EP Carlton Cuse Talks "Bates Motel"

[JamesG]

Resume Review: "Lost" and "Bates Motel" Boss Carlton Cuse Looks Back on his Long and Unique Career
by Natalie Abrams
2/27/15



When it comes to "Bates Motel", fellow executive producer Kerry Ehrin says she’s like Norma Bates in a lot of ways.

Does that make you Norman Bates?


On "Bates", Kerry Ehrin is very much the voice of Norma Bates. She writes Norma, and she writes Norma incredibly well. I think Kerry’s this beautiful, wonderful, nuanced character writer, and I’m very engaged by the plotting, the story mechanics, the fusion of nuanced character writing with pulpy storytelling.

I’m probably more the voice of Romero. Kerry really is the central writing voice on the show, but together, the show is a combination of our joint creative and aesthetic sensibilities, and it’s like this really interesting mix of chocolate and peanut butter: It comes out tasting pretty good.







What was the catalyst in wanting to do a Psycho prequel of sorts?


One of the things that has been a hallmark of my career is that I do a pretty good job of taking ideas that other people are actually interested in making and putting them on the air and figuring how to make them work.

Before I ever got involved, Universal Television had sold the idea of doing a remake of Psycho to A&E. They approached me and said, “Would you be interested in doing this?” My normal MO is if I get pitched something, and I find myself thinking about it consistently, then that’s something that I’ll pursue.

I hear a lot of ideas, and they quickly fade away in my brain, so those things I don’t pursue. I kept thinking about this, and I just thought there were some really interesting possibilities in reimagining the franchise and just taking some of the characters from the show and putting them in a whole different setting and context.

I invented the idea that Norman would have a brother, which would create this really interesting triangle relationship.




I pitched a bunch of ideas to A&E, they were really responsive, they really wanted to pursue the project, then I said to Universal, “I really would like to find someone to work with on this,” and then they put me together with Kerry.

Kerry came in, and Kerry had whole bunch of really wonderful ideas and was particularly interested in redefining the Norma and Norman dynamic. As we talked, our subset of ideas really fit together incredibly well. It was this magical collaboration — and still is.

I love Kerry to death, and we have such a great time working on the show together. There was this fusion of sensibilities. We’re different as writers, but we found this common aesthetic for "Bates" that I think really works. I love the show, and I think that the third season of the show is really good. I’m super proud of it.




To me, the thing that I really enjoy is — and I did this with Damon, I did this early in my career with Jeffrey Boam — the creative process of talking out an idea with a really talented collaborator. That’s the thing I just enjoy the most, which is working out stories with someone who is likeminded.

That’s the thing that fuels me, that’s the thing that gets me out of bed every day. I love that collaborative exchange, and that’s how I work best. I’m much less happy when I’m sitting and chasing the blinking cursor by myself.




There’s a really interesting book by this guy Joshua Shenk called Powers of Two that came out in the last few months, in which he argues that a lot of the greatest creative accomplishments have not actually been singular, but they’ve been out of duos.

We tend to embrace this idea that creativity is this singular thing, that one person has to be anointed, but I really do believe there is tremendous creativity to come out of a duo working together to problem solve. Having someone to dialogue with while you problem solve, to me, is really the essence of the creative process.


http://www.ew.com/article/2015/02/26...k-his-long-and