‘Shadow and Bone’ Showrunner Eric Heisserer Wrote 13 Screenplays Before His First Break

Back in 2016, Eric Heisserer made a New Year’s resolution. Knowing he’d be doing a lot of reading for work in the coming months, he decided he needed to commit to some “replenishing pleasure reading.” A friend recommended Leigh Bardugo’s “Six of Crows,” with the pitch that the YA fantasy duology was “ ‘Ocean’s 11’ in a ‘Game of Thrones’ world.” 

Heisserer, who was Oscar-nominated for adapting the 2016 Amy Adams sci-fi drama “Arrival,” “devoured” the novels, by his account, and then took to social media to follow through on the other resolution he’d made for that year. “People went on there to tell creators and artists things that they didn’t like. I was going to try and give back, and anything that I consumed—be it a song or a novel or a comic book or a movie or a TV show,” he remembers, “I would track down the creators and let them know how much I loved it.” 

He tweeted his appreciation at Bardugo, she offered her thanks, “and then we went on our merry way,” Heisserer says. And then a year later, he got a call from Netflix. 

The result is “Shadow and Bone,” a sprawling new series now streaming that combines “Six of Crows” with Bardugo’s other series, the “Grisha” trilogy, the first installment of which is title “Shadow and Bone.” Heisserer serves as the project’s showrunner as well as a writer and executive producer. 

That the book he picked up for nonprofessional reasons became the basis for arguably his biggest onscreen outing to date is an irony that isn’t lost on him. “I’ve certainly been a bridesmaid in TV for a long while. I’ve written 10 pilots that got close to pickup but never crossed the finished line. And that’s just part of the industry, like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football,” he says.

Heisserer was enticed by TV’s longer-form storytelling, allowing both creators and the audience to “spend time with these characters, grow things slowly,” he explains, “versus features, where you need to find a succinct story and really have a beginning, middle, and end that you can get to in two hours.” 

But on a more personal level, he also wanted more time to develop lasting professional bonds. On a film, he says, “Everybody knows there’s a terminus, and they’ll be thinking about the [project they’re doing] after it. And from a screenwriting perspective, you’re one of the more disposable elements in that. I had such an amazing time working with [‘Arrival’ director] Denis Villeneuve and Amy Adams and people like that—it made me hungry to develop relationships that didn’t end after x number of weeks. And that’s what TV offers you.”

That same thinking meant he and the rest of the “Shadow and Bone” team were highly selective about who they hired, both in behind-the-scenes and on-camera roles. Particularly on a project brimming with talented newcomers, fostering a healthy, supportive environment was crucial for the final product. 

“I had a staunch ‘no assholes’ policy,” he says. “In my experience, actors have to really get into a vulnerable place, and to take risks—in particular young actors; they’re impressionable, and you want to just set the right pace for them. We wound up with a group of people who are best friends now, in addition to being great performers who really sank into their roles.”

Now, as an apparent “success story,” Heisserer is still apprehensive about giving advice. The fact is, he insists, that it’s hard and it’s going to feel hard. But that shouldn’t stop you. 

“I had written 13 screenplays by the time I finally got my first ‘break’ in the business. And even now, I think I’ve written 76 screenplays and pilots,” he says. “There are so many weird ways to break into the business, but all of the ways are hard. And so, don’t beat yourself up if your first script doesn’t make it in. You have to keep swinging away at it.”