Building Cliffhangers with ‘Culprits’ Creator, Showrunner, and Director J Blakeson

Culprits kicks off where most crime stories end: after a high-stakes heist, when the crew of elite criminals have gone their separate ways and have tried to leave their old lives behind. Past and present collide when a ruthless assassin starts targeting them one by one. Why are they being stalked, who is behind the mayhem, and will they be able to find one another in time to protect themselves and the people they love?

Culprits is one of those shows that literally leaves you on the edge of your seat, bouncing in anticipation in wanting, nay, needing to know what happens next. It's rich with complex characters and slick visuals. And this is all thanks to the story brain trust behind the show that is creator, showrunner, and director, J Blakeson. 

J Blakeson recently spoke with Script about digging deep into character backstories, non-linear storytelling, using reveals to deliver character motivation, and offers great advice on writing and directing thrillers. 

This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

Sadie Dean: What was your process behind doing your deep dive into character development?

J Blakeson: Well, it all started…really, it's sort of very nominally based on a book of short stories that Stephen Garrett, the executive producer, had optioned and had brought to me. I sort of just took the main concept of that, which was we start three years after a group of people have done a crime. And in the anthology of short stories, we're just telling the story of these people three years later, and it's not really sort of like a cohesive thriller, where all the stories come together, it's just sort of each person and imagining what would have happened to them. And so, I quite like that idea of having this central idea of “what if” and what would you do if you had a big bag of money, and you could reinvent yourself and go anywhere in the world and be whoever you wanted? That's something you can ask your friends, that's something you can ask the audience, something I asked myself, and it's something I asked the characters.

And so, the characters sort of came from me sort of wanting to meet these characters as one person who's not their real selves, and then delving into their past to their original selves, and which one is the real person? Which one is the true version of this character? Is it the version that they were always assumed to be before? Or are they the version of the person that they're trying to be - sort of their idea? And so I think everybody can sort of relate to that - trying to fight the version of yourself that people think you are and the version of yourself you want to be. So, the great thing about having eight hours is, because I normally write movies, that are between for two hours that having eight hours dealing with a heist is normally in a big heist crew, these characters on the fringes kind of get ignored. And they just have one or two little spiky scenes, but you're already concentrating on like your George Clooney and Brad Pitt as you go through. Whereas in these eight hours, you’re getting the opportunity to really dig into those characters, like you say, but almost sort of only dig into those side characters.

And because I really wanted to approach this sort of from the ground up and start with Joe, who was really sort of as a henchman, that his job at the beginning, is the sort of character that normally is only on screen for a couple of minutes before he gets shot before the famous person runs away, but these people have hopes and dreams too, they have families, they drop their kids off at school. So, the idea was to start with what is the life of this man? And what life does he want? There's two different lives, how are they different from each other? And how do they compete with each other? And with him in place, I then started imagining the people around him and trying to think of versions of those characters we hadn't really seen before.

Sadie: I really enjoyed the use of non-linear storytelling as a framing device for each episode. As a writer, what was your approach to mapping it out and making sure you're hitting all of the necessary plot points and character beats?

J Blakeson: To be honest, I probably should have mapped it out more to start with, because it was all in my head. [laughs] I wrote episodes 1, 2, and 3 myself, it was all sort of instinctive, and in my head, so it was it for me, it was just like, ‘Oh, I can tell that a little bit. Now, I can tell this a little bit.’ Because I knew what the whole heist looked like in my head. It was always like just editing, it's almost like I had the whole sequence filmed, and I could just cut to bits of it. And usually, it was a way of sort of either adding some energy into the show - kind of get the audience to really lean into the emotion, then you kind of smack them with some action, and then they sort of get jolted. And they really want to know what happens in the emotional scene, but then they get drawn into this action scene. And then when we get to the end of that, and then we jump back to the more intimate stuff. So, it's a quite nice way to sort of build in cliffhangers and keep the audience on the edge of their seat without actually giving them that sort of catharsis, [laughs] because they get sort of a different kind of catharsis because we’re switching backward and forwards.

Once we got into the writers' room, I had to sort of sit down and really explain to people [laughs] how I saw the heist and which bits were going to go where. And then again, when we were shooting, we had to literally, as if we were on a heist crew, get a piece of paper out, I had to draw the bank on it. And then we're using little model cars and little model people moving them around, explain to the crew in chronological order actually what happens in the heist, and then I can go back and break it up into episodes and show how we were going to film it. So, it was quite complicated.

And then the writing of it, we were quite close to how it finally ended up in the show. But you know, these things always move around a little bit in the edit. You find, especially with flashbacks and backstory, you probably need less of it than what's written, less of it than you've shot. It's always tempting to put it in earlier so that people lead in and understand more. But often, it's like you don't need it until they've actually engaged with the story and then you can start flashing back because they're actually interested in what happened before rather than just going, ‘Oh, look, there's people jumping out of a window.’

Sadie: Another great part of the writing on this show is the twists and reveals in each scene. Not only are you surprising the audience with new information, but also your characters. Was that something that was worked in your writers’ room or was that also all in your head ready to go?

J Blakeson: My stuff tends to have reveals in it, but they're not really twists because they're just stuff we haven't told you yet which frustrates some people because they’re like, ‘You're just not giving us information.’ And then you're giving it later. It's not a twist. But sometimes that's how life works, right? You find something out about somebody that you've known for a long time, it’s like, ‘Oh my God, I see you in an entirely different light.’ And it's the same with characters, quite like using genre and characters to have people make assumptions about the character based on maybe what they look like, maybe how they're behaving in the beginning. Like definitely with Joe, you sort of you warm to him, we empathize with him, you think he's a good guy, you assume he's one kind of person. And then he's revealed to have a different kind of passion, like, ‘Oh, OK, so who is this person?’

And so for me, it's just like these little sort of trapdoor reveals that take you deeper into character, and deeper into story. I mean, obviously, as you go later, through a plot, you need some surprises and reveals, you need to turn up the gas underneath the pot and keep stirring - some double-crosses, and some things that people have got secrets that come out, and people reveal true motivations, stuff like that you need and those are the stuff that needed mapping out.

I quite like it when I read a script, and I think I know what's gonna happen. And either it goes a completely different way, or I have no idea what's gonna happen all the way towards the end. And I like writing like that, and trying to surprise people with these reveals as we go, because I think it keeps people on their toes. I think it makes people engage and lean into the material. So, it's not just passive, you sort of have active engagement, which is what I love when I'm watching movies and reading scripts. You know when you you're really good script, if you're turning the page - you want to know what happens next - you want it to be sort of a visceral experience while they're reading, not just sort of like, read five pages, put it down, make a cup of coffee, come back, read another five pages, check your email. You want it to be like they can't put it down. And so, the reveals are sort of built into the nature of that in a thriller, I think.

Sadie: Were there any moments or instances for you while writing this or even just working with the other writers that took you by surprise about where a character went or how a scene played out?

J Blakeson: It wasn't really what they did as sort of how the characters developed. So, for example, there's two characters called Azar and Youssef who are a grandfather and granddaughter. And I sort of came up with those in the pitch document, but one of the other writers, at that time, was living with an elderly relative in their house and it was in lockdown. So, they were sort of stuck in the same place, and they obviously loved each other, but they were sort of also bristling against each other. [laughs] And so she brought a lot of that to it. And she wrote that episode, Nadia [Latif} and so those moments between the characters became, even though they're quite brief, they were very, very meaningful, and you got to know them very quickly. And I was always surprised that they don't really appear till episode four. But you really warm to them very, very quickly. And especially, you really love Youseff, and then you follow Azar's narrative very directly all the way through the rest of the show. And so, I was surprised that was how one of the characters sort of evolved that way. But that's always a happy surprise when your writers bring you something that is quite personal, but really works for the universe at the same time.

Sadie: Yeah, absolutely. Each character, especially those two, brings their own sense of urgency to those scenes on top of what Joe's going through. This is one is just for my curiosity, in episode two, the PI that is tracking Joe, is it a wink at the PI from The Big Lebowski? Because it was spot on same guy. [laughs]

J Blakeson: [laughs] I mean, it wasn't to start with - to start with, we were trying to play him as a real threat. The idea to start with was wanting to put the threat into the everyday world. It was an idea I pitched to Stephen - the idea was imagine that you've got two kids in the car. And one of them needs to use the bathroom, and you're being followed by somebody you think might be tracking you down to kill you and your family. They're both stressful situations, but in some ways, the kid is the most stressful situation because there's no negotiating with a kid, you know. [laughs]

And then when we came around to casting it, that actor came in. And he was just written as “mustache man,” you need to call them something, right? So obviously, you either give him a blue jacket or a hat or it's like we call him “mustache man.” And he came in with a mustache. And he sort of looked similar to Jon Polito from the Lebowski. I love Lebowski. I didn't have him calling, “I'm a brother Seamus!” That would have been too direct, I think. [laughs]

Sadie: This show has a phenomenal cast. Eddie Izzard. Brilliant. And Kirby is phenomenal. And of course, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett. Once your key cast was in place, what was that creative collaboration like with them in honing those voices? Did you ever go back to the script to make adjustments based on their feedback or how they approached their characters?

J Blakeson: We weren't lucky enough to cast the entire show, and then go make the show, a lot of the casting was happening as we shot the show. So, Eddie came in, and she was cast just a few days before those first scenes. Tweaks were made sort of right there, and then on the day, but especially with Joe's character, Nathan had a long time with the character. And so, the character sort of evolved as he was playing it, and we'd often just have discussions about the scene before the scene happened. And so, I think it's mostly as it was originally written, there was no big differences. It was just, when certain things maybe don't feel right in somebody's mouth, or they feel like, ‘I just don't think I would say that.’ And mostly, it's sort of, ‘I can do that with a look,’ it’s the classic, 'I don't think we need that line’ or ‘I would react a bit stronger here.’ Before they got the script, it was longer, and then I'd cut something out, and they're like, ‘It just feels a bit weird that we're getting there too soon.’ ‘OK, well, I'll put those lines back in that you never saw.’ And we'll fix it.

I love working with actors. Because I directed five of the episodes, I was right there most of the time, obviously, Claire [Oakley] was doing her stuff. But because I was right there, there was that collaboration with the actors where they could push and pull on it. Though, I will say I am fairly strict about the rhythm of my dialogue, that I'm not a sort of, like, ‘Let's just get one in the can and improvise all the time.’ Because I spent a long time writing this, can you please get it right? [laughs] If it doesn't work, we can talk about it, but not just because you're sort of feeling like doing something a little bit more sort of freeform today. So, I like to be protective of it. But at the same time, I'd like to give the actors as much freedom as possible within the boundaries of the script.

Sadie: What inspired you to get into this crazy business and tell stories?

J Blakeson: I think the short answer is I just love movies. I was sort of obsessed with movies growing up. I love going to the movie theater and sitting down for two hours, sort of forgetting that I exist and getting totally absorbed into another world and sort of coming out and blinking in the sun, and sort of having to wander around for an hour or so thinking about it. And the power of those stories and the way that you can sort of move people and change people's minds and transport people. Like the whole Sullivan's Travels thing where you can sort of entertain people.

And part of what was important for me on Culprits was coming out of the pandemic, was to try and make something that was entertaining and quite fun. Because to start with, I was thinking of making it more like a stark thriller. But we were right in the pandemic, ‘No, we have to make this enjoyable because we've just had such a nightmare.’ So try and make something that people can kind of latch on to and really enjoy.

And like the power of cinema, just made me want to watch them and then make me want to try and make them, and then I found my friends wanting to make them. But then some of them didn't want to make them anymore, they got kind of bored, and I never got bored. So, it was just one of those things.

I started off writing, just like poetry and prose. And then eventually I started writing screenplays. And I didn't really want to write, I wanted to direct, but then I wrote my own screenplays. And then when I first tried to break in the industry, you can write for free, but you can't direct for free. So, I was writing screenplays to try and get a directing job. But then I was sort of a victim of my own success, because I kept on selling these scripts and getting more scriptwriting jobs, and nobody wanted me to direct anything [laughs]. So, I was making short films on the side. And they were doing OK - didn't feel like anybody was gonna give me my big break. So that's when I wrote my first feature. I've written loads of feature films before that I hadn't directed. I wrote The Disappearance of Alice Creed, because it was three characters, mostly in one location, I thought I can make this really cheap, if nobody finances it, I can put it on credit cards, or I can make some of it and take it to people. And instead of waiting for somebody to point out which train I should get on, I started building my own train and driving out of the station. And then suddenly, people were starting to jump on over. So, we got financing, and then we made it.

And that was really the thing that sort of changed my life, because I'd been writing up until that point, and I had a couple of credits, I would say bad TV credits, they weren't particularly great. But it was really Alice Creed, that was the big turnaround point, which is like something I was very proud of. And something that really sort of changed the way that I looked at writing. And really gave me the confidence just to think of myself much more of as a filmmaker who has his own point of view, rather than somebody who can come in and fix the problem of your script. I have also directed films I didn't write. So that's sort of a different muscle as well. But I think the thing I most love doing is writing, and then directing my own writing. Because to me, that feels like filmmaking. So yeah, hopefully more of that.

Sadie: I hope so too. Any advice for writers writing heist thrillers and those who maybe want to direct their own scripts someday?

J Blakeson: I would say imagine big, but also have a version of it, obviously, that's achievable. There was a scene in this where somebody fell through two floors of a building that is not in the final thing. Because we couldn't shoot it. So be ready to compromise but know what's important to your story - that is for someone trying to direct it. And so, if you have a thriller script, it's achievable at like #20 million with a movie star, #10 million with an indie star, and then #5 million or under, if you've got no star - that's in a very attractive script that can play across the board. If it's just the $20 and above or $40-50 million version, you're probably not going to sell it and somebody else is probably going to rewrite it before it gets made.

But also, my main thing for writers is just read a lot of scripts. There's a lot of screenwriting books out there. I would advise not to read any of them. [laughs] This probably goes against your magazine policy. [laughs] I think you can read them later, once you've tried writing a bit, but I think if you start with the rules, you get very bogged down in it. But if you start not knowing anything, you sort of discover your own rules, and then people tell you, you're doing it wrong. But by then you've sort of found a voice and you found a way and you know who you are, and you have a bit of confidence because people give it to people who have read it and go, ‘I like that bit, and I like that bit.’ And so, you've sort of found you've got a bit of a head of steam already. And at that point, you can go read Story and Save the Cat! and all those things. But you don't need to do it. For me, I would say read scripts first. And even with films that you don't like. Look at the final film. If it was not a good film, go read the script, because the script might be better than the film, what was the difference? How did it work out?

And on thrillers, I think it's really interesting because thrillers are a lot of action and not a lot of dialogue. But the dialogue has to be very important and has to work very well because you have to get that exposition in, and you've got to get the stakes in. But when you got a lot of car chases, and you got a lot of bank robberies, and you got a lot of people sneaking around and people being chased, that takes up like 100 pages out of your 125-page screenplay. So, you really need to make everything count. And I think reading through the scripts, because they're all very, very different - just read as many as you can. Good and bad.

Season One of Culprits is now streaming on Hulu.