenwriter,
1:21.9	and then circled back to take the helm of NBC's Today Show.
1:27.0	He tells us about all that up to an including the hiring and firing of Billy Bush. But first on the news banter, we talk about an
1:29.9	unusually strong Oscar race. Stick around. It's the business from KCRW.
	...

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