Q&A with Shawn Ryan: From Rebel to Establishment, the Creator of ‘THE SHIELD’ and ‘THE NIGHT AGENT’ on His Evolution
The prolific showrunner looks back on his long career and what he's learned about TV storytelling - and himself as a storyteller - along the way
Shawn Ryan is one of those TV writers I find it hard not to refer to as a titan of our craft. After gifting “THE SHIELD” the world in 2002, a landmark series about corrupt L.A. cops that many hail as the start of TV’s golden age, he went on to create or co-create and/or showrun a train of other hit series including “THE UNIT”, “TIMELESS”, and “S.W.A.T.” In doing so, the Emmy-nominated screenwriter has had to shift between working for network, cable, and streamers with a gracefulness usually reserved for ballerinas, acrobats, and mutant superheroes. Most recently, he adapted “THE NIGHT AGENT” from Matthew Quirk’s novel of the same name during the early days of Covid. He did it on spec, too. Netflix bought his passion project, and it’s since become one of its most-viewed series of all time and has been renewed for a second season. It’s one hell of a career, spanning a quarter-century now, and he and I are about to discuss how it all started and what he’s learned about television storytelling — and himself as a storyteller — along the way.
For screenwriters, I would pay special attention to Shawn’s perspective on writing for network versus cable or streaming, his reflections on the writer he was on “THE SHIELD” as opposed to the writer he is today, and how being a high-level showrunner impacted his writing.
COLE HADDON: I’m curious what kind of writer you are, Shawn. Is it a compulsion for you, a job you happen to be great at and enjoy, or is it somewhere in between? What I’m getting at is, do you wake up every day with a terrible itch to sit down and put metaphorical pen to paper — you know, where you can’t even turn it off when you’re on vacation — or is it something that occupies a very specific part of your life and you can behave like a normal human being the rest of the time?
SHAWN RYAN: I would say that I’m the kind of writer who constantly thinks about stories and things to write, loves to break stories, but dreads having to actually write it - but then is thrilled and proud when I’ve finished writing something. The blank page is a terrifying thing and it always takes me much longer to write the first fifteen pages of a TV script than it takes to write the last forty. Once I have momentum, I’m okay, but, damn, getting started is hard. Eventually, by the last twenty percent of the script, I find myself enjoying it. What I really love to do, though, is rewrite. When I have a hard copy of a script and a pen, I love to just sit in a chair and make pen changes. I think that’s where I do my best writing.
CH: A physical script and a pen ready to make it up are my happy place, too. I often marvel at the fact that I put so much work into that first draft, but there ends up being more red ink on the pages than the original black.
SR: I actually was a bit traumatized early in my career when my boss John Wirth would use red pens to mark up and note my scripts - usually in major ways as I was a staff writer. When I became a showrunner, I started using blue pens to mark up and note scripts. Seemed nicer and less “bloody”.
CH: Oh god, I don’t think I could take someone else using a red pen on my work. Just brutal. So, you’ve been doing this for more than two decades. What was your Achilles Heel as a writer in 2003 compared to 2023 and vice versa? One always thinks writers only grow better with practice and experience, but I think everything from success to personal traumas causes us to evolve in both directions.