SPEAKER 1: So just to start
off, for everyone who's
not familiar, can you talk
a little bit about this--
by the way, it's the 50th
anniversary, to the day,
of the Modern Love column.
DANIEL JONES: To the day.
[APPLAUSE]
SPEAKER 1: Would
you give everyone
a little bit of
an elevator pitch
on what the column is,
how submissions work,
how you choose?
DANIEL JONES: Sure.
That's more than
an elevator pitch.
[LAUGHTER]
I'll do my best.
So Modern Love started--
it's a personal essay column.
People write essays.
The published length
is 1,500 words,
which is like five
double-spaced pages.
People are often telling
the most important story
of their life in
that amount of space.
It started on this
day, 15 years ago,
as a column that was edited
by me and my wife together,
which was not the most
loving arrangement to have.
It sounds really
romantic and fun.
But she was working
on another project,
and it was really
a one-person job.
So I took it over, thinking it
would be like a two-year job.
The editor said these things
last about a couple of years,
then they sort of fizzle out.
So I thought it was a
short-term commitment.
Very glad it's not, because
I've really loved it.
The submissions come in
from around the country,
increasingly from
around the world,
through an email address.
And we-- it used to
just be I-- but we--
I have one person who helps me--
we read everything
and have committed
to responding to everything.
And I think that has helped
it last as long as it
has because, to me, the
vitality of the column
is just the freshness
of experience
and having the people say what
is important, not editors,
and having their story say,
this is what needs to be told.
And I feel like for people to
share truly vulnerable moments
and stories like that, they
need to know that there's
someone at the other end.
So that was our founding
principle, I guess.
SPEAKER 1: How hard
is it to get chosen?
Is it harder than
getting a job at Google,
harder than getting
into Harvard?
DANIEL JONES: Yeah,
maybe a little bit.
SPEAKER 1: What are
some of the numbers?
DANIEL JONES: Just a little bit.
It's like 1 in 200 are taken.
SPEAKER 1: 1 in 200.
OK.
That's good for
everyone to know.
So you've done
this for 15 years.
What are some of the
trends that you've
seen about how love has
evolved, or has it not evolved?
Has it stayed the same?
DANIEL JONES: I mean,
it stays the same.
It's stayed the same since
Shakespeare and before,
in terms of what compels
us to be with other people
and to want to have sex with
other people and to want to--
like all those drives, those
impulses that are baked into us
all stay the same.
But what I think
is intriguing is
how what's acceptable changes
and what society accepts
and how we--
I mean, the one truism
about love and relationships
is that you have to
be vulnerable to have
someone know you and to know
someone else on a deep level.
But that's the
scariest thing to do.
And so I'm always
intrigued by how are
the ways that we avoid that?
How are the ways that we
try to protect ourselves
from that, and just even the
notion that we think we can?
And how, being at Google,
how we use technology
to try to have a
shortcut to love somehow
or to try to acquire love
without putting ourselves
at risk.
SPEAKER 1: And so on
the technology piece,
do you now see that that
plays a large role in--
DANIEL JONES: Huge.
SPEAKER 1: Huge.
DANIEL JONES: Huge.
I mean, technology both--
it affords an intimacy that
feels like closeness and love.
But because it can
be so curated--
I mean, the kinds of essays
that fascinate me are these
long-distance, text-only
relationships--
not just texting but
communicating somehow through
typed words and how deep
people get in those and how--
because you're not
at risk of being
close to each other, that you
can allow yourself to-- you
can think you're revealing
yourself on such a deep level.
But there's such a barrier.
There's such a
barrier between you
that it fools you into thinking
that this is real intimacy.
SPEAKER 1: I agree.
And we're probably
responsible for part of that.
But I think what's really
exciting about Modern Love
and part of what we're
here to talk about today--
and we called it a
media empire now.
So this started out as a
column, became a podcast,
became several books, and now
is an Amazon original television
show.
How do you think these different
mediums serve the content?
DANIEL JONES: I mean, I have
my personal view of this.
I mean, the essays
are the purest form.
And beyond that,
it's interpretation.
And even the essay isn't pure.
Essay is a collection of what
the person decides to include
and what they leave out.
But that becomes the base story.
And then what was
interesting to me--
it hadn't really-- we'd done
a couple of in-house projects.
We did an animation
project where
we took essays and the
author was re-interviewed.
And that was spliced
together into a story.
And then they were animated
by different animators.
And that was really the
first thing that happened.
And then the podcast
happened after that,
and then the TV show.
But what I love is
seeing talented people
re-imagine these stories.
And even if an actor is reading
the story word for word,
they're still bringing their
emotional past in there to it.
It's a performance.
And for me, I don't--
the column is my job, so I don't
get to enjoy it in the same way
that readers do.
For me, it's like--
I'm not complaining about it.
I'm not saying it's like hard--
it is hard work, but
it's work I enjoy.
But I don't read the
column as a reader.
I read it as an editor.
And from the moment I
decide to work on something,
it's problems.
It's problem-solving
and all of that.
So I don't really appreciate
it as an audience.
But when other people are
turning it into a podcast
or turning it into a
TV show, even if I'm
helping with those
efforts, I feel
like I'm an audience for
that all of a sudden.
And essays that
didn't necessarily
move me a lot, because
I was working on them
and trying to get
them into the paper,
devastate me when
I'm on the podcast
or when I see them in a TV show.
And I'm just like a
sort of a bawling mess.
SPEAKER 1: Amazing.
DANIEL JONES: It's embarrassing.
SPEAKER 1: Which one did you
cry the hardest at in the show?
DANIEL JONES: Of the TV show?
SPEAKER 1: Yeah.
DANIEL JONES: I don't
know who's seen it,
but the end of episode seven
with Andrew Scott and Olivia
Cooke are in a hospital.
And she's giving birth,
and there are a couple
of scenes after that that--
I mean, I've probably seen
it 40 times at this point,
and it works for me every time.
It just--
SPEAKER 1: Amazing.
DANIEL JONES: Yeah,
really powerful.
SPEAKER 1: Amazing.
So we're on to the second
edition of this book.
For this book, how did you--
so you did this once before,
but how did you sort of--
you've divided it into sections.
How did you divide
those sections?
How do you categorize
all of these stories?
And then specifically
for this book,
how did you come to picking
these particular essays?
Some of them are--
or they're all now
on the TV show.
DANIEL JONES: Right.
So this book is just sort of a--
we did an anthology
back in 2007.
And this was taking that book
and bringing it up to date
by getting rid of
a ton of essays
and bringing in a
bunch of new ones.
I mean, the sad
secret about this book
is I was given three
weeks to do it.
SPEAKER 1: No way.
DANIEL JONES: But it turned out
better than the previous one,
which I had like a
year to do, because it
was one of these things where--
you can make a TV
show faster than you
can do a book, honestly.
A publisher needs a
year to do a book,
and the TV show is done
in less time than that.
So they needed me to turn
this thing around instantly.
It was really just days of
sitting with these essays
and figuring out how
they cohered into groups.
But the groups should be
provocative group names,
should be provocative in their
own right, and all of that.
And I literally, I just
slammed it together and wrote
a new introduction and
sent it off in the time
I had because I
didn't have much time.
But it turned out better because
of that short time frame.
I couldn't obsess about
it, like most things.
SPEAKER 1: And I think the intro
is really important, actually.
So when you get the
book, read the intro.
Because you talk about
something really important.
You mentioned it before--
vulnerability.
Because I think part of
what you're so good at doing
is you've actually gotten
the privilege of defining
love and defining it broadly.
And I know--
DANIEL JONES: All right.
SPEAKER 1: --you
always of sort of--
you always-- I know
you've been asked,
what is love, or the
definition of love.
And you do try to do that at
the beginning of the book.
But for Modern
Love specifically,
can you tell us a little bit
about how you've defined love?
I know you talk about desire
and vulnerability and some--
but they're not all
romance stories.
DANIEL JONES: Well,
it's important to me
that it not be
just about romance.
I don't even like
the word romance.
It just seems so shallow
compared to the word love.
It feels like a trick to
get you to fall in love.
But love is the deep bonds
of a marriage or family life
or children or parents
or pets, anything
that makes you feel so
connected to someone
at the expense of
yourself, in a way.
And this is the most important
thing in anyone's life
are your human relationships.
And to have essays where each
person is sort of defining it
on their terms or saying, this
is what's most important to me
and this is the experience
that most affected me,
it gets defined
through this volume
of people writing about it.
To me, it gets defined
through example
not theory or not definition.
SPEAKER 1: And you've
provided the world
with so many examples,
so that's so nice.
And we appreciate that.
DANIEL JONES: Thanks.
It's been fun.
SPEAKER 1: So Andrew
Reynolds did a essay
in the book, as well
as some other people.
A lot of the contributors
either have--
we talked about Amy Krouse--
or have written, are
writers in their own right.
What's it like when
you have somebody
who is famous and submitting
versus your everyday person?
Does that make a difference?
Do you think people read
into it in a different way?
How does that connect
to the whole process?
DANIEL JONES: I don't think
it is different, honestly.
I think everybody
has the same concern
about, what are people
going to think of me if I
talk about this stuff?
One of the episodes in
the series, episode four,
that has Tina Fey
and John Slattery,
is [INAUDIBLE] Ann Leary and
she's married to the actor
Denis Leary.
And she wrote it really--
this is one of the
essays that I really
pushed to have in
the series because it
was so meaningful
to me personally
in how it talked about what a
good marriage is, basically--
what a failing marriage is
and what a good marriage is.
And she used this metaphor
of their tennis game.
And it was one of those light
bulb moments of brilliance
that I was just like--
it comes about once every five
years or something for me,
and that was one of them.
But that was something to
write about someone who's
a public figure, the inner
workings of their marriage,
the fact that they
decided to get divorced.
And they have kids.
They have kids who were
teenagers at the time.
And I mean, I feel like part
of writing about this is ego,
like the assumption
that the world wants
to hear what you have to say.
But part of it is
this generosity of,
I feel like what I went through
would help other people who
feel shame about it or can't
articulate it in the way
that I can.
And most of the
pieces that I'm most
drawn to have that
tone of offering,
like I'm offering this.
It's not a show-offfy,
prancy tone or something.
It's like an offering
through learned experience
and difficult experience.
SPEAKER 1: And to that extent--
so you pushed, obviously,
for this one to be in.
You've read so many essays.
I mean, we talked about this.
Because a lot of
times, I'll think
it goes into a black hole.
It doesn't.
You actually do respond--
DANIEL JONES: No.
Yeah, they all get opened, and
they all at least get started.
SPEAKER 1: You said once every
five years something comes
along and just blows you away.
So do you have some favorites?
Is it hard to be objective?
Is sometimes you read
something and maybe it hits
really close to home or
something of that nature?
DANIEL JONES: I
do have favorites.
But the favorites that I have
aren't necessarily ones that
did especially well.
They were more ones where I felt
very protective over the writer
because they were really
trying to get down
something that was so personally
revealing and difficult.
In one case-- it
actually was one--
we had our best material
at lunch, I have to say.
We talked about all
this stuff at lunch.
But one of the essays
that I was proudest of
was by a Chicago poet
named Courtney Queeney, who
had been--
it was about domestic
abuse and a scene
where she was getting
beaten up by her boyfriend
in his apartment.
And then it spirals
into her seeking
a protective order
and all that, but it's
so beautifully written.
And she'd written
the first draft
in the second-person where it's
like, you're in the apartment.
You're blah, blah-- trying
to push it away from herself.
And I said, we can't
really do it that way.
It's got to be a
first-person essay.
And that was the first
hurdle to overcome.
And we made it through all
of these editorial hurdles.
And the last one was,
what happens if this
provokes him to come after you?
And we had a bunch of
conversations about that.
And she said, I'm willing to--
silence doesn't work
with this stuff.
I'm willing to take that risk.
And that's on me, too.
I'm the one who's enabling
this thing to happen.
But the piece came out.
It was fantastic
and so important
for a lot of people who
had been through that.
And the ending of the essay is
so moving because she finally--
it's the whole process to get a
protective order of protection.
And when you get it, it's
just a piece of paper.
It legally protects you,
but it doesn't really
physically protect
you from anything.
But she walks out
of the courtroom,
holding this piece of paper.
And she feels happiness
for the first time
in so long and even
at the same time
knowing that it's just symbolic.
It's not any kind
of real protection.
She doesn't have a bodyguard
or anything like that,
but just the fact that
it was granted to her.
SPEAKER 1: Well, you talk
a lot about vulnerability.
And part of the vulnerability
for both love and submitting
and letting the world
hear your story.
So that's a great example.
One thing that I love is--
and especially in the podcast
and in the book--
is that you get life updates
at the end sometimes from--
so you actually get to
see what's happened.
How has that been for you?
I mean, did you
ever imagine people
would be following
this years later
and what happens to them--
DANIEL JONES: It's been great.
And I don't participate
in that process.
So that's all done by
the podcast producers.
They do two sets of
interviews with the writers--
a pre-interview and
then a taped interview.
And then they splice it
together into something
that makes sense and
cuts out the extra stuff.
But I don't hear that.
I hear the final, the sort
of next-to-final version
of the podcast that's
just sent to me
in my system as an audio file.
And we listen to it
the day before it
goes live because we just
have to check it out and make
sure everything's OK with it
from The Times perspective.
And I hear those interviews,
and it's all news to me.
I am in touch.
I maintain relationships
with some of the writers,
but there have been--
SPEAKER 1: Wow.
DANIEL JONES: --so many.
So I don't know, and especially
in stories that have taken
place 5 years, 10 years before.
And the other great
thing they do often
is involve other people
who are in the stories--
husbands and
children and friends
and other people who are
involved in these stories--
and they get their perspective.
So I love that part.
That's the big
bonus for me to be
able to hear how
these people are doing
and hear from the
other people involved.
SPEAKER 1: And usually,
it's pretty heartwarming.
Usually, it sounds
like they come out--
no?
DANIEL JONES: Yeah.
I can't think of
any time when it was
combative in the postscript.
SPEAKER 1: But it's got
to do-- you get to hear,
do they stay together?
How does their life turn out?
And I think that's really nice--
DANIEL JONES: Yeah.
They can be really moving.
SPEAKER 1: --very personal.
DANIEL JONES: The postscripts
can be really moving.
SPEAKER 1: So the show.
Big deal.
TV star, now.
So you're a consulting.
DANIEL JONES: Yeah.
I'm a TV star.
SPEAKER 1: You're a TV star.
We'll talk about that.
You're a consulting
producer on the show.
What does that mean?
DANIEL JONES:
Consulting producer
can be anything
from a vanity title
to someone who's
really involved.
But I started out--
they needed me because I'm
the only person who knows
the archive, and they wanted--
I think they wanted to
make sure along the way
that they were honoring
the original column
and that I could
keep an eye on that.
So at the beginning,
it was mostly,
what essays are we going to use?
And there were 700 and
some to choose from.
And they read-- John Carney,
the show runner and director,
read a lot of them, hundreds.
SPEAKER 1: Wow.
DANIEL JONES: And
the other people
read as they could, the
Amazon Studio executives
and the executive producers.
But it was like, what are
we going to pull from?
What are we going to use?
What can the final variety be?
I wasn't involved in any
of those final decisions.
I was just offering
up, OK, well, here's
a bunch of essays about this.
And here's a bunch
of essays about this.
And in the end, there
were probably 200 or so
that everybody read.
But then as the show
went into production--
it was all filmed in New
York a year ago in the fall--
I just involved
myself, I sort of
insinuated myself into every
part of it that I could.
And I was still working
every day at The Times.
But I would leave.
Each morning, you'd start
out like 4:00 in the morning,
and you get an email with
the locations and everything
for the day.
And so I could just go off
on the subway or whatever
and find where they were and
sit in my New York Times Modern
Love chair, director's chair.
And I loved it.
Oh, my god.
I've never had more
fun with anything
in my life than doing this.
And just showing up, seeing how
it worked, watching them shoot,
seeing the exact same
scene 15 times in a row,
meeting everybody involved--
it was just a blast.
And then the last
phase was helping
to promote the show, plan
for all the stuff that was
happening with the show launch.
And The Times created an
ever-growing team of people.
At the end, I think it's
like 20 people or something
from all different departments
who all contributed something
to how we were going to play our
part in rolling the show out.
And that was fun too
because I work in styles,
and I work with the same editors
and people over and over.
But I really like to have
these sort of cross-department
connections that--
We did like merchandising
with Brian Rea, the artist
from Iron Love,
who did the cover,
has the little drawings
that are on the cover.
They did T-shirts and hoodies.
And in time for Christmas,
we'll have pajamas.
SPEAKER 1: Oh, wow.
DANIEL JONES: They're all
waiting anxiously for.
So it was just all those efforts
and events and stuff like that.
SPEAKER 1: And all of the
essays, or all of the episodes,
their essays are
in this new book.
DANIEL JONES: Right.
There are eight essays
that formed episodes,
and they're all in this book.
SPEAKER 1: That was
on purpose, I assume.
DANIEL JONES: That
was on purpose.
SPEAKER 1: That was on purpose.
So you can find
them in the book.
You have to look for them
under their different headings,
but that's a nice--
brings everything together.
And I think it's
really interesting
when you get to see the
film and then read the essay
or read the essay and
then see how it plays out,
because it's really good.
DANIEL JONES: There are
also essays in this book
that I know that we're
working on for season two.
SPEAKER 1: Oh.
There is going to be a
season two, everyone.
That's very exciting.
DANIEL JONES: There
is a season two.
Yeah, that was--
[APPLAUSE]
--a week?
Yeah.
Thank you.
A week after the
release, the numbers
were so good that they
automatically renewed it.
SPEAKER 1: Amazing.
And you have so much
source material.
You've got 700 and
something essays there.
DANIEL JONES: I
think we probably
have about 600 seasons' worth.
SPEAKER 1: Yeah.
Perfect.
Good.
That'll give me something to do.
How do the writers feel?
I mean, I'm sure in the past
when you submitted to Modern
Love, you knew what it was.
You're submitting to a column.
All of the sudden,
now you have a chance
to be Hollywood
or Hollywood-ized.
DANIEL JONES: I know.
SPEAKER 1: Were all of
the authors or writers
that you chose, were
they happy about that?
Did they feel that it
was a strange experience
to see themselves
being portrayed by some
of the biggest stars today?
DANIEL JONES: Yeah.
I think it was a little weird.
They were definitely
happy to be chosen.
And The Times has
this process where,
if anyone inquires
about the rights
to an article of
any kind, it goes--
there's a chain
of emails that get
started that includes the
writer of that article.
So all these people
were tipped off.
So they inquired about
dozens and dozens and dozens,
and all these people had
heard whispers about the show.
So they didn't get anything
official, other than this,
that they were CCed knowing that
theirs was being considered.
So from that point
on, everyone was like,
I hope they pick mine.
And so when it got down to the
final eight that were picked,
those people were thrilled.
And they were
compensated for it.
And they weren't-- with
one significant exception--
involved.
The scripts were written
independent of them.
The essay by a woman named Terri
Cheney that inspired the Anne
Hathaway episode, which is
about dating while bipolar,
essentially, they involved her.
Both John Carney and Anne
Hathaway talked to her a lot
because it was just something
they didn't want to get wrong.
They just wanted to make
sure their artistic choices,
which were kind of bold--
it turns into a sort
of a la-la land opening
to represent her manic phases.
And it's just all
bright colors and--
So he had all these
things in mind,
and he just wanted to
make sure that that
would be something that was
accurate to her experience.
And there's a part of the
middle of that episode where
she imagines herself as the star
of her own sitcom in a title
sequence, like a Mary Tyler
Moore kind of title sequence.
And that came straight out
of her conversation with him.
And he was saying,
well, what does it
feel like when you're a manic?
And she said, I feel
like I'm in the title
sequence of my own sitcom.
SPEAKER 1: Wow.
DANIEL JONES: And he wrote
that into the script because
of that.
SPEAKER 1: Did you find that
the episodes are pretty faithful
to the stories?
DANIEL JONES: They vary a lot.
Some of them are very
faithful, and some, it really
just takes the situation and
creates a story beyond that.
SPEAKER 1: And are the
writers OK with that?
Do they--
DANIEL JONES: I didn't
hear any complaints.
SPEAKER 1: You didn't
hear any complaints.
DANIEL JONES: Yeah.
No.
I mean, Terri didn't like--
she understood but didn't
like that the Anne Hathaway
character repeatedly loses jobs.
And it's a plot point
in the episode when
she loses the job that she has.
And she's like, I
never lost a job.
That was the whole thing
about her super achievement
is that she straight A
student in school, first
in law school, all this stuff.
And that she was so
proud of the fact
that she could hide
it and make up for it,
and she never lost a job.
And she was like, I understand
why they had to do it that way.
But I never lost
a job or got a B--
SPEAKER 1: Wow.
DANIEL JONES: --because of it.
SPEAKER 1: But when Anne
Hathaway is playing you,
it's kind of OK.
You're like, Anne,
do whatever you want.
DANIEL JONES: Yeah.
Smooths a lot over.
SPEAKER 1: It's amazing how
many stars attached themselves
to this project.
Were you surprised by that?
DANIEL JONES: Totally surprised.
SPEAKER 1: I mean, you
obviously have the stars that
also do the podcast, right?
DANIEL JONES: Yeah.
That surprised me too.
I don't know why I'm so
pessimistic about this stuff.
When we had our first
podcast meeting up in Boston,
I wasn't hot on the
idea of turning it
into a podcast in
the first place.
I just thought, well,
who wants to listen
to someone read them an essay?
And then they thought that they
would make that more appealing
by trying to get actors--
we sat in this
meeting, and the guy,
who's the general
manager of WBR, said,
I want to have Meryl
Streep read these things.
And I was like,
good luck with that.
What do they have?
Why would they do
this, essentially?
I don't know why I always
think that way, but I do.
And they just started asking,
and people started saying yes.
And the podcast has sort of--
as soon as a bunch of people say
yes and you go to more people
and say, well, these people
said yes, then they say yes.
SPEAKER 1: That's right.
DANIEL JONES: Yeah.
Totally.
And the same thing
happened with the TV show,
but the idea that--
it was an anthology.
So each episode was six days--
SPEAKER 1: Wow.
DANIEL JONES: --six
days of shooting.
SPEAKER 1: Wow.
DANIEL JONES: And
you can squeeze
six days of shooting into
almost anybody's schedule.
I mean, there's
still a lot of stuff
after that with
promotion and whatever.
In fact, I think actors spend
more time promoting something
than they do shooting it.
But it was easy to shift
around and get people,
to be able to work
them into a schedule.
And there was no
long-term commitment.
It wasn't like, this is
going to be your vehicle
for the next five years.
It was like, these
are your six days.
So they began those
asks, and I think
Anne Hathaway was
one of the first asks
for that specific essay.
And it was, again, as soon as
people start saying yes, then
more people say yes.
And they pretty
much just went down
their wish list and
everybody said yes.
SPEAKER 1: Wow.
This medium's pretty long.
So you talked about Anne
Hathaway having a sort
of la-la land breakout scene.
Do you find that that--
I mean, the essays
probably take--
I know on the podcast they
read them in maybe, what, 10,
15 minutes?
DANIEL JONES: It's 10 minutes
almost exactly, every time.
SPEAKER 1: 10 minutes.
Now you have 30 minutes to
fill for somebody's story.
You have 20 extra minutes
to really show this story.
What did you think
of that process?
And were there scenes
where you were like, wow,
that really added some
color to this that I
didn't see in the essay?
DANIEL JONES: It was fun for me
to see what they took advantage
of, like what they--
like in Ann Leary's
essay, which is
about this marriage
falling apart,
lots of scenes in
a therapy office--
but she has just a couple of
lines in the original essay
about "The March
of the Penguins,"
the movie, "The March
of the Penguins,"
where penguins just
mate for as long as just
till their egg is
hatched and their penguin
child is on his or her way.
And so she was comparing their
marriage to a penguin marriage
and just mentions
that as part of that.
And so John-- oh, no.
It wasn't.
It was Sharon Horgan
directed that, wrote
and directed that episode--
SPEAKER 1: She's amazing.
DANIEL JONES: --of Catastrophe.
And she just imagined
that into a whole scene
where they're in
the theater and--
I mean, I was clued into
this stuff when I was reading
the scripts along the way.
And so it was a
gratifying surprise
to see what they
would choose to expand
and what they would
choose to leave out.
And even some of the episodes,
like the Anne Hathaway story,
is not much of a story on paper.
It's two-- one meeting
someone in a supermarket,
a date that doesn't go
well, and then a date
that doesn't happen at all.
And the rest is her
talking about her childhood
and growing up with
this and eventually
being able to be open about
it and get treated for it.
But even when that essay
was chosen, I was like,
how are you going to build
a 30-minute episode--
SPEAKER 1: Interesting.
DANIEL JONES: --out of a meeting
and two dates and some history?
But they did.
SPEAKER 1: Wow.
So let's talk about
something fun.
You're in a couple of episodes.
You have a couple of cameos.
DANIEL JONES: I am.
SPEAKER 1: Has anybody
spotted Daniel in--
[LAUGHTER]
You told me a fun
story about that
that I think you should share.
DANIEL JONES: Oh, yeah.
We were looking early
on for some device
to connect the episodes.
And in the end,
they did something
toward the end of the
series that did that.
But before that was
decided, I suggested
that I deliver a pizza
in every episode.
[LAUGHTER]
That was kind of a joke, and
they didn't take me up on it.
It would have been
kind of distracting,
I think, to have me showing
up as a pizza delivery
person in every scene.
But yeah, but I did
make it clear that I
wanted to be in an episode.
And so Emmy Rossum,
bless her heart,
put me into the
start of episode six
as a father walking
along with a daughter.
Because it's an episode about
a woman whose father dies when
she's 11 and it's sort of
fucked up her relationship life
and she's--
so early on in
the episode, she's
looking longingly at my
wonderful relationship
with my actor,
seven-year-old daughter,
walking down the sidewalk.
SPEAKER 1: You're a natural.
DANIEL JONES: I know.
It was really good.
It took four hours,
and the scene
is about seven seconds
or something like that.
So I was in that scene.
And most people who know
me see me in that scene
because that's where the
focus of her eyes go,
and you can even hear
my voice, even if you
can't hear what I'm saying.
And then the scene that
nobody notices me in is I'm
in the Sharon Horgan episode as
just a diner in the background
behind John Slattery.
And his actor's son
is sitting here,
and I'm sitting behind them.
But it's sort of a
breakout moment for me
because, as an extra,
there's an extra--
if you're a good extra,
nobody notices you.
So you can't make any noise.
You have to fake
talk and fake eat.
And you have real
silverware that you
can't clink against anything.
And I'm really good.
I'm just so--
SPEAKER 1: Well, if this--
DANIEL JONES: I'm
total wallpaper.
SPEAKER 1: If this Modern
Love thing doesn't work out,
we know--
DANIEL JONES: I know.
SPEAKER 1: We have
a backup for you.
DANIEL JONES: --the
extra community, it's
a whole community.
All these people show
up as extras every day
in all these things, and
they know each other.
And they get sent off
to some church basement,
and then they're all summoned
back to the restaurant.
And it's a whole social scene.
It's great.
SPEAKER 1: New York plays a
big role in at least the essays
that were chosen.
A lot of them are in New York.
That also, as you spoke
about, helps tie in, I think,
a lot of these stories together.
Not all the essays
are from New York.
You said your biggest reader
base is in California.
DANIEL JONES: Yeah.
We have more New York
Times subscribers
in California than New York.
SPEAKER 1: So was that also--
[LAUGHTER]
--was that also a device
in terms of using New York
to tie everything together?
DANIEL JONES: I think so.
I mean, I don't know what
John's thinking was on that.
But it definitely feels like
a love story to New York.
It's sort of a gauzy rather
than a gritty New York.
Yeah, it's a bit of a
love letter to the city.
SPEAKER 1: For sure.
For sure.
It is the New York Times,
after all, so deal with it.
I'm going to invite anyone who
has a question up to the two
microphones at this time.
So please start lining up.
But in the meantime, I
have a question for you,
which is, have you
written a Modern Love?
And if you did, what
would that be about?
DANIEL JONES: I kind of have.
I wrote, let's see, two versions
of my own Modern Love story.
One was essentially
published in the book that
led to Modern Love
being created, which
is a book of essays I edited
and contributed to called
The Bastard on the Couch, which
was the sequel to my wife's
book, The Bitch in the House.
It's true.
It's not even a joke.
Well, it's kind of a joke.
But those two books
together, which
were essays about
relationships, is
what led the then style editor
to want to create the Modern
Love column and have us do it.
But I wrote that story, which
is about my life with my wife.
And it was about chivalry.
It was an examination of how
chivalry is coming to an--
what is it called?
I can't even remember
the title of it?
The End of Chivalry,
I think it was called.
And I wrote another thing for--
I think us for Harper's Bazaar
or something, when I had
a book coming out that was--
they were like, we want to
hear your Modern Love story.
And I didn't really want to
tell my Modern Love story,
but I told a safe version of it.
SPEAKER 1: We can
read it in the book.
DANIEL JONES: Yeah.
SPEAKER 1: Please.
AUDIENCE: Hi.
Around 2015, there
was this piece
published titled something like
36 Questions to Fall in Love.
And I was introduced to
that on a first date,
and I really loved it.
And I still do it with
friends just to like--
I don't know.
It feels like training wheels
for intimate conversation.
It's kind of fun.
I'm curious what
the reaction was
on your end, because
it felt like such
a little cultural moment to me.
And I didn't hear anybody else
talking about it in real life
actually.
DANIEL JONES: It was a
huge cultural moment.
So that essay came out, and
it was the most-read story
of the year and in The Times.
But I did a sidebar
that had the questions
and had an introduction
to the questions.
It took me about 10 minutes,
and that sidebar is, I believe--
this is being taped, right--
I'll say one of the
most popular things ever
to run in The Times.
But I believe the most-read
article, bylined article,
ever to appear in
The New York Times.
It's just so ironic.
I've worked so hard on so many
things, and a toss-off thing.
But tens of millions
of people read it.
And the article itself
also had tens of millions
of people who read it.
And I loved that piece
because it was a gimmick,
but it was a gimmick
with integrity.
And those questions
are what we need today.
If the problem in
relationships is--
and I can go on
and on about this.
But these days,
we date strangers.
And we didn't used
to date strangers.
We used to date people we knew.
We used to have
communities where,
even if you were set
up on a blind date,
you knew each other somehow.
You had people in common
who knew each other.
And now we date strangers.
And I don't even think we
realize how weird that is.
It's weird, and there's
a lot of distrust.
And it makes being
vulnerable much harder,
and people ghost each other.
And it's just a cruel,
cruel world out there.
And it doesn't mean that people
don't find love, because they
still do, in huge numbers.
But it's just a weird,
weird phenomenon.
It's a weird time to be alive.
I just feel like those
questions break through that,
because no one wants to be the
first person who is vulnerable.
And that game forces
equality on that score where
you have to ask each other.
And they start out pretty easy.
And then they get deeper and
deeper and harder and harder
and more probing.
And whether you end up falling
in love with the person-- oh
and then it ends with having
to stare into each other's eyes
for four minutes,
which is so hard.
That's so hard and weird.
But if it doesn't make you
fall in love with the person,
it at least allows you to
be known by the other person
and for that person
to be known by you.
And it can work in
long-term relationships,
and it can work in friendships.
And it can work with
parents and children.
And it can work romantically.
But it's purely because
it forces this issue
of making vulnerability equal.
Yeah, thanks for that.
SPEAKER 1: Do it with
your teams at work too.
[LAUGHTER]
AUDIENCE: Hi.
Whoa.
Wow, this echoes.
It's kind of scary.
With anyone that was depicted
in one of the stories that
wasn't the writer submitting
it, have they ever expressed
that they were misrepresented
or anything like that,
like they're either upset about
the way they were represented?
DANIEL JONES: I mean, we
tried to handle all that kind
of stuff before publication.
So we asked the writers to
notify people who are in it.
There's like a
gradient of seriousness
with stuff like that but
with the most serious being
like contentious
divorces or sexual abuse
or something like that.
And then going all the way down
to the one-night-stand where
you never see the person
again and you don't even
remember their name.
But I mean, one thing I've
learned over the years,
just that you can't really
know until you have experience
doing it, is when to involve
people, what to notify them
about, what to have them
read, whether I need
to personally talk to them or
exchange information with them.
But we have a really good record
of not having people be pissed
off, and sometimes people are.
But we know that in
advance, and people are
entitled to tell their stories.
And you don't live your
story absent of other people.
And there was a piece
that was done about--
one of my favorite ones--
about a Canadian soldier
in Afghanistan who comes back
to Vancouver to discover his--
and he's young, 20s--
his wife is having an
affair with her co-worker.
And they end up
getting divorced,
and it has all these
wonderful scenes
where he finds himself in the--
I hope we can make a TV
episode out of this one too.
He finds himself in the waiting
room of a therapist's office
in Vancouver with the
wife of the guy who
his wife had an affair with.
And she's seeking therapy
for her divorce, and he's--
and they're in
the room together.
And the therapist comes out.
And she's like, oh, my god.
I didn't realize this was
the same relationship.
That one, the people,
those other people,
were not at all happy about
having that story come out.
But people in general aren't
happy about The New York Times,
having a name in The New York
Times, unless it's something
like--
they're uncovering
a lot of bad things
about a lot of bad people, and
people aren't happy about that.
But in this case, I was
in touch with the people.
I was like, I realize
this isn't what
you would like to have happen.
But do you actually contest
anything that happens in here?
And they really couldn't.
And so we just
went ahead with it.
And that's not fun, but you're
balancing whose interests
do you want to honor here-- the
interest of the storyteller or?
As long as it's happened, people
are allowed to say it happened.
AUDIENCE: Thank you.
SPEAKER 1: It's not anonymous.
When you submit,
you have to use--
DANIEL JONES: Yeah, The Times'
rules, and I like these rules--
you can't change facts.
You can't change names.
You can't use an anonymous
byline or anything like that.
I think as soon as you
start evading and replacing,
then all the credibility of
a personal essay falls apart.
It's got to be all out there.
AUDIENCE: Hi.
I've read, and
I'm just wondering
if you can confirm, that there
will be a soundtrack from all
the music from the episodes.
I cannot figure out what the
final song of the final episode
is, and I'm almost embarrassed
to admit how much time I spent
trying to find it.
And it has the
name on Amazon when
you click for the
extra information,
but it doesn't give you who
is actually singing the song.
DANIEL JONES: The
lost and found song?
AUDIENCE: Yes.
DANIEL JONES: The
soundtrack came out--
AUDIENCE: Oh, it did?
DANIEL JONES: --on Friday.
AUDIENCE: OK, so--
DANIEL JONES: What's today?
Thursday.
It came out last Friday.
AUDIENCE: All right.
I must have been
searching the week before.
DANIEL JONES: It's
available on any place
where you can get music.
SPEAKER 1: YouTube Music.
DANIEL JONES: It's called--
[LAUGHTER]
YouTube Music.
Only on YouTube Music,
probably, right?
SPEAKER 1: Only
on YouTube Music.
DANIEL JONES: And a
lot of the songs--
this was kind of
funny because they--
all the songs were
original, and people
were trying to Shazam
all these songs
and weren't having any luck.
And that's because it
was original music.
I have no idea why that
soundtrack didn't release
with the show, and I don't know
if they were caught off guard
by all the interest
in the music.
But I'm one of the first people
who bought the soundtrack.
I bought [INAUDIBLE].
AUDIENCE: Well, I'll be going--
I'm going to go look
on my phone right now.
This is like breaking news.
DANIEL JONES: Yeah,
Modern Love, season one.
Gary-- I forget
his last name now.
I'm confusing it, one of
the actors, Gary Carr.
But the person who did most
of the songs is named Gary.
AUDIENCE: OK.
Thank you.
DANIEL JONES: There's
a search term for you.
SPEAKER 1: Any other questions?
Question?
Oh.
AUDIENCE: Hi.
I feel like I have learned
so much about relationships
from reading Modern
Love all these years.
And I was just wondering if
you had one piece of advice,
like one definitive
thing that you
have learned from all your
years of editing the column.
DANIEL JONES: Hardest
question for last.
I mean, it's going to sound
really sort of boring.
But I think the hardest thing
and the most necessary thing
in relationships is just
basic kindness and decency.
And I see that in--
when you're with
someone for a long time,
you just start to lose that.
You don't treat the
people closest to you
in life with the
same respect that you
treat a stranger that you
run into on the sidewalk.
And actually, this is
something that Anne says.
She's full of pearls of wisdom.
This is something
that she said too was
that treat your partner,
treat your loved
ones with the same
kindness as you
would someone you run into at
a party and start talking to.
You don't treat those
people dismissively
and cut them off and talk
to them abruptly and act
impatient.
And you need to do that same
thing with the people you love.
SPEAKER 1: OK.
Just a few more.
If anyone else has
any last questions.
OK.
Well, in the meantime,
I'll ask one just quickly.
Do you have any
favorite love stories
that are not Modern Love?
DANIEL JONES: No.
SPEAKER 1: No.
Short question.
DANIEL JONES: Yeah, but
I'd have to think about it.
I don't have them on speed dial.
SPEAKER 1: OK.
You think about it.
What's your question?
AUDIENCE: I love the
Tiny Love Stories.
And I wanted to know more
about that, how it had started
and if it has the
same success in the--
DANIEL JONES: Oh.
I'm glad you asked.
The Tiny Love Stories started
a little over a year ago.
These are 100-word love
stories with a picture,
very Instagrammable.
And there was talk of wanting to
do another Modern Love column,
and I didn't want to do another.
It wouldn't be
called Modern Love,
but it could be called
modern something.
The idea was that it would
make all this stuff doubly as
popular, but my fear
is that it would just
steal from my own audience.
And I didn't want to do
another essay column.
I feel like I want this
to be the essay column.
And so in response to
that demand, I said,
well, let's try to come up with
a new way of telling a love
story.
I think we should tell
a really short love
story that would have a picture
and see what we come up with.
And so we started
this a year ago.
I have a woman
who works with me,
who's worked with me for years,
even though she just graduated
from college like a year ago.
But she's really smart and
really good at this stuff.
And so when she graduated--
she was helping me
as a part-time intern for years.
And then we brought her on to
The Times when she graduated.
And this became her project.
We worked on it together.
And we still work
on it together,
but she's increasingly
taking over the load.
And people submit these
100-word stories through a form,
attach their picture.
We curate four or five
of them into a column.
The fear was that we would get
all these 100-word How We Met
stories with a wedding photo.
And I wanted it to be
the same as the column
where it's really emotional,
impactful stories that
cover the broad spectrum
of what love can be.
And that's what it's become.
Some of these are just
so powerful that they
make us cry in 100 words.
And sometimes the picture is
really such a good complement
to the story.
So we're totally
proud, and I'm totally
proud of her, this
woman, Miya Lee,
who oversees it at this point.
And we're doing a book of
them that will come out
about a year from now.
We're just starting
it, and it will
have a page-a-day tear-off
calendar component to it too.
So I'm really glad
that these stories
will have this new life.
AUDIENCE: I was curious
how writing this column
has impacted your
own relationship.
DANIEL JONES: I don't know.
I'm always ask that question,
and it's so woven itself
into my life that it's hard
to separate lessons from it.
What I take from the column,
which is sort of a surprise--
and this is not just from what
gets published but from all
the stuff that I read through.
And now this includes
all the stuff
that's submitted to the
Tiny Love Stories, which
we've gotten like 15,000 of them
or something in the past year--
is like what kind of person
leads a happy life, and what
kind of person doesn't, and
the choices that lead you
down either of those paths.
And so much of it
has to do with what
we are talking about
before with vulnerability
and with being able to have bad
things happen in your life--
which bad things happen
in every person's life--
and how do you react to that?
If you have a child die,
do you adopt a child again
or something like that?
Or do you close yourself off?
And I see that dividing
line over and over
and over in the short stories
or the longer ones of people
being brave and
choosing to be brave
and that that is like
the path of light.
But you also see the bitterness
and blame and withdrawal--
totally understandable.
But it's not the
path of happiness.
It's not fulfilling, and
this is your one shot.
You live a life
with other people.
It's so easy to isolate
ourselves these days.
So I'm always reminded of that.
And I'm a pretty
private, insular person,
and it's good for me.
It's good for me to
be reminded of that
and the human connections
and how important they are.
SPEAKER 1: Well, we are so
happy you were here today.
And thank you for being here,
and one more round of applause.
DANIEL JONES: Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
