Shawn Ryan
Shawn Ryan
Shawn Ryanis an American screenwriter and television producer best known as the creator and showrunner of the television series The Shieldand The Chicago Code. Ryan also co-created the ABC series Last Resort, and produced The Unit, Lie to Me, Terriersand Mad Dogs...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScreenwriter
Date of Birth11 October 1966
CityRockford, IL
CountryUnited States of America
creative pressure levels
I would say on a creative level I put a lot of pressure on myself.
color lines
I'm perfectly happy to color within the network lines when I have to.
humble tv-shows knowing
I'm very humble in terms of knowing that television is an extraordinary collaborative medium and that one person alone cannot make a great TV show.
tv-shows tvs findings
To this day, nothing makes me happier than finding a TV show I really love.
problem back-and-forth no-problem
I have no problem at all going back and forth between cable and network.
watches made shows
Working as a showrunner has made it tougher to watch other shows and movies.
tv-shows want tvs
There are certain economics involved in making a network TV show that you want to amortize the costs of that, so the more episodes you make, the cheaper they all are individually.
ends worst shows
The worst thing you can do is end up with a network show on cable or end up with a cable show on network.
book responsibility feel-good
Series finales have that responsibility to leave you feeling good about entire series. You want to feel like the viewer closes the book satisfied. And if you strike out on the finale it skews how you feel about the entire series.
running stars tv-shows
One of the tricky things about running a TV show is that you just never know how good the guest stars you cast on a weekly basis, how good they're going to be in the episode. Sometimes they surprise you in good ways and sometimes they surprise you in disappointing ways.
character order levels
In order to appeal to a wider audience on network in order to survive, generally your characters need to be, at a base level, a little bit more likable.
practice different embrace
Obviously there are different standards and practices that are allowed on cable versus network. You just have to embrace what your network is going to allow.
team thinking years
I've worked in network and cable on and off for a number of years, and you just understand what your parameters are. A lot of times, I think the best work that my team has come up with comes from having to deal with certain boundaries.
art new-york kids
I was never that kid who grew up in New York and was always at the arthouse watching important films. I was the kid who grew up in the Midwest where there weren't any art films, and I watched TV. And that was really the medium that affected me and that I fell in love with.