Ep518 - Melanie Marnich, Screenwriter ‘Apples Never Fall,’ ’The Big C,’ ‘Big Love,' & 'The Affair'’

‘I didn’t grow up in a place where I was hanging out with screenwriters,” says Melanie Marnich. “I grew up in Duluth, Minnesota. I was a voracious reader and I think that sparked something in me, but I didn’t know that that would be a career.”

In college, Marnich was a journalism major with an emphasis in advertising. “I would up doing and loving TV and radio commercials.” She loved the job, but felt limited writing in spurts of 30- or 60-seconds. “Then I got the theater bug.”

Feeling that she had some of the right instincts but wanting a more formal degree, she went back to graduate school to learn the ins and outs of becoming a playwright. “That was the big leap, going from advertising to being a playwright. But again, after a few years, I felt like there was something more to do.”

Following her gut instinct once more, she pursued a career in filmmaking. “Out of the blue, my theater agent sent a play of mine to an agent in LA, who, unbeknownst to me, sent the play to the Showrunner of Big Love.” She went on to write 12 episodes of the hit HBO series.

In addition to Big Love, Marnich has credits for My America, The Big C, Low Winter Sun, The Affair, The OA, The Son, A Murder at the End of the World, and Apples Never Fall. “I think it was an extremely necessary path and the right path for me. I think to say that advertising + theater = TV.”

“I think if I had gone into TV sooner, I don’t think I would have had the tools I needed as a writer to build a career out of it. I think I learned a lot every step of the way and those various versions of storytelling that created in me someone who understood TV and had specific toolkit beneficial for TV.”

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