Interview: Jett Creator Sebastian Gutiérrez

You might have noticed how much we loved JETT over here at NiceGirls. If you haven’t watched it you can find it here. Also though if you haven’t watched it do that – do that now.

The story centers around Jett (Carla Gugino) a world-class thief just out of prison and already being forced back into what got her there, by a group of eccentric and dangerous criminals.

We love nothing more than a strong, complicated, complex woman and Jett checked all of those boxes. So just imagine how excited we were when we had the chance to chat with Sebastian Gutierrez, writer/director, of JETT. 

*Some spoilers/plot points revealed below *

Do you know where you are going when you start writing the story? Do you already have an end in mind?
Depends. I find I tend to come up with ideas for scenes that I like and I don’t necessarily know where in the story they are so I have to first write out the scene and then figure out if I need to explain stuff that happened leading up to it or simply keep going forward from there on. It’s a bit like detective work. For this, specifically, the mission was to create a character I was compelled to keep following in different situations. I knew by the end of Season 1 she’d kill Mijan Bestic, but I certainly didn’t know many other details.

Did you have a favorite moment from the season? Something that came together during filming just how you envisioned when you were writing it?
More than one, for sure. The advantage of directing what you wrote is that actors and locations constantly surprise you.
(so actually, my favorite moments are when it comes out differently — but better — than I envisioned).

Let me explain that better: when I’m on set directing, it doesn’t really matter who wrote the script because you’re basically inheriting a bunch of obstacles and challenges you’re trying (along with the crew and actors) to overcome in order to make your day.

So very specifically in the case of Jett, Josie’s (played by Jodie Turner-Smith) death scene, for various reasons, kept shifting locations (based on schedule), until we eventually found that empty train maintenance station. Once I saw the possibilities of that I rewrote the entire sequence to fit that particular location — which, by the way, is how people with lots of money and time do it BECAUSE IT MAKES TOO MUCH SENSE — so it was a real joy to build that sequence from the ground up. In the original sequence, Josie died much quicker but by then I loved Josie and didn’t want her to die (but had to kill her because the entire season 1 plot hinges on it as Junior hijacks the story) and so I wanted her to really, really fight back and outwit the baddies and almost get away with it.

So that was super cinematic (and brutal) but surprising in a cool way because it became like this mini movie where Jodie Turner Smith gets to be a bit like Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley (thus the white tank and underwear tribute) fighting the alien(s).

The dream sequence in episode 9 was a lot of work (for a short amount of screen time), but really cool to figure out and liberating, because in dreams you can add extra flotsam and debris that can be interpreted in different ways. It’s also one of the few times we are inside Jett’s head, since she tends to not be very self reflective.

You wrote and directed this entire season – do you also get involved in casting? Did you write any of the parts with a specific person in mind – besides Carla. *I started typing Ms. Gugino and then I changed it to Carla and now I feel weird – like calling her by her first name is not appropriate. I’m a mess*
A. Sure, I’m involved with casting. We have an ace casting director on JETT, Avy Kaufam, who found some really awesome people I didn’t know. But lots of them I did know or had worked before or had my eye on from other stuff and — although I didn’t necessarily write it FOR them — I thought, “this could be really good for so and so”…

B. I think you can call Carla “Carla” and she’ll be fine with it…

The season ended with a lot of the story wrapped up, but also with a clear opening for more story. Do you already have some thoughts where the story will go? (assuming everyone – Cinemax – is on board for a second season)
I do. Pretty much the whole second season mapped out. And it’s freakin’ cool. So fun to have the characters matched to actors now because it really allows for a lot of: “well, I know Lucy can do THIS, but can she do THAT?”

Do you have a project you wish more people knew about? Something we can put some more eyes on.
Someone else’s project: I think more people should watch Babylon Berlin on Netflix (with subtitles, NOT bad dubbing, please) because it’s awesome and I liked the music so much I hired composer Johnny Klimek to do Jett, and he absolutely crushed it.

If mine: I did a movie called JUDAS KISS many years ago that has in it, some of the DNA of Jett. It’s stylized and noirish and has a great performance by Carla and Gil (Bellows) is in it and other people you may have heard of, like Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson. For some reason it’s reeeally hard to find but it’s got some cool stuff in it. It did very well in Spain, Australia and Mexico (?), go figure, but never had a proper release here.
**Judas Kiss is available to watch on Amazon Prime**

Check out our coverage of JETT here.