In this interview Terrence Winter says that he hopes Boardwalk Empire continues for a few more seasons so they can get up to the 1929 mob meeting in AC.
He also says they are soon to be where President Harding dies, but his death in bed is boring, but actually he died of food poisoning, eating oysters or clams on a train in California, and it might have been a political assassination. Although John Dean of Watergate fame doesn't mention this possiblity in his bio of Harding, Clarence W. Barron, the publisher of the Wall Street Journal, expressed foreknowledge of Harding's "sudden" death.
In reality, President Harding visited Atlantic City on occasion, and when there played golf at the Seaveiw Country Club, once playing a round with ten year old Sonny Fraser, the son of the Seaview golf pro. Harding lost a bet that Fraser wouldn't play the round in under 100 strokes, and he did, and then went on to become personal secretary to Hap Farley, the political boss who took over from Nucky Johnson.
The real Boardwalk Empire is even more interesting than the fictional Nucky Thompson one.
- Bill Kelly
Terence Winter on What’s Next forBoardwalk Empire
Boardwalk Empire fans can rest assured, Nucky Thompson
has gone over the edge and will be full-on gangster in season four. And as
anyone who's watched Sunday's season three finale knows (and those who haven't
should read no further unless spoilers aren't a concern), characters like Al
Capone, Chalky White, and Richard Harrow are also becoming valuable allies for
the man who really runs Atlantic City. To find out more about what's in store
for the large cast of characters, we turned to the man who runs Boardwalk
Empire, Terence Winter.
The slogan this season was that you can't be half a gangster
— but it could have also been that you can't have half a protagonist.
I'm not sure I agree. What do you mean?
Nucky's finally becoming a whole person: He finally realized
that he needs to actually care about the people in his life. He didn't know
Chalky White's phone number. He didn't know that Eddie Kessler had a wife and
children. He didn't know that Margaret had fallen in love with Owen. He had
underestimated his brother Eli. He thought he was being political and astute
about maneuvering relationships, that his understanding of politics elevated
him above other gangsters, but all of his various alliances were borne of
opportunity, not trust. He didn't have real relationships.
Then yes. In a broad sense, Nucky has changed. When the guy on the boardwalk
says, "Hey, you're Nucky Thompson," Nucky doesn't answer. That's a
very different Nucky from when we first met him. He's not a glad-handing
politician anymore. He's had some clarity about what matters, who matters, and
he's realizing it might be a good idea to have coffee with the people who are
responsible for his life, and ask how their weekends were. When we say,
"You can't be half a gangster," it's not just about shooting people.
He can't be half a gangster in the sense that he can't be half in this life, or
half pay attention. He has to pay attention to this business in a deeper way,
which is odd for a guy who basically made his way up as a politician, which is
supposedly based on personal relationships, but only in the most superficial
sense: "What can you do for me?" That was all selfishness and
opportunity. So when he says to Eli, "I don't want anybody coming close to
us that we don't already know," he's outlining how he's going to do
business in a different way, and I'm really looking forward to exploring that
version of Nucky in season four.
When exactly does the season finale take place?
June of 1923.
In two months, then, Nucky's M.O. would have to start to
change anyway, since President Harding dies in August of 1923.
Yeah. Unfortunately, that's going to happen off camera, because I don't know
how interesting a guy dying in bed is. [Laughs] But [Attorney General] Harry
Daugherty is still going to be in office for a while, although he's a vastly
different incarnation under Coolidge, and that's when we'll time jump to in
season four, in mid 1924, the late spring, when Coolidge is already firmly in
charge. And by then, the corruption in office isn't a secret anymore, and
Daugherty will be under a big spotlight. The Teapot Dome
will be in the headlines, and that's going to affect his ability to shuck and
jive, and that will trickle down to Nucky. That will certainly be one of many
challenges he faces — some will be political, some will be criminal, some will
be personal difficulties, but all of the things he'll face in season four will
be different from the past, and they will be equally challenging.
But no Gyp Rosetti. Did you decide to end this season
without a cliffhanger before you knew if Boardwalk would be renewed
for a fourth season, so it could serve as a series finale if need be?
You know, I didn't think about that. I'm always optimistic that we will continue,
and I'm not a huge fan of cliffhangers to begin with. They always feel sort of
cheap to me: "We're not going to tell you what happens to guarantee you
come back next September!" If you tell a compelling enough story, people
come back anyway.
Have you given any thought to how many subplots or
characters you'll have in season four? Some critics felt like there were too
many this season, many of whom would just vanish to the point where the
audience would forget about them. Even Nucky couldn't remember who Chalky was
[when he was concussed] ...
That's great how you put that: Nucky doesn't even remember Chalky. [Laughs] He
didn't even remember Eli, either. But that's the nature of the show. We have
such a huge cast, and so many different storylines going, so one of our rules
is leave them wanting more. That way, when you do see them, you're happy
they're there. Everyone's got their favorites — some people want more Al Capone
— but there's no way to get them all in one episode. Some of the episodes are
bigger than others, and sometimes we aren't as successful as when we drill it
down to two people. It's like music, and we have to go with what sounds right.
Or it's like cooking — a dash of this, a dash of that — and we're making a
meal. But with so many characters, somebody's going to get disappointed every
week, and there's not a lot to be done about that — unless we kill off half the
cast. And that would upset a lot of people, too. I look at this as one big
piece, like one big novel, and these episodes are but chapters of that novel.
You've said before you'd like to have six seasons. What's
the bigger picture — the formation of the Big Seven, the gangster conference in
Atlantic City, the beginnings of a
national crime syndicate? Are all these subplots to serve a greater whole?
Hopefully we'll get to six, if not more than that. Six at minimum to be fully
satisfied. And yes, if we get that far, I want to show the Big Seven. Nucky
almost alluded to that in episode nine, that he was sort of thinking along those
lines, so hopefully we'll get there, or even the end of Prohibition. So yes,
I'm thinking of a bigger picture. Certain people will come and go, and minor
players or certain people we meet along the way will come to prominence in
later years. Even just this season, Chalky's future son-in-law had a minor
story in episode two and then came back in a major way in episode eleven. In
season four, Chalky will rise to prominence a great deal. And you know the
history of 1924: Al Capone will take over Cicero
and come into his own. It's the year he wages war with Dean O'Banion, and we
know how that ends.
Will Van Alden be pulled into the North Side wars?
He'll be put in the middle of that. I'm a huge fan of history and it's
certainly fascinating and rich to depict. But the challenge and fun of it is to
mix it into that world, say with Van Alden and Dean O'Banion. I have a rule: I
will not alter the basic history of a real-life character to suit our fictional
needs in a big way. Lucky Luciano did get arrested in 1923 on a drug charge,
and he did get out of it by giving up his stash of heroin, but the
circumstances of that are fair game: What did they do with the heroin? Were the
cops dirty? And Al Capone and Nucky Johnson were definitely friendly. There's a
photo of them on the boardwalk together, that people dispute whether or not is
real or part of a smear campaign, but they did know each other well. But it
would be ludicrous by 1924, if during that time, he took a bunch of trips to Atlantic
City, so for us next season, the Capone story doesn't
go to Atlantic City a lot. He's got
to interact with Nucky in a different way.
Was it really necessary to dwell on all of Van Alden's
efforts to be a door-to-door salesman? Some of the detours — Van Alden selling
irons, Margaret teaching sex ed — took a long time to play out. Some critics
found the pacing too slow, the subplots too excessive.
Hey — if Van Alden going bananas on his boss was a sitcom, I would watch it
every week! [Laughs] I'm sorry not everyone found that interesting. To me, it
was worth all of that. Margaret, her story, and the whole birth control arc was
a journey. We picked her up and set her adrift. She has all this money and no
purpose, she finds meaning doing a greater good, and the ironic twist is that
she finds herself pregnant. Where she goes beyond that, you'll have to tune in!
But the thing is, what we're doing, these are all parts of a whole, and it all
connects, whether you know it or not. It's not haphazard or random, and we're
not going to abandon things that set up or add flavor or are part of a bigger
piece.
Does any of the criticism ever help, though? Do you ever
adjust the show based on critic response?
I tend not to read reviews; there's too much out there in cyberspace. I mean,
they even recap Jersey Shore!
[Laughs] I get it, they have a lot of space to fill up, but I've not done that,
no. Critics who do the weekly recap, I find that kind of absurd. That's like
reviewing chapters in a novel. Obviously, this has to work episode to episode, but
the endless analysis of every little thing? You have to watch the whole season,
you know? You can't just pick out things randomly, and those that do, they
don't understand that we're setting up something really big. I write the show
the way we want to see it and I'm happy with what we put out.
What are the challenges of revitalizing the gangster genre,
or introducing new types of characters to this genre?
For television? The latitude we have on HBO and the technology we have, we can
do everything as good, if not better, than in a movie. We've done things as big
and spectacular as feature films. The challenge is the genre itself, because
there are only so many variations on particular themes, so we're really finding
what's new and fresh there. There are only so many ways you can walk into a
speakeasy and shake a guy down, so to find what makes it different is our big
challenge as the series as the series progresses. Each episode that passes,
that's one less episode we can do it that way, and the writers room gets harder
and harder with each passing season. But that's the job.
So when you're writing a character like Gyp Rosetti, how do
you make sure he's not like Joe Pesci was in Goodfellas?
He's Italian and hotheaded and violent, and people are going to make
comparisons. Other than giving him a monocle, or other odd character traits,
there's only so many different versions of a gangster you can do. If this were
a western, it would be like horses. Of course, you see things that have been
done in the other movies, but the trick is to make each character as fresh as
you can. And people really responded to [Bobby]. I knew they would. If I was
confident about anything, Bobby Cannavale in your movie or TV show is going to
work.
Richard Harrow is a character we don't often see in this
genre. That's pretty fresh — and a fan favorite.
But even Richard Harrow, somebody once pointed out to me, was a type of
character in some other story or book. I don't remember which one, but
something else referenced a guy like him, and I was completely unaware of that.
I think he's unique for us, though. In some ways, he's a lone wolf, and even
the people who know him can't know him completely.
He had the romantic relationship subplot, which may or may
not be able to continue now that he's dropped a child on Julia's doorstep.
He's probably got a lot of explaining to do. I've found in my romantic life
that showing up at 2 a.m. covered in
blood is not a good idea. [Laughs] Chicks hate it when you do that. Take a
shower at least. Wash the kid up.
Gillian's not going to be too pleased with that custody
arrangement, if she's still around.
Without giving too much away, she will absolutely be around.
I love it! I have two little kids who watch Sesame
Street all the time, and for me, that was one
of the best honors the show could have gotten, to be on Sesame
Street. It was awesome. We even went and visited
the set, which was cool, even though Big Bird was asleep when we got there.
They sort of had him in storage. But it was great. Very flattering.
If you went on set for Birdwalk, did you also go on set
for Wolf of Wall Street?
They've been filming at the same studio where we shoot the show, so I have. I
was on the set for two different days. I got to see them shoot a sequence on a
yacht, a big action sequence that will involve special effects, and I got to be
there when Rob Reiner was shooting. It's always great to see a film you wrote
come to life.
How much input does Marty Scorsese have
on Boardwalk these days, especially when he's busy directing a film
like that?
You know, when he's directing a movie, he's completely in that zone, but I
generally speak to him about once a week, usually on a Sunday night or a Sunday
afternoon. That's when we catch up. He gives input mostly remotely, through
e-mail and phone and intermediaries. But even if he's working on four or five
things at a time, he has this amazing ability to focus and compartmentalize,
and he remembers everything. Marty and I talk all the time, who we like,
who we don't like, but he knows every actor who's ever lived and ever will
live. He knows actors who haven't even been born yet. That's how good
the guy is.
What was his reaction to the Taxi Driver homage a
few episodes back?
You know, I told him it was coming, and that it was a blatant homage. I said,
"I hope you enjoy it!" And he did. We also had a couple
of Little Rascals homages this year, and Three Stooges, but they
were so subtle. The Three Stooges one was a line, "Normally
parties bore me, but not this one," which is a line Curly says right
before he gets hit with a pie. I stole that for the New Year's Eve party scene.
And then Little Rascals, that's when Van Alden's boss tells him, "Now
George, be reasonable," which is from when Spanky's told, "Now
Spanky, be reasonable," although I don't know if that qualifies. You were
talking about highbrow cinematic references, and I'm talking about stuff I
shouldn't even be confessing! [Laughs] Oh, and one more thing — when Harrow
brings Tommy to the door, that's from the last shot of The Searchers, when
John Wayne comes back. That's our little inside joke.
You're developing another HBO project with Marty, about the
seventies. So if it goes forward, you'd have two period pieces on HBO.
Yes, yes. I think four or five might be the limit, though. [Laughs] It's taking
place in the seventies, in 1973, the beginnings of punk, disco, and hip-hop, in
New York City, the height or the
depth of the craziness in terms of the crime and political corruption and a
really interesting time to be in New York
and in the music business. I can't stop thinking about fun cameos we could
have, because it's the beginning of everything from the New York Dolls to the
very early Ramones to Grandmaster Flash, the list goes on. We'd want to show
CBGB, so maybe we'll probably rent the building and recreate it, so it can
live, God willing, another ten years.
How much of a gangster are you?
I could cheat on my taxes or something, possibly, write off a dinner that I
didn't really have. That's about as far as I'd go. But gangster, or gangsta?
Because that's a world of difference, from what I understand from the kids.
[Laughs] I'm not really gangsta. Not at all. I just write about them. It's fun
to pretend, at least on paper. But in real life, not so much.
