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The Crime CafeAuthor: Debbi Mack
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Interview with William Stuart – S. 12, Ep. 4
Saturday, 25 July, 2026
This week’s guest is William Stuart, executive producer and director of the popular scripted podcast American Afterlife. Imagine, using a scripted podcast as a proof of concept. Because we talk about that here Download a copy of the transcript here. Debbi (00:54): Hi everyone. My guest is a veteran entertainment executive with extensive industry experience. As president and CEO of Aurora Productions, he oversees its slate of film, television, and podcast projects. He’s also executive producer and director of American Afterlife, a highly successful scripted podcast adapted from the best-selling YA trilogy. (01:23): It’s my great pleasure to introduce my guest, William Stuart. Hi William, how are you doing today? William (01:29): Very good. How are you? Glad to be here. Debbi (01:32): Very happy to have you on. I’m very interested in your podcast. I’m interested in scripted podcast in general, but what’s the logline for your show? William (01:43): Yeah, I don’t know that we fall quite in the crime drama, but we’re going to get there. Debbi (01:48): Okay. William (01:51): The idea is based on fact, but then becomes fiction. So Pedro Hoffmeister, who lives up in Eugene, Oregon, has been writing about the big earthquake in the Pacific Northwest, and everyone up there is sort of bracing for it. And as a writer like yourself, he sort of said, “How do I fictionalize this and what would happen if?” And he wrote his novel, his book based on the fact that the earthquake happens. And one girl, a 15-year-old girl decides she doesn’t want to get rescued by the National Guard and be skirted away, but she decides she has to look for her mother. And as you can imagine in this post-apocalyptic world where authority is gone, electricity’s out, dams have broken, that it’s a new world. In terms of visually, we’ve been talking about The Last of Us or Station Eleven, this sort of post-apocalyptic world where many of the rules are thrown out and you just have to survive. (03:15): And that’s what our heroine Cielo has to do or tried to do. Debbi (03:21): Yeah. Yeah. It’s a very interesting concept, frightening concept. William (03:26): Yes. Debbi (03:27): Also very suspenseful. I think it falls pretty well into a thriller genre in any event. William (03:37): Well, there’s two aspects to it. One, it’s certainly a thriller and even a bit of a psychological thriller with her, a young girl in this new world. But then it develops into a crime series. There’s been a number of murders and we don’t know who’s responsible. And at first she’s even blamed for them, but then we find out it wasn’t completely her doing, but she was involved. Debbi (04:10): Interesting. How does adapting something like that into a podcast differ from adapting for film and television other than the need for sound versus visuals? William (04:25): Yeah, it’s a very good question. Something that was a challenge for us, but we knew from the beginning this really had to feel like a movie. I hate to say that, or a TV series, as if you closed your eyes and were watching it. Debbi (04:42): Exactly. William (04:44): So the performances, and especially that of Scarlett Estevez, our lead, and Josh Mesnik and Ted Owens had to be spot on. And then with the soundscape that we designed, that brought the audience into it. So you can imagine Scarlett, who’s done a lot of voiceover and animation, was very comfortable with it because she’s usually just reading from a script and not acting with other people. But there is the advantage that usually they will show you the picture and the character you’re voicing, and you’ll look to that. In our podcast, I had to ask her to create a whole new persona. There was no Scarlett, no Cielo in real life. So Scarlett went away with the scripts and came back with what she thought the character should be and should sound like. And she was really great and I think got it 99%. And the other 1% or what have you, we worked on in the room, in the studio. Debbi (06:02): Wow. It sounds like you really had a collaborative process going with the actor, that actor at least in particular, and others, I assume? William (06:10): Yeah, all of them. Debbi (06:12): All of them. William (06:12): Yeah. It was an interesting process because of scheduling and such. In the beginning, they were all in the studio with us separately, and they were doing their own pieces. And I had heard obviously Scarlett’s piece, so then I could tell Josh what he was reacting to. And then we could tell Ted Evans where he had to be. And then eventually we thought it would be really cool to get all three of them in the room, which we did. And that was amazing. I mean, we went back and fixed some stuff. I was able to put Scarlett sitting opposite Josh, which is what they’re doing if you know the podcast. It’s an interrogation in that sense. So now they’re sitting opposite each other and we got even better performances, I think. Debbi (07:05): Yeah, the performances are excellent. They really are. William (07:08): Yes. Debbi (07:09): I mean, they draw you in very well. What do you think accounts for the show’s great success? William (07:20): I think it’s the fact, number one, we started with a great premise, a great book. It already had a strong following. It was a bestseller. And when we started telling Pedro’s audience what we were doing, they were all there on social media asking, “When’s it coming? When’s it coming?” And like all good Hollywood things, it took twice as long as we hoped, but we made it twice as better, I always say. I think it’s the fact that we took the time to do it right, that we went back over the performances and honed them and got them better. And then we had the time, we made the decision to take the time to do the soundscape properly, to really go into it. And we did, I think, three or four edits of the soundscape for each episode just to make sure it wasn’t over the top and cartoony, but just stayed in that realistic place where people really feel and felt, I think, immersed in the world. Debbi (08:37): Yeah. I noticed when I was listening to it, there’s a very distinct difference between listening to Cielo, think to herself, voiceover style versus being in the room with the cop. William (08:49): Right. Debbi (08:51): It sounds more like a room. William (08:53): Yeah, which is something which is easy to do if you know you have to do it. And what it was just behind the scenes, it was just turning on this air conditioner noise that there would’ve been in this Holiday Inn in Eugene. She’s talking to herself, she’s almost in a soundproof room or something. It’s in her head. Debbi (09:19): Exactly. William (09:19): And that’s sort of what we were playing with. And the sound effects, I think, do take you from one location to another. Debbi (09:28): Absolutely. Yeah. Certainly it’s less costly to make a scripted podcast production than a full film production. Is that a good motivator for people to start thinking about perhaps breaking into writing scripted podcasts? William (09:46): Well, I’ve done a couple of interviews now, and that question, like yours, got asked. As a filmmaker, it’s fun just to make stuff. My process is I find material, I find a script, a book, even a news article that I think is interesting and see if we can make it into a movie. And in the past, in order to pitch these to the studios or now the streamers, you had to get something creative together. And that was always a pitch, maybe with some visuals. Once in a while, we’d even do a poster. But with this project, we said, “Well, podcasts are becoming of age.” Not so much dramatic, but just podcasts in general, there’s a big audience. So we were saying, “Look, the end goal between you and us is that we hope this will be a TV series.” And we did the podcast with that in mind. (10:58): So this is our calling card towards something bigger. Debbi (11:02): Yes. William (11:03): And it allows the, I’m going to get in trouble for this, the short attention span buyers at the studios to just listen to one or two episodes and totally understand what we’re doing or trying to do. (11:24): And as I referenced always in Hollywood, the tone of it is The Last of Us, the tone of it is Station Eleven. The tone of it is one other project or something. So they get an idea going in what it’ll be like. But still the challenge will be to find a top TV writer, which we’re doing now, to hone and develop probably because there’ll be a longer, probably eight, 10 episodes to develop more characters, more situations for her, take more from the book. We actually left a lot out of the book, but expand it and expand it and of course make it much more visible. We’ll obviously see the earthquake happen. We’ll see the dams break. We’ll see the helicopters. We’ll see the National Guard arriving, et cetera, et cetera. So it’s primed for a TV series. As you mentioned earlier, if we could get the money together to make something like that. (12:35): But podcasts are reasonable to make. Something at our level in terms of production value is more difficult to the individual out there, but I’m very lucky in that I teamed up with Benstown Media, who are a radio production company, and they brought everything to the table that they could in order to make this a first-class podcast. Debbi (13:08): That’s fantastic. Well, I’m glad that it’s worked out so well for you so far because it’s a very, very interesting story. How did you find the actors? And do you think audiobook narrators would be a good place to look for talent in this area? William (13:27): And say that again about narrators? Oh, book narrators. I’ll do. Debbi (13:31): Yeah, book narrators. William (13:31): All right. Yes and no. Where we had our talent, I cast this like a movie. I went after actors. Scarlett, I don’t believe she’s done book narration, but she’s done voiceover and cartoons and animation and stuff. Josh is not, he’s just a young guy wanting to be an actor. Ted Evans is a veteran voiceover guy and radio guy, does a ton of commercials. I believe he’s the Aflac Duck, if you want to make a reference. Debbi (14:12): Oh, yeah. William (14:13): He’s one of the top sound guys in Hollywood. And usually hard to get him, but he loved the project. And he’s never been asked to do something more extended. When he does a commercial, it’s 10, 20, 30 seconds of voiceover. Here, we wanted him for all the episodes and he was thrilled by that. Debbi (14:37): I guess so. William (14:39): Yeah. Yeah. And he was terrific. Talking about what we’re going to do, which was a bit of your question too, we’re already starting to develop season two of the podcast. And we left it as a cliffhanger where, I don’t know if you’ve gotten the last episode yet. Not yet. I don’t want to spoil it for you. Well, I won’t spoil it for you. Debbi (15:06): There’s a cliffhanger, of course. William (15:07): It’s a cliffhanger. And obviously like every good series like this, we left it open to more episodes. And we’ve already started to talk about how to do that and how many and when and all of the good things. But clearly what happened on Apple, that we went to number one in the podcast in Drama. Immediately we knew we had to do more with this. Debbi (15:33): Yeah, that’s amazing. Congratulations on that. William (15:37): Thank you very much. Debbi (15:38): Fantastic. William (15:39): We were happily surprised, but not astonished. Debbi (15:44): Well, that’s wonderful. What kind of production schedule did you have? How far ahead were you writing things before you had them out there? William (15:54): Interesting. Yes, a good question. We set a date for the launch, and I think it was back in, I don’t know, January, February, something like that of the year. And then we said, okay, let’s backtrack from there. If we do three episodes, if we have three episodes in the can, then we can continue on and do the fourth and the fifth while we are launching it already. It’s just sort of the television series model. They will write six or seven episodes. They’ll get it on air. And then if they’re smart, they’ll wait to see the audience reaction to certain characters and where the story’s going. And therefore they’ll modify episode six, seven, eight, nine as they’re going along and they can make changes. And that’s what we though we were going to do. But then after we got number one and number two in the can, we said, “Wow, this is so good. We’ve got to launch it.” (17:01): All in the series, we decided to just do it all. Just do all the episodes, do the sound. The soundscape was easier to do with all the episodes there. We could start promoting it. We could start doing, which you may or may not have heard, the little mini-episodes in between where we go behind the scenes a bit and meet other characters and meet Scarlett and meet Ted Evans and Josh off camera, so to speak. So then we got it all in the can, as you say, and then we picked a date and we set that date. We did some promotion around it. I was able to arrange a meet and greet and a Q&A at Barnes & Noble where we brought in the author from Eugene. We brought in Scarlett. We brought Josh and myself, and we did it in the Barnes & Noble in Glendale so we could push and promote the book and the podcast and what was coming next. (18:17): And that was very successful and fun to do. We might try and do another one with the second series launch. Debbi (18:27): Wow, that’s really something. Yeah. It sounds like you had fun doing it too. William (18:34): It was one of the funnest, if that’s a word, projects I’ve done. Great partners at Benstown Media. Scarlet and the other actors were just a joy to work with. I know it’s said a lot in Hollywood, but it really was. She’s getting a lot of attention. She’s coming out in a movie in August, I think an Adam Sandler movie. So her career’s on the rise and we’re on her coattails right now. Debbi (19:03): That’s fantastic. William (19:05): Yeah. Debbi (19:06): That’s amazing. If an author were interested in having their book adapted into a scripted podcast, what would be the best approach for them to take? William (19:16): Yeah. Well, calling me, I guess, would be one idea. We’re excited about it. We are hoping to have a conversation. Are you familiar with Blumhouse? Of course you are. Yeah. They tried to launch some podcasts in 2004, I think, horror podcasts. But we thought we could bring our expertise to the table and maybe do some sort of anthology, a horror a week, a crime a week, something like that where- Debbi (19:53): Very cool. William (19:54): We would have a host every week. Trying to think back to the shows I watched. The Wild World of Disney, whatever it was, where Walt Disney was hosting every week, where we could get a celebrity every week to say, “Hey, thanks for coming. We’ve got a doozy for you. Hope you like it. Listen in.” So there’s a plan there. We haven’t had that conversation with them yet, but something I’m trying to make happen. Debbi (20:28): Well, I was going to ask, do you take queries? William (20:33): Yes. Yes. From writers, from crime writers. Debbi (20:37): Well, I can think of a thousand crime writers right now who might be interested. William (20:45): Well, let’s keep that open because I also, in my development slate, have one or two or three scripts for features that we couldn’t get made. And we’re talking about reviving those in some way and seeing if they’re adaptable to a podcast series of this kind. I think almost anything is, depending on how you go about it. Debbi (21:20): Exactly. Yeah. I was going to say, is there a particular type of work that you think is best for this type of media? Or really can you do anything? William (21:30): I think anything. I mean, I was skeptical when we said let’s do one set in the Pacific Northwest, outdoors mostly, in a deserted landscape. But then the writers were able to balance that with the interrogation room and other elements that made it sound bigger than it really is. Debbi (21:52): Yeah. Yeah. That sound design really. William (21:54): Yeah. That takes you in the interrogation room and out of it. Do you remember, did you ever listen to Homecoming? Debbi (22:06): That sounds really familiar. William (22:08): Yeah, it was very popular. They had, I think, Laura Linney and I forget the actor’s name. Anyway, they were doing it and it was very contained. It was all almost in one building, a couple of rooms in a cafeteria and all that in one building. And it was interesting to listen to, but there wasn’t much dynamic to it. It was a quiet podcast, not big sound effects, a lot of interrogation room, and a lot of expositional dialogue because they didn’t have the sound effects. And then they made a movie about it with Julia Roberts, which was a failure, but they got it made. Debbi (22:58): Yeah. William (22:59): That’s 99% of the challenge here in Hollywood. Debbi (23:05): It seems like a miracle when anything actually gets made, and yet things get made. William (23:10): Things get made. Debbi (23:12): They just do. William (23:14): It takes a lot. I mean, it used to be a very friendly atmosphere for creators like myself, independents, where you could get into a studio, have a conversation. 75% of the time it’s no. But then 25% of the time you could get into a dialogue where they say, “Okay, I like this. Could you change this? Could you change that? Then come back.” How about “we like it, we want to option it, and then we’ll develop it.” But those conversations have sort of ended. They’re looking for independent producers to come in with a proverbial package. So do you have a director? Do you have a script? Do you have a star? And all those elements, which we now have to put together just almost to talk to them. Debbi (24:10): Yeah. Yeah. You pretty much have to have the whole thing set up in a package ready for them to look at. William (24:19): And say no. Debbi (24:20): Very beautifully presented, very little thought, a whole lot of, “Here’s what’s in it for you.” William (24:31): A lot of work goes into it. You’ve got one shot, but still most of the time it’ll be a no, but at least you’ve gotten in the room and had the conversation. What’s most difficult is to, and I’ve done it recently with this podcast, is to make a few phone calls to the agencies or some independent production companies. And just to get people on the phone or an email chain is diabolical. Debbi (25:04): Yeah. Yeah. Getting people on the phone is difficult. William (25:08): Difficult, difficult. Or getting people to return calls, whatever. But that’s what producers do, and I guess that’s my life now. Or it has been for a while, I should say. Debbi (25:19): I get it. I get what you’re saying. William (25:23): I assume it’s like going to get books published. Debbi (25:27): Yes. There’s a lot of waiting, a lot of speculation. William (25:32): Right. Debbi (25:34): And nobody knows anything, as somebody once said. William (25:38): That is so true. Nobody knows. What was the saying? Debbi (25:43): Nobody knows anything. William (25:45): No, but there was another one in the movie side of it. Oh, I don’t know if I like it. No one’s told me yet. That sort of thing. Debbi (25:59): Yes, that’s a good one. William (26:01): I won’t know if I like it until someone tells me I like it. So that was old studio in the agency mantra because no one wants to pass on anything, but no one wants to take it to the group meetings and say, “Hey, there’s something interesting. What do you guys think?” Debbi (26:18): Too afraid. William (26:21): I guess. But it’s become such a, I hate to date myself, but back in the day, the business was not a family, a family business in a way. On the movie side, I knew most of the players. They knew me. I wouldn’t call them with something stupid. And when I called them, they would turn the call and we’d have a conversation. But then it became a younger executive, a younger group who didn’t plan on staying anywhere a long time. And we’re told that the way to advance is to change companies all the time. And so they planned to be there a year or two, and they had the projects that were ready to go right away. And if you didn’t have it all together, they didn’t want to go to the meetings and get shot down. So it’s gotten to the point where they still won’t say no, they just won’t return your call, but they’ll hardly say yes. Debbi (27:32): It’s hard to get a yes. Yeah, for sure. And even when you get a yes, that doesn’t mean you’re going to get the total green light. William (27:42): No, the green light’s way down the road. Debbi (27:44): It’s way down the road. William (27:46): Just to get it in the place that can help you get to the next step. Debbi (27:51): Precisely. William (27:53): Yep. Yeah. Debbi (27:55): What advice would you give to anyone who would like to get into what you’re doing? William (28:00): Podcasting or producing? Debbi (28:02): Either podcasting, writing, or producing, or all three. William (28:07): They’re three different things. Debbi (28:09): Yes. William (28:10): The interesting thing with writers, as you know, is if you want to create something, you don’t need a team of people around you. You’re able to go, like I say, writers, painters, you’re able to go into a room, close the door, and write, and you don’t need outside help doing it. You want feedback later, but you’re doing what you’re doing. With a movie, I can’t get a normal movie made without a hundred people being involved. And I’m starting with a writer coming and doing it, then a writer and I convincing a director to do it. Then the writer, director, and I convincing an actor to do it. At the same time, maybe convincing a studio to do it. And then you get the studio together, and then you have to convince the studio that you’ve got the right budget. And then you have to go find the rest of the cast and the crew and the time. (29:17): So it takes really a village. Debbi (29:21): Yes. William (29:21): Takes forever. With a podcast, it was me in the room with three people. Then you put the soundscape of four. I think our team was 10 people at the end of the day and all kicking in to do a good job. So I think that’s the difference. Now, the results are quite different. At this point, there’s very little money in dramatic podcasting, but there’s a satisfaction in getting it done. It’ll help book sales. It’ll help Pedro It’ll help Scarlett, it’ll help all the elements involved. It’ll help myself. But what the next step is with it is a complete unknown. Debbi (30:11): I was going to say, do you get advertising dollars? Is there a subscription? Is there a Patreon or something? William (30:18): The podcast world? Debbi (30:20): For your show. William (30:22): For myself? Debbi (30:23): Yeah. Is it financed through ads or what? William (30:30): Yeah. Well, this case, again, we were financed by Benstown, but we were able to do it on a budget because they already owned the studio. They owned the people who did the announcing, the people who did the soundscape, all these bells and whistles they already had in-house. We were able to do all of that easily and cheaply. We did try and get a sponsor on board once we could show all the episodes. We said, “Well, let’s go get a sponsor.” And we worked with a company called Gamut. It was another big radio company. And the reluctance was it’s something they’d never heard before. It wasn’t Joe Rogan. It wasn’t some celebrity podcaster or actor having a podcast, et cetera, et cetera. It’s something new. It’s dramatic. Who’s the audience? How many people will listen? And nobody knew. In the end, I was able to go to a company that I knew called Pair of Thieves, which is in the same marketplace in terms of social media and all that with us. (31:52): They actually sell socks and underwear to a young audience, to a hip young audience. And they saw what we were doing and said, “Hey, this is great.” They came on board to sponsor the series. We did a tie-in with them, a giveaway of socks, and they got radio time, et cetera, et cetera. And it worked out really, really well. They sold some more socks. We got some more listeners, but the numbers still are small. I don’t think we’ll make back our budget on the first one. But the second series, which as I said, we’re planning, then we’re probably going to get a sponsor for a good sum of money, something that’ll cover the budget and also cover the budget in number one to sort of get us in there. They’re not big numbers, I mean $100,000 for the series. We’re not looking at millions of dollars, although we might ask for millions. We’re not expecting that. Yeah. Debbi (32:52): Well, I just wish you the best of luck with this because it really deserves a wider audience in that sense. William (33:01): Share with your friends and your followers. Debbi (33:06): I will. William (33:08): Hopefully that’ll help. We’ve been very steady with the downloads since the beginning, which is very encouraging. They haven’t dropped off a cliff. They’ve been very, very steady. So word of mouth is going around. Debbi (33:20): That’s fantastic. William (33:20): Apple started out really strong. Spotify then came up behind Apple and started growing. And now the two of them together, and we’re on Gamut Radio and all of those, but those two are the bulk of it because they’re people in their car or they have 20 minutes, the kids have 20 minutes to listen to something wherever they are. So that’s worked very well. Debbi (33:47): Well, is there anything else you’d like to add before we finish up? William (33:51): Wow. No, I just encourage people, everything I can. Television or features or whatever it is, it starts with great material, great ideas, and having a way to explain those ideas to the next person. Be it a script, be it a pitch document, be it a podcast. How do you grow your idea? And that’s the challenge. How do you bring people on board to support your vision and say, yes, I’ll get on board. I’ll help you do this. Debbi (34:33): Exactly. Yeah. William (34:34): Yeah. Debbi (34:35): Kind of like finding your people. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you so much. William (34:42): A pleasure to meet you. Debbi (34:44): It was a pleasure to meet you too, William. I really had a good time talking about this, and I really do love that show, American Afterlife, everybody. Check it out. It’s excellent. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review. You can also support the podcast by becoming a patron on Patreon or subscribing on Substack. Until next time, take care and I’ll be seeing you. ***** Check out our Patreon page!
