 What's up guys and welcome to one take I am super excited to share my discussion with raised by wolves creator and showrunner Aaron Guzikowski We talked about working with Ridley Scott the process of writing the show and got a few hints about Earth's history The force whispering to Marcus the creatures on Kepler 22b and more here's our conversation First thing I wanted to start with is something I'm pretty sure the audience is dying to know Which is a few episodes back father started to tell a joke I think it went an android a black hole and a glass of milk walk into a bar. He gets interrupted Will we eventually get to hear the punchline to this joke? I think we may I think it may take some time to finally get there because as you can tell tell by the setup It's an epic joke, you know when you're talking about black holes and milk and such. Yeah Yeah, eventually eventually we're gonna get to the punchline on that. That's gonna be the I was wondering How do you beat the season finale giant dinosaur sized flying snake? So serious finale five years from now. It'll be the punchline Exactly, it's just the only way down to the snake. Absolutely So I'm more serious. No, you know when I first started watching raised by wolves You know watching that first episode the thing I kept thinking is that this really feels like a creative vision Just totally unimpeded. It's a unique show hard sci-fi really exciting to see But like I said in the intro it's not the kind of thing I would expect to find on a mainstream platform and I'm just curious did you face any Challenges trying to get it made having to sort of sell people on the ultimate vision you were going for um, you know At first it was it was definitely a worry of mine You know how it was gonna be executed, you know If in fact we were able to get it on the air that you know, someone would try and change it into something more, you know Recognizable sort of thing But you know, I wrote it on spec so I was able to kind of write it in a vacuum So and then once I did that I went to the scott-free people and I hooked up with them as producers But and eventually Ridley got involved, but when Ridley decided he wanted the direct That helped a lot because Ridley just bought into you know, he knew what it was He wasn't you know into what it you know, what the goal was here and he shared that goal And that helped protect it quite a lot You know, I think having him on your side and you know and trying to You know to realize something that you know, it's kind of hard to To express in a lot of ways, but he got it and that helped a lot, you know, just in terms of keeping Everyone else from freaking out, you know during the night No sort of thing so I think the steady hand of Ridley Scott definitely helped a great deal in terms of everyone Just kind of backing off and being like, okay, let's let's see how this turns out You know, let's not you know mess around with this too much and thank goodness. I think We we benefited greatly from that. Yeah, he's not a bad person to have on your side. I've got to imagine Definitely makes a big difference And how do you how do you tackle starting to write a show like this? You know, I'm thinking about Before you put pen to paper for that first episode there has to be so much world-building behind the scenes I imagine stacks of notebooks where you're designing How do we get from where we are today a hundred plus years from now where myth rayism comes back? So did you start with the world building and coming up with all of that? Or does it start with the story of mother father and then kind of expanding from there? Um, I definitely the world building had been going on for for many years Because I wanted to do a science fiction thing and I had a lot of ideas I didn't really have my my characters my way into it But I had been thinking about this plan for a long time this this arc a lot of these different aspects To the story, you know, maybe over the last, you know, eight years or so It's just kind of in the background while I'm working on, you know other stuff and it wasn't until like maybe three years ago That's when I came up with the idea of the androids that raise human children this mother and father and that that kind of Became a great vehicle into all of this other stuff I think because if you don't really have you know that way in you know You can you can create a really great layered world, you know But if you don't have the right, you know the the motor that the audience is going to be able to hop on and you know To take them through all this in a way that's going to be exciting That's that's the real that's the really the hard part, you know coming up with that But yeah, it was many years in terms of all the different all the minutiae and all the kind of the layers in the history Actually mentioning the androids, that's another point I really wanted to ask about because I feel like we've seen a lot of androids in film and television But raised by wolves in my opinion had a pretty unique take especially when it comes to mother Where she strikes this really interesting balance between Genuinely emotional at times, but in other cases almost unsettling at how not quite human she is I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about how did you develop the look and feel and the voice for for all The androids we see on this show Yeah, well, they're all very different. You know, I think, um, you know, mother and father You know as we say in the the show very different kinds of androids and mother is necromancer father's this generic service model There, you know, he's kind of like a Ford truck. She's like a nuclear bomb. Essentially, you know, there's a billion dollar You know highly sophisticated Weapon but when it came in terms of like how they would behave, you know, I think some of it comes You know ready made in some respects with the actors, you know with the casting and just to kind of their The things that they're just kind of already kind of built into their behaviors or things that they're easily able to kind of tap into Um and beyond that I think because they kind of have to have sort of just a natural affinity to just kind of get it Because I think if you think overthink it too much, you know, I'm an android It's really difficult. I think for a lot of actors to wrap their heads around it So I think, you know, Amanda just kind of clicked in really quickly to her approach And everything kind of just, you know came from that, you know A lot of a lot of it just comes from with the actors and what the way they're kind of approaching the role And the stuff that's just naturally happening with them And I think, you know, we wanted to look at, you know, I think with Amanda There's a lot of like animal type influences and her behaviors and things like that And and also this idea too that, you know with mother and father that they're not really, you know They do a pretty good job of parenting, but they're not really changing these human kids As much as the human kids are changing them, you know, and making them more emotional And kind of, you know, creating these new complex behavioral algorithms inside of them So we're kind of seeing, you know, them becoming even more emotional as the series goes on And in some ways becoming more emotional than humans in a lot of ways, you know Becoming, you know, and maybe starting to even manifest New senses, you know, things that maybe we're not even aware of, you know That we can't even take in or maybe we used to be able to take in But now no longer can And kind of looking at it, you know, through these different, you know, animals, you know Different sorts of, you know, humans who are kind of on the spectrum And, you know, different, you know, behaviors that, you know, kind of manifest in those sorts of cases And all these sorts of things kind of went into the, you know, the building of, you know That behavior, what they're really going to, you know, look and feel like And then for the look, I mean, I credit Ridley with the skin suits, you know That was just like this idea he had And I loved it from, you know, I love the idea that it makes them almost seem kind of naked Like Adam and Eve sort of thing But also you never forget that they're androids, you know, they have They always seem like an other, you know, sort of thing Because they're not the sort of android who are trying to pass for human, you know That's not really what their job is And so it actually helps, I think, to just every time they walk on screen, you know Oh, it's an android, you know There's no sort of, they're not blending in in any way, shape or form So those costumes, I think, did a lot of work for us in terms of all that The actors don't love the costumes, but the costumes work well for story Yeah, definitely a testament to their dedication to the roles Very much so, yeah, they're not comfortable, they're super hot And they go through multiple versions of them They have like hundreds of those things made Because they get ripped and screwed up so easily So I was going to say, I had an idea for my Halloween costume this year But hearing how uncomfortable they are, maybe I'll pass Go for it anyway, just go for it, absolutely That sounds good You have to be great Speaking of androids, Carl was one of, I think, a quiet sort of fan favorite He was just joined the show and then so quickly we lost him Is there any chance we'll see another Carl or Carl-like medical droid in season two? It's possible, it's possible I think Carl, you know, obviously he had, you know, specifics to his behavior But I imagine there are other Carl's out there For sure, you know, that he mass produced probably on some level But, you know, he was unique in the sense that, you know, his situation And his relationship with his brothers and so on and so forth And Carl is a great, you know, he is actually the same actor that played the medical android in episode two Oh, yeah And that actor was so great, just so fully, you know, and Ridley loved him Everyone loved him, he was just so, he had very few lines He actually had a whole bunch of lines in episode we had to cut because there just wasn't room for it But he was so great as this android and physically he was, you know, he's a very slim man You know, he actually looks like a machine if you put him in really tight clothing sort of thing Which was part of the casting process with him But we loved him so much, so when I was doing Carl I kind of wrote to that actor a little bit to kind of, you know, fully Explore what this guy was doing And but yeah, I love Carl too, I too would like to see him come back Yeah, he was just a great example of kind of what we were talking about before Where he sounds like an android, he doesn't sound overly emotional But there was that melancholy undertone as he's watching all of his brothers Like you said, get drained of their android blood So yeah, it was just a great highlight from the season I thought It's great to hear because I love Carl quite a lot It was an interesting writing process with Carl I just remember many, many drafts of many different individuals taking up Carl's space there And eventually game Carl and then it all made perfect sense Awesome, awesome And I'm talking a little bit more about the writing process I think one of the themes that Raised by Wolves explores Is that relationship between creations and their creators And thinking about Ridley Scott, I think he's explored some similar themes And I think often sort of with a little bit of a cynical view If I look at Blade Runner, humans were essentially enslaving replicants Or if I look at Prometheus, our creators want to destroy us And Raised by Wolves, you know, we're still going with the series I think the jury's kind of still out You know, on one hand we see how myth racism may have accelerated at Earth's destruction On the other hand, you see what seems like genuine love that Mother has for her creator And I'm just curious, working with Ridley Scott Did you ever find your points of view conflicting at all? Was there a back and forth that was part of the creative process In terms of what we, you know, eventually saw on screen? Yeah, well, obviously, yeah, these are themes he's been working with, you know, for quite some time And, you know, he still is, you know, super, we all are Just, you know, what does it mean to be human and trying to ask these sorts of questions? And so I think, you know, in terms of the creator creation thing I mean, obviously, I think we both agree that it's kind of unknowable That, you know, whatever artificial intelligence decides the world is supposed to look like Or whatever, you know, actions it takes to change the world I feel like it's completely unknowable I think the idea that they'll oppress us and destroy us or whatever it is Is a possibility But I also find it absurd that we would be able to predict it Because if we are really talking about something that's a completely different intelligence Like I think they did this thing and Facebook was working on artificial intelligence And at one point they had two, you know, two AIs that started talking to one another And they didn't know what they were saying And they just started talking, they were communicating But they had no idea what they were talking about And I think that's kind of what it's going to be I don't think we're going to know I think things are going to start to happen that won't make any sense to us whatsoever Because I think that's what it's going to require So yeah, I think we have a healthy respect Slash a little bit of fear But also I think a little bit of who knows, you know, too I think it's a little too, you know, it's definitely It seems very credible that, you know, it could all go terribly wrong for sure But just how it might go terribly wrong I feel like it's who can say it, you know, I think if anything The one thing we know for sure now is that we're terrible at telling the future You know, human beings, you know, whenever it's like What we thought 2020 was going to look like Or, you know, whatever you would like really 1984, you know, or like 2001 sort of thing You know, it's like we're pretty far off the mark usually So I think hopefully that would be the same here Yeah, no, I think that's a pretty fascinating way to think about it And to your point, we're already sort of on the brink of not being able to Understand exactly what machines are thinking You can develop an algorithm like Facebook has to, you know, help moderate Their website, but I guarantee you there's not one human That could explain everything it's doing, right? So extrapolate that 100, 200 years from now So slightly frightening thought Slightly, slightly, yeah, yeah, it'll be interesting to say the least But who knows, maybe it'll be a perfect utopia Maybe AI will be the greatest thing ever I don't know, who the hell knows? I guess it all depends I mean, at the end of the day, you would imagine The AI would still want to save the planet on some level, you know We'd still want some of the same things that we want But again, who knows? So speaking of which, I've seen some debate online Over how should we think about the timeline and the history Unraised by Wolves Is it meant to be where we start with our reality in 2020 And extrapolate one, 200 years Or potentially I'll be looking at an entirely Alternate history, alternate timeline Um, I won't definitively answer that I think there is a possibility that there is, you know Some difference between, you know, the world we're living in now In the 2020 world as it existed and raised by Wolves But I can't say for sure, because I would sort of It would upend a few things But it is a question, I think that's worth asking, for sure Okay, perfect And digging into the history a little bit I mean, to the extent you can And always feel free to say Pass, you know, wait for season two onward But another topic of discussion has been How we ended up where we are today Where it's basically, or today in the show Mythraism versus atheism Because if I think about today, atheists are I think a pretty small minority in the world So is there a reason why They would have been able to survive When the rest of the religions seemingly fell to mythraism Or is there more going on here Have other religions maybe joined up in With the atheist army to defend against mythraism Or is this an open question I think, I think, so the way it happened was I think, as you said, there were many different religions And eventually mythraism, you know, one by one Is, you know, basically taking them out Until it's the only one left And then everything, and then it's trying to Basically convert everyone on earth So I think anyone who didn't want to be converted Regardless of whether or not they identified previously As an atheist had suddenly had to become one In essence, you know, they had to declare themselves Like I'm an atheist now because I don't like that I don't want to be part of that So I'm kind of forced to become this Because there's nothing else really left And everything's very kind of black and white By this point, you know And they're trying to convert all of the remaining You know, every person on earth to be To follow this one religious code So, hey there, people at the window Oh, God, yeah. But in any case, so there were many religions They wiped them all out And again, I think it was more about branding the opposition And after a while, you know, that's just atheism You know, the most simplistic way of looking at it Is just that they have to just deny the fact That there is anything And that's kind of what they have to fight for God, and it seems like the power dynamic Is pretty weighed heavily towards the Mythraic religions' favor with necromancer technology And just seeing the tactics that the atheists are using You know, child soldiers It feels like more guerrilla warfare And they're fighting against, you know, Goliath Yeah, they're highly desperate And also the mythraic, as you said, have access To all these technologies that they discovered Were actually encrypted in their scriptures So it's sort of how to make the necromancer How to build the ark, you know Quantum gravity and dark photon technology They kind of got the sort of the secrets behind All of these things Were able to build all of these weapons and whatnot Even though they don't really understand The underlying technology But that also aided them In terms of taking everybody else out And forcing, you know, everyone who was left To kind of band together as atheists To fight against them any way they knew how You know, with child soldiers Or, you know, eventually with nuclear bombs Basically just having to, you know Just go for broke and blowing up the whole planet Because they didn't want to convert But they weren't going to win either So they were kind of forced into a corner in that regard And so it seems like throughout the season We've definitely seen hints of some kind of a higher Intelligence or some kind of outside force, I'll say And I'd love to get into some questions here And again, like I said before, you know Feel free to just pass on any of these And say better to wait and see But these are a few points people were debating online I'd love to just pick at them a little bit So on the arc, Otho claimed to have heard a voice You know, en route to Kepler-22b Is it fair for us to assume that whatever was Communicating with him is the same force That was communicating with Marcus Whispering to him once they were on the planet? I think that's a safe assumption I make Yeah, yeah And I think when he was hearing it They were probably close to the planet, you know Nearing it So yeah, that is the same I would I can confirm that That is awesome In the finale, mother kills this hooded figure That was carrying on Neanderthal's goal And so should we assume that this is a different hooded figure From the one that we met when Marcus found those tarot cards Or could they potentially be the same person? They could potentially be the same person You could potentially imagine that, you know That the person, the hooded figure Who's lair that Marcus finds He also discovers that that said figure was watching the settlement You know, watching mother and father Right, he saw that makeshift map he put together Right, exactly And so you could also So he did obviously have some interest in that family And may have even followed, you know, mother after that point You know, in essence it was trying to, you know Communicate something to her You know, what you could imagine either to be Maybe even a warning, so to speak, of some kind So yes, there's a good possibility that that's one of the same And in that creature is sort of a less devolved version of the creatures The ones that are running around on four legs This is of the same ilk as those creatures But less devolved from that, from humanity Gotcha, that was exactly what I was going to ask next So it sounds like it was basically one link In the devolutionary chain between humans And four legged creatures we've been seeing Exactly, somehow this guy Or at least he came from a lineage Who were able to kind of slow down that de-evolution process Through whatever means they were implying there Got it, got it And actually speaking of these revelations we've gotten in season one I've got to imagine that with a story like this Where there is this big mysterious element to it How do you strike that balance between how much you want to reveal now How much you want to hold back on, you know So giving answers at a sort of satisfying pace While still keeping us asking questions And holding back some of the revelations Yeah, it's a tricky thing But I think you try and I think I think you can usually sense as the story's going along You know, as you're working on it Kind of where these moments are Where the audience is going to need some contextualization In order to keep enjoying these character stories In order to be fully on board for this stuff But not to tell them things kind of before they're asking You know what I mean So to really try and keep as much close to the chest as possible Kind of as you're going But giving enough that we can get context on these character stories But really I think it's about just really sticking with the characters And not answering questions before they're asked You know, not dumping out a whole bunch of You know, here's the world Here are the rules This is what's over here This is what's over there Or you know, just kind of Because I think what's good about this is it's all Through the point of view of these characters They're all on the ground It's very little in terms They don't know what's on the other side of the planet You know, we kind of only know what they know And so I think trying to keep in that sort of That kind of way of doing it Where it's just, you know, only knowing what the characters know And I think that's the key And, you know, kind of treating that How the planet is sort of like a haunted house in my mind You know, and I think so in terms of, you know, figuring out Obviously, you know, there's certain mysteries that you've got to hold, you know For pretty much close to the end And there's a lot of other things that you don't need to do that with You know, so to speak So, which is a lot of kind of rambling babble on my part To say it's kind of hard to say, you know You just kind of, I think, instinctually know And I think you want to kind of lean towards less revealing Rather than more But it usually feels pretty obvious when you need to do it And then something needs to be known But, yeah, it's hard to say Yeah, I think the key point that I heard is And one that I definitely agree with Is the fact that we're getting it through the character's point of view I think you risk frustrating people If the main character sees something And we don't see it because the camera didn't pan over, you know It's a sort of artificial mystery But here, you're exactly right We're really with the characters and discovering things as they discover it And it feels very organic So I think you're striking the balance, you know That's really great to hear Because that's what I love, just like as a viewer I like being really inside of the character I love amnesia stories, you know Where the character wakes up And you find out, as they find out What is this world? Where am I? Who am I? Like, all that kind of stuff Yes, it's always fun to do that, yeah And I'm speaking of revelations Again, to the extent you can talk about it I would love to discuss the cave painting that Paul finds in the finale And that's definitely a moment that I think a lot of us freeze-fit-framed on And we're analyzing it as much as we could And at a high level, to me, if I look at it To me, it looks like Mother and father in a vessel with a stash of embryos I see Kepler-22B on the left side And I think I see Earth on the other side Looks to me like they're heading to Earth Am I in the ballpark, or is this a wait-and-see? It's a wait-and-see, for sure But there's definitely a feeling from that cave drawing That, yeah, it does seem to depict Mother and Father Which seems to denote some kind of time-space issue That's going on, you know How is this possible? This is an old, you know Obviously, that was put up there thousands of years ago Mother and Father are, you know, not that old You know, they just got here, you know, 13 years ago So how can this be? And that's basically all I could really say about it Beyond, yeah, you'll have to wait and see on that one Yeah, for sure One more reason I'm very glad we're getting a second season Yeah, definitely, absolutely So there's one thing I want to ask about A little bit selfishly because it's a moment That there's been a little bit of debate over online It was a kind of yanny-loral situation Where I heard one thing when I watched it And a bunch of people heard one thing A lot of people heard another line And I was wondering if I could just get What is the definitive thing we should be hearing in this moment So Campion is locked in the silo And Ghost Tally makes an appearance And I thought I heard her whisper, kill yourself And others have said they heard kill your father Oh, yeah, that's a moment Yes, yes, it is kill yourself Okay, okay Yeah, yeah No, I guess, you know, later on he does stab his father That's true Yes, but that was more of a, you know, trying to escape sort of thing So, yes, something was trying to convince him to kill himself in that moment Got it Well, thank you very much, Erin Because so all you YouTube commenters, haters You heard it from Erin, so I'm not trying to get you into any trouble Oh, you know, I'm sure, yeah, I'm sorry if I upset anybody That is the line, that is the line All right, so kind of as we wrap up, anytime I talk to somebody Like you that's had success in a field That many people have ambitions for I just love to ask if you could talk for a couple minutes About how you got started And any words of advice you have For people who want to be writers and tell stories You know, in the world of film and television Yeah, no, absolutely I mean, you know, I took a very sort of zigzaggy way to get here You know, I started out drawing I had a whole host of other things that were But that did involve film and, you know, and visual and stuff like that And then at some point I just decided, no, I'm not going to be a jack of all trades Master of none, I'm just going to try and only write Not allow myself to do anything else And that was about, I don't know, like 11 years ago And then, you know, and I was working other jobs in New York, you know Just to pay the bills and stuff But, you know, in the morning and at night I just started trying to write a spec script That I could, you know, then use to Hopefully get some kind of representation out in Los Angeles Which I knew nothing about I had no contacts out there or anything like that But I did know that, you know, if you wrote a good enough script You could probably, you know, get someone to pay attention to you on some level So I wrote a script and then started sending out These kind of wacky letters to people, you know Ask them to read my script, you know, totally clueless I have no, you know, all these sorts of unsolicited letters and whatnot But, you know, put a fair amount of thought into, you know The comp, you know, composing those letters And trying to make it, you know, compelling And trying to get people to read the, read my stuff Eventually someone did read it And they liked it enough to sign me And then I started just working on another script Which eventually became Prisoners Which, finally, which I was able to sell on that And that allowed me to move out here And I think the whole way through It really is just, it's just working every day Or however you can do it, you know Whatever you're doing If you have a job or whatever it is You try and do it in the morning Or whatever you can, you know Or just thinking about it If you can't actually do it or, you know And just watching as many movies Reading as many books, you know Filling your head with as much stuff as possible If, and if possible Filling your head with stuff that other people Aren't filling their heads with Is also really good, you know Finding these kind of outlets that not everyone Is looking at, you know Find going to weird bookstores And just digging out stuff that, you know Was, you know, no one's looking at And just finding all of those things And, you know, filling your head with it And being obsessed, I think it helps a lot And also too, I think Wanting to see the thing that you're making You know, like, I have this selfish desire I'm like, I really want to see this I'm a sci-fi fan, you know I want to see certain sci-fi things So I'm like, well, I have to make it, you know So how do I do that? How do I, you know Satisfy my own desires when I'm watching something, you know And trying to think in those terms So you're writing more for an audience Even though you're still kind of taking it From this kind of personal place And, you know, and again I think it's really just being obsessed Just work, just doing it every day Every day If you can do it every day You're bound to get better And eventually, you know I think stuff will happen If you, you know Because if you are doing it every day And a few years go by You must, you must be something going on So, and just don't give up I'd say Woody Allen once said Just stay in line Don't get out of line It's like going to the deli If you get in line, stay in line You know, just get in line Eventually you'll get your sandwich Eventually you'll get your sandwich If you stay in line It could take all Who knows how long it'll take But, you know, if you're in line and And you have your money When you get up to the thing too That's the other thing I think is when Always be generating stuff So if something great does happen You have a bunch of stuff, you know Because it could be like Oh, great Yeah, you wrote a spec script And people like it They'll be like, this is great But what else you got, you know What else you're working on And if you don't have all that stuff Kind of ready That could be a critical moment That you're going to screw up Because your mind will be crazy Because you're like, oh, shit They like one of my They like my stuff Then your brain is going to be all over the place For weeks Right And you're going to be trying to come up with new stuff At the same time And it's just not going to happen It's like, I think you should always be Preparing for that moment Where you get opportunity And then so you have it all ready You know, there's many Years could pass before this day comes And if you're really using all that time To build up all this stuff Then, you know, if it does happen Then you got a bunch of stuff That you can really take advantage of Which is easy to say I don't know that I actually did that But I did a little bit of that But, yeah, yeah Awesome, well thank you so much And just to I can second all of that on a much smaller scale That even this YouTube channel You know, I started out doing videos Which would get 10 to 15 views And I never would have thought That a year or two later I would get, you know, a privilege To speak to somebody like you And speak to people That are making these stories That for the last 30 years I've been enjoying You know, just sitting on my couch Or sitting in a theater But to be able to speak to someone like you It's a privilege And, yeah, thank you so much again For coming on And I just wanted to share One more thing with you Which is that I posted in a couple of places Leading up to this Letting people know We were going to be talking And just saying Hey, do you have any questions You want me to ask Aaron And it was just really clear The level of enthusiasm People have for this show There were a few people who posted You know, I trust you for the questions But I just want you to forward along To Aaron, my appreciation for the show And just to thank you For bringing us great sci-fi That challenges us And just gives us something to talk about So thank you Thank you It's amazing to hear Thanks so much Awesome Well, thank you And thanks for coming on Looking forward to season two Thanks, man Appreciate it Take it easy