This interview has been edited for clarity.
In an industry that thrives on fiction, Ryan Dougall is more interested in what happens when the curtain slips.
“We’ve been pitching it as The Office meets The Larry Sanders Show.”
And it is, while still carving out a chaotic identity of its own.
On Building Comedy from Chaos
“I always wanted to do film and TV… I was doing little shorts on the side, trying to figure it out.”
He didn’t follow a traditional path into the entertainment industry. “I kind of did the flip-flop thing,” he explains. “Instead of working in the industry first and building connections, I just started a production company right out of college… we were young and didn’t really know what we were doing.”
That leap of faith led him into digital marketing and hospitality work in South Florida, which was valuable training but creatively limiting. “At the end of the day, it felt like I was always selling something rather than telling a story.”
Storytelling, however, never stopped calling.
Finding Story Through Experience
Dougall’s early work reflects both ambition and instinct. His first short film Michael, Emmadri, and the Mermaid; a hurricane evacuation story told from a child’s perspective, drew directly from his own lived environment. The project, which cast a four-year-old in the lead role, forced him to confront the unpredictable realities of performance.
“I learned very quickly that you can’t direct a kid in a straightforward way,” he says. “You have to make them want to do it.”
His solution, turning line delivery into a reward-based game with toys, reveals a defining aspect of Dougall’s method: adaptability born out of necessity. “Every time she said a line, she got to open one,” he recalls. “And suddenly, it worked. She trusted me.”
That ingenuity carries into his broader philosophy. “I think the more life experience you have, the better your writing becomes,” Dougall reflects. “You start pulling from real emotions, real people. It becomes more authentic. You don’t have that real human side at first, you need to live a little before you can write it.”
After relocating to Los Angeles in 2019, he started again from the ground up. “I was a production assistant, just trying to make a good impression,” he says. That persistence paid off. He eventually climbed to production coordinator within the unscripted television world, where the seeds of his current project took root.
A Show Built on Controlled Chaos
Dougall describes It’s Getting Late with Owen Reed as “a fly on the wall to the chaos behind a low-budget indie talk show,” a format that intentionally collapses the boundary between scripted narrative and unscripted spontaneity.
The structure of the show is deceptively simple: scripted storylines frame a central late night talk show segment. But within that framework, improvisation thrives. “We wanted to blur the line between what’s real and what’s fiction,” he explains. “Have celebrity guests come in as themselves, but exaggerated, a version of themselves.”
Improvisation isn’t just a stylistic choice; it’s a foundational tool. “We cast people that were just beasts in that world… we just let them have fun.”
“We’d start with improv just to loosen everyone up,” Dougall says. “Then we’d get what’s on the page, and then we’d play.”
That approach led to an overwhelming volume of material. “We had like sixteen terabytes of footage,” he admits. “That’s why post took a year. I kept thinking, ‘I can’t cut this, this is too good.’”
He also points to how much the landscape has changed for filmmakers. “Nowadays… you can just upload little sketches… it makes it easier for people to hone their craft.”
Reality as Inspiration
Nearly every character in the show draws from Dougall’s real-world experiences working in live television. “Every character is based on someone I’ve worked with,” he explains.
Some inspirations are almost too strange to invent. “There was a security guard I worked with who would show up at 6 AM and just practice nunchucks in the parking lot,” he recalls. “I was like, this is amazing—I’m saving this.”
That blending of reality and fiction extends to the show’s meta structure. The dynamic between the fictional producer and executive mirrors his own creative partnership behind the scenes. “It’s very true to life,” he says. “That pressure, that imposter syndrome, it’s all real. Just exaggerated. I don’t think I have all the answers, that’s part of what the show explores.”
His time on America’s Got Talent also proved formative. “Seeing all the personalities, seeing how things actually operate behind the curtain, that’s where it comes from.”
He even brought in collaborators from that world, including fan-favorite musical guest Bonavega. “We kept in touch, and I was like, ‘Hey man, I need you. I need Bonavega a part of this.’ And he’s like, ‘Rock and roll.’”
When Constraints Become Creativity
Budget limitations often forced the production into unexpected creative territory. One standout example involved a scripted live coyote, quickly deemed financially impossible.
“When you find out a coyote is about twenty grand for two days, you adapt pretty quickly,” Dougall says.
Instead of scaling back, the team leaned further into absurdity. “We were like, let’s just go insane with it,” he laughs. “Let’s make it completely off the rails.” The result: a hyper-realistic dog costume and a performer fully committed to embodying it.
For him, these limitations aren’t setbacks, they’re opportunities. “How do we make lemonade out of the bag of lemons we were dealt?” he asks.
Collaboration as Philosophy
If there’s a defining principle behind Dougall’s work, it’s collaboration. From assembling a crew largely composed of colleagues from America’s Got Talent to involving actors deeply in character development and comedy, the project thrives on shared creative ownership.
“It was a really collaborative and creative process,” he says.
Much of the crew were people he had worked with on America’s Got Talent. “Let’s do something different. Let’s do something cool.”
Dougall is also clear about how essential that mindset is for emerging filmmakers trying to break in.
“I personally could not have done it again without the people that I knew and asked to be a part of it,” he says. “I think it’s incredibly important to tap into your own network, especially when you’re doing it on your own or going the indie route.” This ethos shaped the production from the ground up. “I called in every favor I had,” he admits. “People read the script, liked the pitch.”
Looking back, he’s even more direct. “In hindsight, I wish I would have taken more advantage of that when I was younger,” he admits. “When you’re in college and everyone’s trying to figure it out—someone wants to do sound, someone wants to shoot, someone wants to act—you should just be making stuff together.”
In today’s landscape, those opportunities extend far beyond traditional gatekeepers. “You don’t need that validation anymore,” Dougall adds. “Put it on YouTube and let it go. You never know what’s going to happen—maybe two years later someone finds it and it takes off.”
Still, he emphasizes that collaboration comes with responsibility. “If people are working for next to nothing because they want to do something cool, treat them with respect,” he says. “At a minimum, feed them incredibly well.”
“I don’t want this to be a one-man band,” he continues. “I want people around me who are better than me, more talented. The show becomes greater than the sum of its parts.”
Even casting reflected this openness. Dougall reached out directly to performers, often without prior connections. “I thought people would ignore me,” he says. “But they answered. They wanted to hear more. I didn’t think anyone would respond to my email.”
Looking Ahead
Though the pilot serves as a proof of concept, Dougall already has a full season mapped out.
“We have a full bible and an arc for about eight episodes,” he explains. But he’s quick to emphasize flexibility: “We’re open to ideas, but there’s a general guide for where we want to go.”
What remains constant is the core idea driving the project: that the most compelling stories often emerge from the unpredictable space between structure and spontaneity.
As Dougall puts it, “Everyone wants to see behind the curtain.”
With this series, he doesn’t just pull it back; he invites the chaos to take center stage. “We just hope we get the opportunity to keep going with it.”
We do as well.
We want to thank Ryan Dougall for taking the time to speak with us.
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