Cuse Control

You’ve created two CBS hits, co-created the already legendary Lost and turned a classic horror film into a critically acclaimed series. How do you follow that up? With a Jack Ryan TV reboot for Amazon.

- Jack Ryan

IT WAS 1982 WHEN CARLTON CUSE MOVED TO LOS ANGELES WITH THE IDEA OF BECOMING a screenwriter. “I thought, I’ll give it a shot; if it doesn’t work out, I’ll go to law school.”

Television wasn’t in his plans. “The gloss of the film business was much higher then,” he says. “Of course, now TV has become the home for really great dramatic storytelling. I recently had the president of a studio tell me that they can’t find any good writers for movies. They’re all working in TV.”

Cuse’s “graduate school for screenwriting” came from working with Jeffrey Boam, who wrote Lethal Weapon 2 and 3 and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. At night, he drafted his own scripts, all of which went nowhere. “I had read about Larry Kasdan’s seven unproduced scripts before he an incredible run that included Body Heat, Grand Canyon, The Big Chill, The Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark,” says Cuse. “That inspired me to keep going, to put in the hours to achieve some level of craftsmanship.”

A writing break came via a friend, who offered him two scripts for the TV series Crime Story, created by Michael Mann (Miami Vice, Heat). It was the beginning of a career that, 32 years later, includes co-creating Lost—widely considered among the greatest television shows ever.

His own favorite series is The Sopranos: “I’m in awe of it. David Chase has an unparalleled ability to weave the hilariously funny with the deadly series, to deftly mix the crime genre with family drama. If I need a creative jump start, I watch an episode. It reminds me: This is why you work as hard as you do.”

Cuse spoke to