When I think about the riggers of a career in media making right now, actor and filmmaker Mark

Duplas comes up in my mind in a few different ways.

I watched his movie Biosphere last year which is just out on Hulu and it is this very weird

very entertaining movie where Mark Duplas and Sterling K Brown play lifelong friends who ended up stranded in a biosphere together.

I loved it and also thought, wow, I can't believe movies this weird can still get made in

Hollywood. And then I watch Mark

Duplas on the morning show on Apple TV and I get this nervous feeling in my gut

about the high stakes internal politics at a media company at a time

when so much is changing. I was supposed to interview Mark last year, but then our recording got cancelled because of the strikes.

And when we talked a few weeks ago, he described his enviable position in this strange moment in Hollywood, he feels like he's had plenty of success,

maybe even enough of it, and is trying to figure out how to pay it forward.

This is becoming increasingly rare in the entertainment industry.

Later on in the episode we'll hear a bit from listener,

Jehan Crowther, a TV writer, who like many in Hollywood has lost ground financially since the strikes

and isn't sure what's next.

So this conversation with Mark Duplas feels timely to me about how he has defined success, not around making

necessarily the biggest bucks or the biggest hits, but around making enough so you can make the next thing.

And he and I also talk about how after a career of hustling and advocating for yourself,

it can be tricky to learn how to do things in a different way, even when you feel ready.

I'm here. I'm way more successful than I thought I was going to be. I got way more money

stashed aside for the family than I thought it was going to be. It's not time to build anymore. I have to change the speed of this engine and try to go into

enjoyment mode. It's extremely difficult for me to get that right. This is death, sex, and money. The show from Slate

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