Kurt Sutter discusses everything from his “Sons of Anarchy” spinoff “Mayans MC” to James Gunn’s controversial firing from “Guardians of the Galaxy” in a candid new interview.
The 58-year-old, who renewed his deal with Fox at the start of this year, speaks to The Hollywood Reporter about his unavoidably political TV series, which centres on the Latino motorcycle club from “SoA”.
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After admitting he “wanted to find a writer of colour who knows the world,” Sutter then gets asked about “Magnum P.I.” showrunner Peter Lenkov, who recently stated that it was “incredibly hard” to find Latinx writers.
He rants, “That’s bulls**t. It’s a smaller pool and you have to do a little bit more work — you have to dig a little deeper and you have to make choices outside your comfort zone — but that’s bulls**t.
“I clearly am not a guy that gives a f**k about being politically correct. And not that I don’t think it’s important or I’m being disrespectful, it’s just not a priority of mine. Hiring the right voices for this show, anything other than that doesn’t make creative sense to me.”
Sutter also gets asked about why he chose to re-up his deal with Fox rather than go for a company like Netflix: “I don’t mean to sound self-effacing, but I don’t do this for the money. I do this so that I don’t end up swinging from a pipe by my neck. For me, money is about respect, and that is really important to me. So, if writer x is getting x, y, z, then I f**kin’ better get x, y, z ’cause that’s the respect you owe me.
“So, in that regard, yes, money is a big, important part of that process ’cause I need to know that I’m valued and respected for me to show up and do what I need to do. Whether money is a good motivator for that or expression of that is a different conversation. I know Ryan [Murphy] a little bit and I know how talented he is, and when you see that money the first thing that goes through your head is, F**k.”
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Sutter also speaks about James Gunn’s recent firing after old, controversial tweets emerged online.
When asked if he had any skeletons in his closet that may come back to haunt him, Sutter says: “I was like, ‘Well, as far as I know, I didn’t Weinstein anybody. I may have upset people, I may have said inappropriate things but there was not [any of that].’ But again, they needed to do the due diligence. And as [FX CEO John] Landgraf says, ‘It’s a different climate and you have to acknowledge it and be aware of it and move in step with it.'”
