The Real Writing Process of Timon Singh
Tom Pepperdine interviews Timon Singh about his writing process. Timon discusses the challenges of interviewing Hollywood actors , arranging trans-Atlantic interviews during office hours, and who is the most disliked action star from the 80s era.
You can find all of Timon's information on his website here: www.borntobebad.co.uk
And you can follow him on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/TimonSingh
And you can find more information on our upcoming guests on the following links:
https://twitter.com/Therealwriting1
https://www.instagram.com/realwritingpro
https://www.facebook.com/therealwritingprocesspodcast
Transcript
Hello, and welcome to The Real Writing Process.
Tom:I'm your host, Tom Pepperdine.
Tom:And this episode, my guest is Timon Singh.
Tom:This is an unusual interview for me because although Timon has
Tom:written two books, he doesn't consider himself a writer.
Tom:But he had an idea so strong that he's now been published twice.
Tom:Those books are Born To Be Bad and Born To Be Bad: Part Two.
Tom:A selection of interviews with some of Hollywood's finest actors who
Tom:have been immortalized as the most iconic villains in movie history.
Tom:His interviews offer a fascinating insight into how these types of
Tom:roles can affect an actor's career.
Tom:And include the kind of behind the scenes anecdotes that rarely get discussed.
Tom:This interview was recorded in mid August, 2021.
Tom:A few weeks after Timon's second book had been published in the UK.
Tom:Okay.
Tom:So good evening and a welcome Timon.
Tom:Thank you for joining me.
Timon:Hey Tom, how's it going, buddy?
Tom:It's going very well.
Tom:First question as always, what are we drinking?
Timon:We are drinking Tam-Tamnavulin?
Timon:Is that how it's pronounced?
Timon:Tamnavulin, the Speyside single malt, scotch whiskey that is double cast
Timon:and has been finished in Sherry casks.
Tom:Oh very nice.
Tom:Lovely.
Timon:Cheers.
Tom:So uh you're a longtime scotch drinker?
Tom:That's smooth.
Timon:No.
Timon:I mean, this is a thing that I only really got into whiskey I think when I turned 30.
Timon:I'm 37 now, and before that I never liked whiskey.
Timon:You know, When all my peers were drinking Jack Daniels and Coke, I was like, no.
Timon:And then it was, I think I turned 30.
Timon:It was just in a bar with a friend who really is into whiskey and
Timon:started introducing me to like the differences between, peaty,
Timon:single malt and a sweet bourbon.
Timon:And, you know, your listeners might be going well, this is very obvious
Timon:stuff, but I knew nothing about whiskey.
Timon:And now, I'm not saying I'm an expert, but it is definitely my
Timon:tipple of choice now in the evenings.
Timon:When you've got a movie on, I'll just sit there with a nice dram
Timon:of single malt, or a, or actually what am I saying, I'll, I'll drink
Timon:a blend, I'm I'm not pretentious.
Timon:I'll drink whatever's going.
Timon:Whatever was on offer in Sainsbury's that day.
Tom:And so this is a reward drink?
Tom:This is very much an end of the day.
Tom:This isn't a Hunter S Thompson, smoking and drinking as you're hitting the keys?
Timon:I don't think I have Hunter S Thompson stamina.
Timon:I would be slumped over a keyboard.
Timon:It is definitely an end of the day thing.
Timon:I'm not a functioning alcoholic.
Timon:I would just be a full-blown alcoholic.
Tom:Okay.
Tom:And where do I find you right now?
Tom:Is this your writing space, where are we?
Timon:You find me in my kitchen, sat at the kitchen table.
Timon:I don't actually have a writing space.
Timon:This table used to be in the living room and I wrote my first book in a
Timon:mixture of places around the house.
Timon:In the spare room, that's now my wife's office, I did a whole bunch of interviews
Timon:for my book and writing up there.
Timon:And then when she took it over for work, like I got kicked out.
Timon:So it was wherever this dining table was I would find myself.
Timon:So either in front of the window, in the living room, and now it's in the kitchen.
Timon:So this is where I mostly did my second book.
Tom:Okay.
Tom:And how is it?
Tom:Cause you know, kitchens are very much the central hub of a house,
Tom:and you have two not small dogs.
Timon:The kitchen distraction isn't as big as you would think.
Timon:I've got music going on in the background anyway, or movie on in the background
Timon:and the dogs just wander in and often just scooch under the table and nap.
Timon:If anything is they're snoring that's a distraction.
Timon:Well that's
Tom:all right.
Tom:Okay.
Tom:But that's certainly livable.
Tom:And as you mentioned there, you know, you've written two books now and they're
Tom:both on the theme of movie villains.
Tom:Born To Be Bad and Born To Be Bad Part Two.
Timon:So imaginative.
Tom:I know, but beautiful.
Tom:But the thing is, it is nice that it is a part two.
Tom:And when you originally came up with the idea, did you ever think it was going
Tom:to be more than one book or how did it come up that this should be a book?
Timon:I didn't even think it would end up being a book, knowing my ability
Timon:to never finish things half the time.
Timon:But it came about, I was at The Cube, Bristol's little microplex and they
Timon:were doing an anniversary screening of Robocop and it was packed out.
Timon:Everyone was talking along with the dialogue and I'd had a few drinks and
Timon:it suddenly occurred to me that all the actors playing the bad guys, look
Timon:like they were having a much more fun time than Peter Weller, who plays
Timon:Robocop, and who's very vocal about what a miserable time he had playing it.
Timon:And that they were all actors that any Hollywood executive would never
Timon:have cast as villains in their right mind to be in an action film.
Timon:Got Ronnie Cox, you've got Kurtwood Smith.
Timon:You've got Paul McClain from Rent and Ray Wise and all these actors that now post
Timon:Robocop have played a host of villains.
Timon:But before then, I don't think they really had.
Timon:So after the film I was cycling home, I was a bit drunk.
Timon:And I was like, you know, all of these actors who play bad guys,
Timon:they clearly have more fun than the actors playing the heroes.
Timon:What is it like for these actors wants the credits roll and
Timon:they've been in a film like this?
Timon:Does it lead to more jobs?
Timon:Are they type cast as villains for the rest of their lives?
Timon:Is that a good thing?
Timon:Is it a bad thing?
Timon:What is it like making these massive films and you're not the hero.
Timon:And generally not as regarded as you know, your Arnold Schwarzeneggers, your
Timon:Sylvester Stallones or your Bruce Willis.
Timon:And the next morning I still thought it was a decent idea, wrote down a short list
Timon:of actors that I would love to interview for the book and started chasing.
Tom:And so at this point, you've never written a book before.
Tom:Had you ever interviewed any actors or anyone at this level?
Timon:It all depends what you mean by this level.
Timon:So here in Bristol, I run a little film club called the Bristol Bad Film Club
Timon:and we show lots of cult and genre films.
Timon:And over the years, I have often reached out to directors and actors
Timon:about their experiences in these films.
Timon:And it's good to have an interview on the website that people that
Timon:see the film and enjoy it, they can find out a bit more information.
Timon:Or sometimes we get a video clip.
Timon:We show before the film.
Timon:um, A few years back, we had done a screening of Street Fighter, the 1994 film
Timon:adaptation of the infamous video game.
Timon:And I reached out to Steven E.
Timon:de Souza who had written and directed it.
Timon:And then also written small films like Commando and The Running Man and Diehard.
Timon:And I just, I tracked down a PA through an article.
Timon:And then the article gave me his email address.
Timon:So I just reached out and I was like, I'm just doing a thing for our website.
Timon:Here are 10 questions.
Timon:If you've got five minutes, would you mind answering them?
Timon:And a few days later, he sent back a link to a video file where he was sat,
Timon:the Street Fighter poster behind him, and he was like, thank you very much for
Timon:your questions, I will now answer them.
Timon:And in this lovely edited presentation, he just went through
Timon:and answered all my questions.
Timon:And it was incredible.
Timon:And I was like this guy is lovely, he's really friendly.
Timon:If I ever do something again, maybe I'll reach out to him.
Timon:And it was halfway through writing my first book.
Timon:I was like, I need someone to write a foreword for this.
Timon:Someone who's got some experience directing or writing
Timon:villains, someone like Steven E.
Timon:de Souza who wrote Diehard and Commando.
Timon:Hang on, I have Steven E.
Timon:de Souza's email address!
Timon:And it was just one of those Eureka moments, reached out to him
Timon:and he was like, absolutely, of course I would love to do that.
Timon:And now several years later, I've actually met up with Stephen a couple
Timon:of times at various film festivals.
Timon:I came round to his house.
Tom:Wow.
Timon:Yeah.
Timon:Memorabilia everywhere.
Timon:He's got Commando action figures in that place and yeah, it's great.
Timon:So that was my initial experience in interviewing people.
Timon:It was stuff for the bad film club.
Timon:And then at uni I'd written for the university newspaper
Timon:doing the film section.
Timon:So I've had to do the odd, local premiere and I'd done a few things for Den of Geek.
Timon:But yeah, nothing really major.
Timon:So this was like my first proper job interviewing people.
Tom:I guess that did give you the, the realization that
Tom:these are just human beings.
Tom:And that they are approachable and they are very proud of the
Tom:work that they've done, where,
Timon:For the most part.
Tom:For the most part, but we will get onto that.
Tom:But there's yeah, I think for a lot of lay people, who've just been fans of things
Tom:when they've never approached anyone.
Tom:It's, how do you make that first approach?
Tom:It just seems so imposing and so intimidating, but I guess when you've
Tom:had a success and a unintended level of success, I guess it does help embolden
Tom:you in approaching other people.
Tom:Did you feel that you were going to get success when you
Tom:started writing your list?
Timon:No, I was very doubtful I would actually get anyone.
Timon:And, I'm just a guy living in Bristol.
Timon:I don't know any agents or managers in LA.
Timon:So I had my short list and I, the way I started out was just going
Timon:to Google and I was like which of these actors has a personal website?
Timon:And that was it.
Timon:And one of them, I think it was Vernon Wells runs like
Timon:a wolf conservation charity.
Timon:And so Vernon Wells for any of your listeners who aren't familiar with
Timon:him, he plays Wez the big henchmen in Madmax 2: The Road Warrior,
Timon:he's Bennett in Commando, he's Mr.
Timon:Igoe in Innerspace, and he's played like a host of villains
Timon:through the years and stuff like the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
Timon:And he's a constantly working actor and lo and behold, it just had
Timon:his personal email address there.
Timon:And so I emailed him.
Timon:It's just I'm writing my first book all about actors who've played
Timon:iconic villains, their careers afterwards, can I interview you?
Timon:And he said, yes.
Timon:And that was my first interview.
Timon:But once that was in the bag, that opened up more doors and I shelled out for
Timon:an IMDB pro accounts because that has actors, publicists, agents, managers.
Timon:And then it was just like a war of attrition to get past these
Timon:publicists, agents and managers who, it is their job to keep people
Timon:like me away from their clients.
Timon:Unless they're getting paid, they have no interest in like letting
Timon:someone like me talk to their clients.
Timon:And I wasn't paying anyone because I couldn't afford to.
Timon:I owe a big thanks to all the managers and publicists who are like,
Timon:actually, this is something my client would actually enjoy talking about.
Timon:I'm going to let this one slip through the cracks.
Timon:So if I have any advice for people who wanted to write a book that
Timon:involved interviewing famous people, I'd go, if you can ask them
Timon:direct either by personal website.
Timon:Or if they've got DMS open on social media, try that approach.
Timon:If not publicists or managers, not agents.
Timon:Agents always want to percentage.
Timon:Managers generally care about their clients and will know whether
Timon:it's something that'd be up for.
Timon:A publicist to a slightly lesser extent, but also the money
Timon:is also a concern for them.
Timon:Agents should be your last port of call.
Tom:Yeah.
Tom:And when approaching these these actors and stunt people, it clearly comes
Tom:across in your books, how well-researched you went in, so what was your
Tom:approach to researching these people?
Tom:Was it just IMDB and finding like little trivia nuggets.
Tom:Did you have any books?
Tom:Cause I know you're such a film fan, you have a lot of
Tom:compendiums on how films are made.
Tom:Did you find any particular books that were really good for researching
Tom:the people that you interviewed?
Timon:There were a few things that inspired me.
Timon:So this is podcast called, I Was There Too by Matt Gourley where he interviewed
Timon:bit part actors in famous films like the woman with the pram in The Untouchables.
Timon:And actors who played Ewoks in Star Wars.
Timon:Actors that were there too, but aren't the big ones.
Timon:And I like that kind of friendliness of interviews and how he's just
Timon:asking them to talk about their experiences and looking for anecdotes.
Timon:And then the other inspiration was this book called Life of Action,
Timon:that's written by Mike Fury.
Timon:And it's very much he has tracked down stuntman or action stars or stunt
Timon:coordinators, just talk about their life, working in an action environment, putting
Timon:in their training stunt coordination.
Timon:And that is also an interview format book.
Timon:So I wanted to take the friendliness of Matt Gorley's podcast with the
Timon:writing style of Mike, which is kind of do it in an interview way.
Timon:So I am quite a genre film fan, so I did have that working knowledge.
Timon:But I wanted to start off the interview with a bit of background about who
Timon:they were and how they got into film, because everyone has a different story.
Timon:And then I knew there were various titles I would want to hit upon the way and
Timon:generally wrap it up, as a kind of a net result was appearing in these films, a
Timon:good thing or a bad thing for your career?
Timon:Were you stereotyped, have you ever worked again after appearing in the films?
Timon:And is playing villains more fun than playing the heroes?
Timon:So once I had that kind of general layout, it was just, doing a bit of
Timon:research on each title, knowing how they got into these films, so you
Timon:could slightly steer the conversation.
Timon:Especially with actors who'd been in older films and their memories
Timon:might not be what they used to be.
Tom:Yeah.
Tom:Yeah.
Tom:And it's interesting, you're phrasing there, sort of slightly steer the
Tom:conversation because I think it definitely comes across in some of the interviews,
Tom:sometimes they just want the platform to speak and they have things to say.
Timon:Yes.
Tom:How was that challenge to keep them on track.
Tom:And did you find there were some almost had an agenda, is that fair
Tom:to say when they were talking to you?
Timon:I think some often wanted to kind of get their side of the story.
Timon:Because often when you read about these films, it's always the director
Timon:and the star, and also the, the positives of being in such a big film.
Timon:So in my new book, I interviewed Robert Patrick, who played the T
Timon:1000 and every time they're doing a rerelease of the T 1000, there's Robert
Timon:Patrick talking about how amazing it is and what a great experience it is.
Timon:And when I was interviewing him, I was just kind of like,
Timon:we've talked about the T 1000.
Timon:But I was like, was there a point when this role was like
Timon:an albatross around your neck?
Timon:Because I remember you played the role again for a Universal theme park.
Timon:You showed up in a Wayne's World sequel as the T 1000, and then you had a little
Timon:cameo in Last Action Hero as the T 1000.
Timon:Was there a point when you were just like, I'm going to be the
Timon:T 1000 for the rest of my life?
Timon:And he was like, yes, that was a genuine concern that I've been
Timon:in a great big film like this, and this is all it's going to be.
Timon:I'm just going to be reprising this role, cameoing as myself.
Timon:And, he talked to after Terminator 2, there was a fallow period where
Timon:he made and I described it as a lot of VHS shlock and he agreed.
Timon:And it wasn't until he bumped into Peter Berg.
Timon:Director, Peter Berg, and he had just been cast in James Mangold's Copland.
Timon:And through Peter Berg, he managed to get a role in Copland, which
Timon:essentially gave his career a second jumpstart playing these kind of
Timon:shifty older gangster corrupt cops.
Timon:And then he's also just done a host of things.
Timon:The X-Files and he's been in the new Perry Mason series.
Timon:And I think he's just finished doing an HBO series of Peacemaker, the
Timon:character from the suicide squad.
Timon:So he's constantly working now, but when I spoke to him, he was like, I'm
Timon:so glad you're asking me about all these roles, like he did like double dragon.
Timon:Cause everyone that wants to talk to me, it's 80% it's Terminator 2 and the other
Timon:20% just want to talk about the X-Files.
Timon:So I think, for some of them, they're kind of like, oh, here comes somebody wants
Timon:to talk to me about these roles again.
Timon:But you have to be aware that lots of these actors did other things and
Timon:they really do want to talk about it.
Timon:Because sometimes these big films that they're in just cast a very
Timon:long shadow of their career.
Tom:So you've got to be very sympathetic to how that can be an albatross to them.
Tom:And so are they often quite defensive when you first start talking to them?
Timon:I don't think so.
Timon:There was one actor, the British thespian, David Warner from The
Timon:Omen and Time Bandits and Time After Time, and Tron and Titanic.
Timon:And at first he was like, I don't understand why you want
Timon:to talk to me because you're writing a book about villains.
Timon:I haven't played that many villains.
Timon:So I said, what are you talking about, you literally played Evil
Timon:in Time Bandits, and I just started listing off all these roles.
Timon:That whenever I thought of him, I was like, I think of David Warner and I
Timon:think about you torturing a strung up Patrick Stewart in Star Trek:
Timon:The Next Generation, and a strung up Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic.
Timon:And he was like, there was a pause, and he was like, "Okay, no maybe you're right.
Timon:Maybe I have played a few bad guys."
Timon:but someone like David Warner, who's been in I don't know, a hundred
Timon:films, to him he's probably, I haven't played that many bad guys.
Timon:But some of his most iconic roles I would argue, except maybe The
Timon:Omen where he's just a, a reporter.
Timon:I think of him is quite, you know, villainess persona.
Timon:But to him, he was very amused by the whole thing.
Timon:It's I played that many bad guys?
Timon:Maybe.
Tom:Now, that's really cool.
Tom:And when you're doing your interview, so you've done a mix, you've actually
Tom:done some in-person as well as over the phone and the internet.
Timon:I did very few in person, a few with British actors or people
Timon:that I nabbed at various conventions, but because often I needed to talk
Timon:to them for like over an hour.
Timon:Doing it via phone was the best way.
Timon:And so I would meet a few people at comic book conventions, like
Timon:Sarah Douglas from Superman 2.
Timon:I'd be like, "hi, I'm writing this book.
Timon:Would you be up for an interview at some point in the future?"
Timon:And she just gave me her telephone number and I was like, you don't know who I am.
Timon:You should not just be giving me your telephone number.
Timon:And I felt very concerned for her.
Timon:I was like, don't just give me your telephone number, ask me
Timon:more questions about who I am.
Timon:If I have any right to, but she was lovely.
Timon:She was great.
Timon:I interviewed Andrew Robinson who played the Scorpio Killer in
Timon:Dirty Harry at a, a convention.
Timon:Because at the convention he's just known for being Garrick from
Timon:Deep Space Nine, and there was a little bit of a lull in Star Trek
Timon:fans trying to get his autograph.
Timon:So I was just sat with him for an hour and I was like, can we just talk
Timon:about Dirty Harry and, Hellraiser and appearing in Cobra, as well
as Star Trek:Deep Space Nine.
as Star Trek:Because I'm a big Star Trek fan and I would love to talk to you about Star Trek,
as Star Trek:but he was, yeah, he was great to talk to.
as Star Trek:Playing the Scorpio Killer in Dirty Harry, that was a role where
as Star Trek:he was so effective the casting directors didn't want to meet him.
as Star Trek:Because they were terrified by the thought of meeting someone that sinister, so he
as Star Trek:said he went for an interview at a studio.
as Star Trek:The casting director's assistant came out, just told him to go
as Star Trek:away because the casting director was too scared to meet him.
as Star Trek:And he was like, that and that was my career for a good few years.
as Star Trek:He was so good at that role.
as Star Trek:People seemingly unfamiliar with the concept of acting
as Star Trek:were too terrified to meet him.
Tom:When you're interviewing over a telephone, I guess you've
Tom:got a lot of people abroad, lot of people in the states.
Tom:So the time zone factor, and you had a full-time day job whilst doing book one.
Tom:How was that balancing act of arranging interviews around your job, at times
Tom:that were convenient for the states?
Timon:I would be very honest with you and tell you that when I was writing my first
Timon:book, my then boss was very generous.
Timon:He clearly knew I was organizing interviews and using the meeting room for
Timon:not work related meetings at the time.
Timon:It was tricky.
Timon:I mean, in LA, uh, 9:00 AM is 5:00 PM our time.
Timon:So we try and do things first thing, or when I got back from home.
Timon:Otherwise, staying up very late to do interviews.
Timon:And the worst thing is now is post pandemic.
Timon:Now we're all very familiar with Zoom.
Timon:Back then, Zoom wasn't really a thing, it was Skype.
Timon:I was using a lot of Skype, using a lot of credit on Skype to do calls to the US.
Timon:Now, oh God, I could just do it on zoom.
Timon:It would be so much easier.
Timon:Yeah, some of the dodgy phone lines I had to deal with.
Timon:It was hard, man.
Timon:It was really hard trying to organize it.
Timon:And there was, I think for the first book I did like close to 25
Timon:to 30 interviews and I did it fairly quickly over a quite short period
Timon:of time compared to the second book.
Timon:That took quite a bit longer.
Timon:Yeah, it was exhausting.
Tom:What year did you start your interviews?
Timon:What year did I start my interviews?
Timon:I think I came up with the idea for first book in April 2017.
Timon:I think it was all done and written by December 2017.
Timon:And then it came out six, seven months later.
Timon:So quite that was quite a fast turnaround compared to the second one
Timon:that I think took close to two years to write because I was really chasing
Timon:some people and desperate to get them.
Timon:And then I submitted it in April 2020, and it didn't come out till July 2021.
Tom:What delayed that, I wonder?
Timon:You say that I was like, what is delaying this?
Timon:All you've got to do is get someone to proof it and design
Timon:it your end and put it out.
Timon:It shouldn't be that hard.
Timon:And I was like, come on, let's try and get it out for Christmas 2020.
Timon:And it just took so long.
Timon:I don't know if they had a large backlog of books.
Timon:I don't know if it was COVID related, but it did seem an exhaustive amount of time.
Tom:And with your sort of going from the interviews to writing the book, how
Tom:did you edit, did you edit as you go?
Tom:So did you transcribe the full interviews and then go, I need to trim this back.
Tom:Or were you listening to bits and go, actually, I'm not even
Tom:going to type that bit up?
Timon:I transcribed the whole interview and then essentially I would then copy
Timon:it and then I would just hack at it until it was like a nice tight interview.
Timon:Because you would start off a thing by going, so tell me how you got started
Timon:in acting and they would tell you a half an hour long story, and you're
Timon:like, this just needs to be a paragraph.
Timon:But you're like, oh please just tell me more about your time and acting school and
Timon:all the acting exercises you want to do.
Timon:I'm very aware of who the audience is for my book, and it's a very niche book,
Timon:but it is action and genre film fans.
Timon:And they don't really care about the breathing exercises that he did.
Timon:They want to know what it's like to be on set with Sylvester
Timon:Stallone or something like that.
Timon:So it is all about a short story of how they got into acting in the first
Timon:place and then concentrating on the meat of the story to try and just make
Timon:it flow better and interesting to read.
Timon:Because you'll read back the transcription of the interview and
Timon:you're like, I don't think I have anything here that's vaguely interesting.
Timon:And you always do.
Timon:It's like a sculpture, it's just a big block of marble and you've just got to
Timon:chip away at it and smooth off the edges and get rid of all the ums and ERs while
Timon:they stumble around kind of answer the question that you asked five minutes ago.
Timon:So that is the challenge of writing a book that is predominantly interviews.
Tom:When you're writing it and crafting it and chiseling it down and refining
Tom:it, how did you pace out the book?
Tom:Did you look to make each interview have a similar length?
Tom:Did you have an overall word count in mind or was it just, I want this number
Tom:of interviews and I want them to all flow?
Timon:Basically that.
Timon:It was, I know what the odd structure of each interview will be.
Timon:And I know how I want to do it in the book.
Timon:It's just not got to be a slog reading each interview.
Timon:There's gotta be stuff of interest in there.
Timon:It's kinda gotta be funny depending on the actor.
Timon:Let me tell you, Steven Berkoff is not a barrel of laughs.
Timon:And yeah, just make it flow and just make it interesting and
Timon:stick to what your book is about.
Timon:And it is playing bad guys.
Timon:Some of them might want to go off on tangents and talk about other
Timon:things, but you just got to keep it focused on why you've written
Timon:this book in the first place.
Tom:Did you ever get a moment of self doubt of a crisis point where
Tom:you thought the entire project was unworkable and pointless and terrible?
Tom:Did you ever get a point of why should I complete this?
Tom:Cause you said right at the beginning, how you struggled to complete things.
Timon:There've been times when I've come up with a great idea for
Timon:something and then in the cold light of day or 72 hours later, you're
Timon:like, no, that's a terrible idea.
Timon:What are you talking about?
Timon:But with this book, the idea that it was a good idea would not go
Timon:away, for better or for worse.
Timon:So no, it kept going.
Timon:And the fact, there's something that's quite exciting about chasing agents and
Timon:kind of going, like, I really want these actors and I had a few white whales that
Timon:I couldn't even get for the second book.
Timon:And with the second book, I was like, look, unless I get this actor
Timon:and this actor, I'm not going to bother because otherwise I'm just
Timon:scraping the bottom of the barrel and I need some big names in there.
Timon:And otherwise I wouldn't be satisfied with buying a follow-up if it didn't
Timon:have some decent names in there.
Timon:So for the second book, there were definite moments where I was like,
Timon:I'm never going to get this person.
Timon:I'm never going to finish.
Timon:I need at least 20 names.
Timon:Who haven't I asked that I could ask?
Timon:And why isn't Michael Ironside returning my phone calls?
Timon:And why does this actor want an ungodly amount of money?
Timon:Does he not know that I have no money to give him?
Timon:So there were definite moments where I felt like I was slamming my head against
Timon:the table, but if you think it's a good idea, I think you'll see it through.
Timon:If you're convinced it's a good idea, you'll continue going with it.
Timon:And I definitely thought I would come to this realization, but at no point did
Timon:I actually go, this is a terrible idea.
Timon:You should just stop.
Tom:Certainly with the second book, I guess you've got the
Tom:legitimacy of I've already done it once, it was well received.
Tom:And did that give you a legitimacy in the eyes of the actors that you
Tom:interviewed for the second, this was your second book in a series?
Timon:Absolutely.
Timon:Not so much with the actors, but with their representation.
Timon:Because there were actors, I tried to get to the first book, like Rob
Timon:Patrick, and their team just went no.
Timon:And then once you approach them again and go, I'm actually a published author.
Timon:Here is my book.
Timon:Here's a link to it on Amazon.
Timon:You know, and it's by an actual publisher in America, please
Timon:let me talk to your clients.
Timon:And that does give you some legitimacy.
Timon:The first time round you are just putting any sort of legitimacy under your name.
Timon:Hi, I'm, my name is Timon Singh, I previously written
Timon:for Den of Geek six years ago.
Timon:Actually, I better not put six years ago.
Timon:And there was at the time I did a couple of weeks work for Cineworld magazine,
Timon:but I'll just put that in there.
Timon:Anything to make it look like, you are a legitimate quote unquote "author"
Timon:or "journalist," and that letting them speak to their client is not,
Timon:the worst idea they will have made.
Tom:Yeah.
Tom:And coming to approaching people.
Tom:Approaching publishers, because it was a US publisher that published you.
Tom:Did you have them in mind as you're writing it, or was it that you
Tom:finished the the project and you're like, I hope someone picks this up.
Timon:No, actually I think a couple of months into it, I basically wrote
Timon:a book proposal to what the book would be, what I was aiming it for it to be,
Timon:who I was aiming to interview for it.
Timon:And I had three sample interviews attached.
Timon:I think it was Vernon Wells, Sven-Ole Thorsen, who's been in most Arnie
Timon:films and tells some racy anecdotes, and Al Leong, the Asian stunt
Timon:man stunt coordinator who plays a henchman in most eighties action
Timon:films, like Diehard, Leathal Weapon.
Timon:He's there with his long hair, fu manchu moustache.
Timon:So I put my proposal together, those three chapters, and I sent them out to every
Timon:film and TV genre publisher I could find.
Timon:And most said no.
Timon:And then I got an acceptance from an American publisher and
Timon:it was a big American publisher.
Timon:And I was so excited.
Timon:I was showing off the acceptance letter.
Timon:And then I emailed an author whose books I have that had been published by them.
Timon:And I was like, hey, I've just got this acceptance letter.
Timon:Do you have any thoughts about them?
Timon:And he essentially said, don't go with them.
Timon:He was like, you've get so little money.
Timon:It's been a constant nightmare.
Timon:They're not great.
Timon:They treat you awfully.
Timon:And basically just said no.
Timon:And then he was like, you should try this publisher.
Timon:And I think I had reached out to them.
Timon:But immediately one of the big things was they would give you double the amount
Timon:of profits the other one was offering.
Timon:So I sent them the proposal and they said, yes, immediately.
Timon:They were like, absolutely.
Timon:Yeah, we would like to do this.
Timon:Sounds like great idea.
Timon:They're Bear Manor Media, they're based in the US, and they do
Timon:specialize in film and TV books.
Timon:And I did want to go through a publishing company for that legitimacy sake.
Timon:You can self publish a book and I'm sure the money is probably better
Timon:if you do, but I didn't know how I would get my book into shops.
Timon:I didn't know how I'd get onto Amazon.
Timon:I don't know how Waterstones would go about ordering it in.
Timon:I don't know about the barcoding or anything like that.
Timon:So I was like, this is my first book.
Timon:Let's try and make it something my parents can at least show their
Timon:friends and it's not something that's stapled together pieces of A4 paper.
Timon:So I went with them.
Timon:And yeah, they did all the, getting it out there, the design, the layout, clashed
Timon:with them a couple of times on stuff that, and I'm sure they'd be okay with
Timon:me saying, like the cover because their kind of format was like, we just go with
Timon:a photo of one of your interview subjects.
Timon:Photo, Timon Singh, title name, boom.
Timon:And I was like, no, that would look terrible.
Timon:I want people to look at the cover and go, I immediately know what that book is and
Timon:look at all those familiar characters on the cover that I know from my childhood,
Timon:the bad guys from Superman to David Patrick Kelly, from The Warriors Bennett
Timon:from Commando and actors like that.
Timon:So I was like, no, I want a hand-drawn eighties style book cover.
Timon:And I fought them on it and I was like, I'll pay for it.
Timon:Like, I know someone who can do it.
Timon:I'll pay for it.
Timon:You just put it on the goddamn book.
Timon:And they were like, ah, photos better.
Timon:And I was like, I'm just going to get this guy to do it.
Timon:And when it's done, I will show it to you.
Timon:And if you still think a photo would be better, we'll go with a photo.
Timon:And it was done.
Timon:My friend Ben Turner, who's a Bristol based illustrator, did it.
Timon:And he'd done loads of posters for us for the Bristol Bad Film Club.
Timon:They sent it over to the publisher and they were like, no, you're right.
Timon:This is much better.
Timon:And go with that.
Timon:So I think, yeah, arguments with publishers can come down to something as
Timon:simple as what's it actually going to look like, and I didn't want it to look cheap.
Timon:I wanted it to look a bit slick and a bit glossy.
Timon:I wanted people to judge the book by its cover.
Tom:Yes, absolutely.
Tom:As it should be.
Tom:And after that, there must have been a joyous pride in getting it
Tom:published and having that book launch.
Tom:And getting it out in the world.
Tom:But how long had it been out that you realize you wanted to write a second one?
Timon:Probably about the year, because once you've got a book out, the last
Timon:thing you immediately think about is, oh, and you know what I want to do?
Timon:Write another book.
Timon:I don't know how Lee Child does it, knocking out Jack Reacher book one a year.
Timon:I was like, I'm done.
Timon:I never want to touch keyboard again.
Timon:No one talk to me about writing a book.
Timon:And I feel like that after I finished the second one, but after the first one
Timon:came out, I was like, I'm really annoyed I didn't get this actor in it, and I'm
Timon:annoyed that I didn't get this actor.
Timon:And I'd be at convention selling books and people be going, did
Timon:you manage to get this guy in it?
Timon:Cause I really love him in that thing.
Timon:And I was like, yeah I do too.
Timon:He was working, I couldn't get him.
Timon:And they're like, oh.
Timon:That sounds like I've got to do a follow up.
Timon:If only to scratch that itch that at least the second time round, if I don't
Timon:get them this time round, at least I'll know that I couldn't have got them.
Timon:But yeah.
Timon:So I did have a, if I don't get this person I'm not bothering,
Timon:but I did get that person.
Tom:Who were the ones?
Tom:Give us spoilers.
Timon:So I got Robert Patrick.
Tom:Yep.
Timon:I got Kim Coates, the actor who most people know from Sons of Anarchy,
Timon:but he's in like The Last Boy Scout and he's in Waterworld and he's in Open Range.
Timon:He's great at giving good creep, as he would say.
Timon:And I also got Stephen Lang who played the bad guy in Avatar.
Timon:He's, you know, pretty big name.
Timon:But there was still actors I couldn't get for the second one.
Timon:Mainly Clancy Brown, the Kurgan from Highlander, I know he doesn't
Timon:like talking about that film.
Timon:But he's been in so many iconic films, Shawshank Redemption.
Timon:He's just been cast in John Wick 4, he was my white whale.
Timon:And I couldn't get him for love nor money.
Timon:I couldn't get past his people.
Timon:I was going to like his voice over agent.
Timon:He's just constantly working.
Timon:I just couldn't get him.
Timon:I don't know if they were like, he just doesn't do books.
Timon:But yeah, no, I just couldn't get him.
Timon:But luckily I got a great lineup for the second one.
Timon:Including, Scott Adkins, got Bai Ling, I got William Fichtner, I
Timon:got Xander Berkley from The Walking Dead and Air Force One and Heat.
Timon:And yeah, so I got some great names and Tony Todd, I got
Timon:Tony Todd, Candyman himself.
Timon:So I got some great names, but you know, there's always that kind of the one that
Timon:got away, still sticks in your crawl.
Tom:It only got published, was it last month?
Timon:End of June.
Timon:Early July.
Timon:Yeah.
Tom:But you wrote it over a year ago?
Timon:Yeah, almost two.
Timon:Yeah.
Tom:Do you feel you're done now or do you feel there's enough of
Tom:a list that you want to go again?
Timon:Oh, I'm done.
Timon:I'm done on the interviewing movie villains.
Timon:I think if there was another one it'd be scraping the bottom of the barrel
Timon:and I'd like to do something different.
Timon:And on the back of my first book I joined I reached out to this
Timon:producer and writer who are making a documentary about eighties action films.
Timon:And I was like, hey, I've interviewed most of these people, do you need a researcher?
Timon:And they brought me on as a co-writer and producer.
Timon:And before I knew it, I was getting shipped off to LA to interview all these
Timon:people in person for a documentary.
Timon:And I really enjoyed that.
Timon:So I think going forward, I would love to do more documentary
Timon:interviewing stuff like that.
Timon:Cause I really enjoyed going to Sony studios and hanging out with
Timon:screenwriters in their rooms and in their offices and going to people's houses
Timon:and yeah, I mean, it was a stressful busy two weeks, but man, I loved it.
Tom:So is this as a journalist interviewer, a vocation for you that
Tom:you feel that you're going to continue?
Tom:Have you got certain projects in mind or that you'd like to do?
Timon:I had another idea for a different book.
Timon:It was a book that I've done like six interviews for, I'm not sure it's
Timon:good enough or the idea's good enough.
Timon:I keep coming back to it.
Timon:Maybe one day I'll resurrect it in some way or another.
Timon:I just don't know how to do it, where it doesn't seem like a missed
Timon:opportunity of something else.
Timon:It would be a film book.
Timon:Should I say yeah, now I can say what the idea was, it was basically writing
Timon:a book about infamous productions that went disastrously wrong and
Timon:interviewing actors that were there.
Timon:However, I was like, the reason I wanted actors with obviously
Timon:a director would defend the production about why it went wrong.
Timon:And so with the producers, and so would maybe the writer.
Timon:Whereas an actor, especially if they're not the star, they're
Timon:just like, hey, it was a job.
Timon:I'm more than happy to tell you what went wrong.
Timon:But the more people I talk to, they're kind of like, you want
Timon:a more detailed oral history.
Timon:You want to talk to more people than just one actor.
Timon:So I've interviewed people like Jason Fleming, who was there for The
Timon:League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
Timon:I've got Lance Guest who was the lead in Jaws: The Revenge.
Timon:I've got an interview with Rainn Wilson about making Sahara, the big
Timon:Matthew McConaughey Indiana Jones-esque franchise that never happened.
Timon:And of course my good friend, Greg Sestero about the making of The Room.
Timon:A story that's been even turned into a film, but yeah, it's just, is one
Timon:person's take on what went wrong on a particular film good enough?
Timon:Do I need all those other people?
Timon:And also there were productions I just couldn't get interviews for.
Timon:There are films that I wanted to cover and no one on the cast would talk to me.
Timon:So it was, I don't want to do this if I can't do this film,
Timon:so that's why it's been shelved.
Timon:And I don't know if I'm going to take it off the shelf yet.
Tom:With the documentary that you did, you were talking to other elements
Tom:of the filmmaking crew, writers and directors and things like that.
Tom:Have you reached out to many writers?
Tom:Cause often it's the writer who gets screwed over on a film production.
Timon:Yeah.
Timon:I met Graham Yost who wrote Speed, Hard Rain and Broken Arrow when I was doing
Timon:the documentary, and he was generous to write the forward for my second book.
Timon:And we've kept in touch.
Timon:I did an interview with him for my friend's podcast, The Cosmic
Timon:Shed It was an anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landings.
Timon:Because he was a writer on the HBO miniseries From The Earth To The Moon.
Timon:And he worked, I think he actually, he's working on the new HBO world war two
Timon:series Masters of the Air because he was part of Band of Brothers as well.
Timon:So we just bonded when I was in his office about oh, let's talk
Timon:about Band of Brothers while the guys setting up the camera.
Timon:And then I cracked a couple of jokes about Speed 2.
Timon:And he laughed.
Timon:So yeah, the talking to writers is always fascinating because there
Timon:was, I talked to Sheldon Lettich who was the writer of Kickboxer.
Timon:Now politics aside, I have a question for you.
Timon:Donald Trump has said his favorite film of all time is Kickboxer, but he fast
Timon:forwards through the dialogue scenes.
Timon:What do you make of that?
Timon:Purely as the writer of Kickboxer and Sheldon Lettich, he's like
Timon:a former Marine I have no idea about his political leanings.
Timon:I get the feeling, he probably lent a little bit more conservative
Timon:and he was just like, that's nice.
Timon:He said, I have heard that.
Timon:And that is that's nice.
Timon:That's nice.
Timon:I guess it was a very diplomatic thing.
Tom:I don't want to I guess the cliche question is who was the
Tom:most difficult interview and I don't want to go down that road.
Tom:Who was the most surprisingly generous interview?
Tom:That you just like, wow, there's no filter.
Tom:There's no diplomacy here.
Timon:That's two different questions.
Timon:The one, I was surprised at how nice he was is Vernon Wells.
Timon:Because he always plays crazed people in his films and he was so lovely.
Timon:And he was just like, oh, if we have a meetup, that'd be great.
Timon:And I did eventually meet with him in LA and gave him a copy of the book.
Timon:And he is so funny.
Timon:So dry, typical Australian.
Timon:Actually, he is also someone that just has no filter.
Timon:And a lot of the actors don't either because when I interviewed them,
Timon:they weren't there with a publicist.
Timon:They're like, oh, I made this film 30 years ago.
Timon:I don't care.
Timon:So basically a lot of these actors had worked with some of the biggest
Timon:names in Hollywood and they're like, oh yeah, Arnie's great to work with.
Timon:He's good fun.
Timon:He's good fun.
Timon:If he shows up on set, he's fine.
Timon:He's always smoking cigars, but let me tell you who's a complete dick,
Timon:and they would just go off on one.
Timon:And there was a common name that seemed to crop up in all the,
Timon:let me tell you who's a dick.
Timon:And I'm more than happy to say it, Steven Seagal does not come off well in my book.
Timon:Alleged sexual harasser, Steven Seagal, who would have thought
Timon:it, is not a nice person.
Timon:And yeah, I was like, should you be telling me this?
Timon:And they were like, I don't care..
Timon:I worked with them 30 years ago.
Timon:He can dispute it if he likes, but by all means, yeah, there you go.
Tom:So I'm going to wrap up with a couple of questions just on the general
Tom:writing aspect of the book, because it's my belief that writers always grow and
Tom:developed with every book that they write.
Tom:And although you've only written two, was there anything that you
Tom:learned from your first book that was integral to the way that you
Tom:approach and wrote your second book?
Timon:I got a different proof reader.
Timon:There is ah, when my first book arrived, I opened it up and I immediately
Timon:spotted a typo in an image caption.
Timon:And it broke my heart.
Timon:Especially when you personally have read the book 20 times and you spell
Timon:checked it a billion times and at least two other people have proofed it.
Timon:Yeah.
Timon:I'd got someone to proof it and they had done a great job, but there was a typo and
Timon:I spotted a couple of other typos as well.
Timon:And it's like a punch in between the legs.
Timon:You just got to say.
Timon:So the second time round it's, I just proof-read the book double the amount
Timon:of times and got every grammatically pedantic friend I knew to proofread
Timon:it or just take a look at it.
Timon:You can never have enough people just take a look at your book, just to
Timon:look for the most stupidest typos, the things you become blind to.
Timon:And one actually came up in the design of this book.
Timon:So I'd written the entire manuscript.
Timon:It was all fine.
Timon:It was all proof.
Timon:Sent it over to the publishers.
Timon:And 14 months later they get round sending me the final layout.
Timon:And I'm just like looking at all the image captions with a magnifying glass, yeah.
Timon:Sign it off.
Timon:And then someone, then it comes out and someone says, oh, I'm
Timon:reading this great chapter.
Timon:In this book, in the Ralf Moeller section taken a picture of it.
Timon:And in the chapter header, it said Ralph Moeller and it's Ralf
Timon:Moeller cause he's German, R A L F.
Timon:What did I?
Timon:Did I write Ralph?
Timon:Went back to the manuscript, hadn't written Ralph.
Timon:Looked at the designs and the designer had just taken it upon him or herself,
Timon:just to change the chapter to Ralph Moeller, and I had not noticed.
Timon:Because I'd been so fixated on all the little things I had not even noticed that
Timon:the title of the chapter had been changed from Ralf Moeller to Ralph Moeller.
Timon:So I immediately just emailed the publisher.
Timon:I was like, what happened, what's going on?
Timon:Just stop all printing of the books.
Timon:I don't how this happened.
Timon:Change it now.
Timon:And let's just say that was a very stressful 48 hours.
Timon:It's all fixed now and all copies of the book, but I was just like, I
Timon:became so fixated on the small stuff.
Timon:Literally the biggest thing, big actor's name is the title of a chapter.
Timon:I hadn't even noticed.
Timon:So the more eyes you can put on your work, the better.
Timon:Because they'll spot something that you have seen a hundred times and
Timon:it wouldn't even have registered.
Tom:Okay.
Tom:And one last question in any kind of writing advice you've heard over the
Tom:years, was there any writing advice that you felt resonated and really helped you
Tom:in writing either or both of these books?
Timon:Here's the thing.
Timon:For someone who did a history degree and has written, a lot for
Timon:various publications over the years.
Timon:I've worked at a creative agency and copywriting and editorial processes
Timon:been a big part of my career.
Timon:I don't enjoy writing.
Timon:I find it hard.
Timon:That is why when I came up with the idea for a book, I was like,
Timon:oh, this interviews, boom, 80% of the work done right there.
Timon:I don't have to come up with ideas.
Timon:I'm literally just talking to people and I'm writing up their stories.
Timon:So people authors that you're going to interview that have written fiction.
Timon:To me, I can't think of anything harder than looking at that blank page
Timon:and just coming up with something.
Timon:I think that's the hardest thing, coming up with an idea.
Timon:When I came up with this idea for this book, I was so happy.
Timon:I was like, I've come up with an idea.
Timon:That's amazing.
Timon:Then it's like, why didn't I come up with this idea 10 years ago?
Timon:Oh, this book could have been out 10 years ago.
Timon:And then it was just like scouring of the internet.
Timon:This is such an obvious idea.
Timon:Has no one ever done it before?
Timon:Someone's clearly done this and probably a lot better, so I'm just
Timon:Johnny come lately to this idea.
Timon:But no one had, and I, I would say that's the thing just when you have the idea.
Timon:Just go for it, just go for it and keep writing that idea.
Timon:There's no advice I could give to anyone about writing.
Timon:Cause everyone's different.
Timon:People like write in the morning, people like write in the evening, people
Timon:go for a word count or page count.
Timon:I would just try and, just make something readable because it
Timon:was just about cutting down that interview into something manageable.
Timon:So I can't give any advice to anyone on how to write simply because
Timon:everyone's different and I'm sure my writing method would be a car
Timon:crash to some of your listeners.
Timon:Finish the thing.
Timon:That's always good.
Timon:Finish it.
Timon:Finish it.
Timon:And if you can then approach a documentary team, that's done a
Timon:book on the subject to kind of give you work, I'd recommend doing that.
Timon:That, that panned out.
Tom:Yeah, that sounds brilliant.
Tom:Okay.
Tom:That's all I have to ask Ti.
Tom:Thank you so much.
Tom:It's a pleasure.
Tom:And everyone go and buy both these books.
Tom:They brilliant.
Timon:They're fine.
Timon:There.
Timon:My mum says they're not her thing, but my wife has also not read them.
Timon:So make of that, what you will.
Timon:Get them in through your local bookshop, then don't give your money
Timon:to that, that large tax dodging conglomerate, although it is on Kindle.
Timon:So...
Tom:buy it twice.
Timon:So buy it twice, I get more money through Kindle.
Tom:Okay.
Tom:Excellent.
Tom:All right.
Tom:Thank you very much.
Tom:And that was the real writing process of Timon Singh.
Tom:If you'd like to find out more about Timon, his books and his
Tom:interviews, you can check out his website, borntobebad.co.uk.
Tom:You can also find him on Twitter under the handle @TimonSingh.
Tom:And this week, I'm going to ask you to recommend this podcast to
Tom:one person you know personally.
Tom:Reviews and retweets are great, but nothing beats word of mouth.
Tom:And if you like this podcast, I bet you know someone who'd like it too.
Tom:And don't just send them a link.
Tom:Message them specifically and discuss it.
Tom:It's almost Christmas and it'll mean a lot to them to show
Tom:that you're thinking of them.
Tom:And want them to escape the horrors of the world for an hour to hear a nice chat.
Tom:In return, if you have something you'd like me to promote message
Tom:me on Twitter, @therealwriting1.
Tom:Or email me therealwritingprocess@gmail.com.
Tom:Anyway, that's all for this week.
Tom:Until next time, my friends.