What's next: CBS has nabbed Hall's new project, a family-based drama about a teenage girl who has metaphysical experiences, set in an everyday environment. Said Hall, "It's not as extreme, but the concept is not unlike Signs, where an extreme thing is happening but the lives of the people are very ordinary."
Casting opportunities: The project is in the outline stage, but Hall has established her main characters: "The good casting parts are the father and the daughter. The mother is very involved, too. This is a couple in their late 40s, who probably got married young. They have three teenagers: The girl is 16, a younger brother who's 15, and an older brother who's almost 20. But it's really a father/daughter story, because the father is a cop. It's a typical working-class family in which reputation and respectability is everything. So the fact that this girl believes herself to be having mystical experiences is something that threatens her father's position in the town." Hall admits the casting is still "wide open." She promises many other roles for teenagers, as well as bosses and partners for the father. No casting director is yet attached.
Her resume: In college at James Madison University, Virginia, she studied writing--everything but screenwriting, that is. Her older sister, Karen Hall, was already in L.A. writing for television. Said Hall, "I came out here to be a novelist. I wrote a novel, I got an L.A. agent for it, but the agent wanted to immediately send me to work in TV." The agent sent one of her one-acts to Gary Goldberg, who was just launching Family Ties, which became Hall's first job. Newhart followed. "And then I decided to make the switch to drama. Comedy is room writing--everybody sits in a room and calls out lines. I was way too introverted. Writing is an interior process for me." On the strength of one of her novels, she was recruited by Josh Brand and John Falsey for their new series A Year in the Life; she stayed for Northern Exposure and I'll Fly Away. Next followed Moonlighting and Chicago Hope, and, of course, pilots that didn't get picked up. One of her more successful pilots was Judging Amy.
Pilot seasoning: "The pilot becomes a template for the whole series. So every decision you make in the pilot is something that carries through--everything from the tone of the show to how much family versus how much courtroom. There are a thousand little rules you make about the microcosm. My job continues to be guiding that vision overall. I'm still involved in the day-to-day, I still write scripts. But as the show goes on, I try to delegate."
Who Amy is, really: Hall explained, "Amy [Brenneman] wanted to do the series because her mother is a Juvenile Court judge, because Amy grew up in that world, knowing a lot of social workers. But Amy's character is different from what her mother's experience was. She was one of the first women at Harvard Law School, and she was one of the first women judges, and the juvenile system was brand-spanking new when she became a judge, so she was much more pioneering. We use that concept that she is a woman in a man's profession, but a lot less so than when her mother was doing it. And her mother's personality is much more like Maxine's [Tyne Daly's character]. There's some of Amy's life blended with some of my life."
Judging actors: Her producing partner, Joe Stern of L.A.'s Matrix Theatre, has helped her articulate what she looks for in an actor. "I'm a very verbal writer," said Hall. "So I like actors who are facile with language, who can turn a phrase, who, Joe says, act on the line, not in between. Like Kevin Rahm, who we just added to the show. You can put anything in his mouth, and he can turn the phrase. The whole cast is like that."
Her favorite writing experience: Because she'd always written fiction, she felt I'll Fly Away was the closest she's come to feeling the two worlds merging, the one during which she didn't feel the need to simultaneously write a novel. And working with David Chase was a thrill. "I remember the first script by him I'd ever read. I couldn't believe that he existed in the world and that I got to write with him and learn from him."
Her career setbacks: "Right before the opportunity for Judging Amy fell in my lap, I was pretty discouraged. I had done three pilots that didn't get on the air, and I had written another that I really liked that I didn't think was going to get on the air. I was thinking, Maybe I should do something else, maybe a production company of my own, doing something less mainstream. With women, you sometimes feel you're not going to get more than the one chance. It's probably just a myth, but you feel it."
What the future may hold: She'd like to write a play. Last season she wrote a five-page scene--double the length of a standard TV scene--and Stern told her to write a play and get it out of her system. "I'm intimidated by it, but that's OK," said Hall. Pressed to decide, she'd name Beckett and Pinter as her favorite playwrights. "There's something metaphysical about looking at a Beckett play, that makes you see the connective tissue. I would like to try to do that in the new show--obviously not use that kind of language and that kind of conceit, though."
What she watches on TV: The Sopranos, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry Sanders, The Simpsons, The History Channel--and sometimes Judging Amy.