The MASTERPIECE Studio team on 10 years of podcasting

GBH Drama:
First question: can you tell me how you got started working on MASTERPIECE Studio? What’s the origin story for you both?

Jace Lacob:
Back in 2015 — which is crazy to think about; that was ten years ago — I had come off of a career as a critic and reporter and editor. Television critic, mostly. I covered a lot of MASTERPIECE shows over the years and had interviewed a lot of talent, had written about the shows a lot, had even moderated some events for them, and met future MASTERPIECE executive producer Susanne Simpson. I got a phone call from a friend at MASTERPIECE saying “I have an unusual request for you. It’s about a job. Would you be interested in talking?” And I was like, what? What is this?

So I got on the phone and she said that MASTERPIECE wants to make a podcast, and they want to do a pilot episode. I went out to New York, and it was a blustery, cold October day in 2015, and recorded an interview with Allen Leech from Downton Abbey. Just as a sort of test case, to see what this could be like. And Susanne was very happy with it. Allen was happy with the experience. And, Downton was about to go into its final season, so they thought we could do a podcast for the final season of Downton Abbey. We did, I think, 21 episodes for that final season, just for Downton, and interviewed everyone in front of and behind the cameras. MASTERPIECE was really happy, GBH was happy, and so they decided to pick it up and just continue doing what we did on Downton with a little reconfiguration. Ten years later, we are still here.

GBH Drama:
I love that he’s the first interview, I don’t think I knew that.

Jace:
He was the first recorded interview, I should say. The first actual episode is with Mark Gatiss for Sherlock: The Abominable Bride. We had Mark on recently, for Moonflower Murders, and it dawned on me that I was like, you were our first actual episode, and almost ten years later, we’re talking. And Mark was basically like, “what’s the point of it all, really? Ten years? Where does the time go?” Which was very funny. So yeah, that brings us to now.

GBH Drama:
And Jack, you came on a little bit later, right?

Jack Pombriant:
Yeah, I’m the fourth producer. So I came on in February 2023. And before that, my GBH introduction came in 2022. I was referred to Devin Maverick Robbins, who is the managing producer for podcasts here, by Ian Coss, who is behind the Big Dig project. They were looking for someone to come in and help out on the American Experience Presents podcast.

I was the sound designer, and did the scoring and audio editing and all that. And then I was brought into Detours for [ANTIQUES] ROADSHOW and started out doing sound design as well, and then produced a few episodes, and then I got an email through the Boston area Sonic Soiree, from [former MASTERPIECE Studio producer] Nick Andersen, who said, “who’s looking for a job at MASTERPIECE?” I had wanted to work at GBH ever since watching Arthur as a little kid. So I was like, I definitely want to apply for this. So yeah, almost two years at this point, which is crazy. To echo Mark’s sentiments: “where does the time go?”

GBH Drama:
You both have really clear pathways to work in this job, even though podcasting is still a relatively new field. But do you think there’s anything from your previous jobs that’s a sort of surprising skillset that’s helped you working on the show now?

Jack:
I think that’s a great question. And hearing you say it seems like a pretty clear path into podcasting — for me, it’s felt like [a very non linear path]. I did music school for my undergrad, and then was a music teacher for a little while, and a live sound engineer. Podcasting seemed kind of worlds apart, but really not that far apart because it’s audio. So I think my technical audio experience helped me get into the field. And then in 2019, I attended the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies, studying audio documentary, which filled in the other side — the producer side and the writing and all of that — which is more of the skills I use for this job, because we have a sound designer [Elisheba Ittoop]. So, yeah, I’d say probably the audio is the skill from my past.

Jace:
On the flip side, my audio experience was zero. So I came to this with no audio experience whatsoever. And my background was in sort of print and online journalism and criticism. So that was a sort of huge leap for me. But in terms of the actual day to day, it’s pretty similar to what I’ve done for almost 20 years now. Research: really meticulously delving into people’s histories and their backstories and watching other things they’ve done, close reading of episodes and story analysis, reading scripts, coming up with questions. Trying to predict the flow of a conversation and how people will talk, and trying to get people to open up and relax. And not be so guarded in their questions and answers and be vulnerable if they want to be vulnerable, which I think the audio format really helps with.

I think that’s why cameras off is often a really good thing. Because it’s more like you’re talking to someone on the phone, and you can be more present and not, especially as an actor, worry so much about what you look like; you can just relax and be yourself.

Jack:
I’d say 50% of the interviews we have, the guests will show up with the camera on. And I always tell them: you can shut your camera off. And they’re always like, “oh my God, thank you.” And I think what Jace was talking about with the meticulous research and then pivoting around and kind of following the arc or the natural flow of the conversation — usually he does about three pages of prep for these interviews. So during the interviews, I have the questions on one side of my screen and the Zoom on the other. And it’s not just like going down the notes in order; the way he jumps around, it sounds so seamless, but seeing what he’s doing while we’re also texting, trying to coordinate around what’s the next question or how much time do we have left? The things Jace is juggling, it’s totally impressive and mind blowing. So I think, yeah, the cameras off definitely helps for the intimacy, but also the ability to kind of pivot and be able to do all of that.

Jace:
I would add too that, you know, pre-pandemic, the reason we were called MASTERPIECE Studio was that we were actually recording in a studio instead of, my office here, where I live in Portland now, or previously, my bedroom in Los Angeles. And then during the pandemic, we really very quickly had to pivot to Zoom, and it just sort of worked most of the time. Glenda Jackson — rest in peace — her grandson had to come down and help when we were talking to her, because she didn’t have a computer. So, I mean, we had to sort of roll with technology, but I think we were at least well equipped to go just audio. And thank God no one had to see my bedroom in Los Angeles while I was recording this. That would have been not great.

GBH Drama:
The challenges of the home recording setup! While we’re talking about logistics, I think people would probably be surprised to find out that that’s how the interviews are conducted. When you think about it a little bit, it’s obvious that people are not flying to one central location to do these interviews. But what are the logistical challenges of planning around three different time zones, at least?

Jack:
The one I’ll always remember is, we were doing interviews for Tom Jones, spring ‘23, and we were talking with an actor named Sophie Wilde, and she was in Australia. And so I think it was 10am her time, maybe 7 or 8 my time, and I think like 4 or 5pm Jace’s time. So we were literally talking into the future, like the next day. That was kind of crazy. Luckily, that was only a one time thing. But when it comes down to the logistics of things, I’d say we’re a pretty well-oiled machine when it comes to times and scheduling. Jace is on the West Coast. I’m on the East Coast. Talent is usually in the UK, so we typically stick with 9am Jace’s time, noon my time, 5pm UK time. So for the most part, that works. You know, a few adjustments here and there.

GBH Drama:
That makes more sense. And 5pm is a nice time to be interviewed! I had a question about the enormous amount of prep work you do before recording. Can you talk a little bit more about what goes into preparing for the interviews? Do you watch every episode of the season? Do you just focus on that person’s arc?

Jace:
I watch every episode, and then I go back and rewatch every episode. And then as I’m prepping for a specific person, I will then follow their arc through multiple episodes, by looking at those particular episodes. And then I always get the scripts — I force Jack to get the scripts for me. You can often find interesting things in the scripts, such as scenes that were changed or outright deleted and didn’t make it to the screen, or sometimes were filmed and cut. And sometimes that sort of elicits interesting paths to go down with a guest. But I try to look at the writer’s intent in those scenes and the kind of physical blocking that the director has brought to it and what the actor is doing. Then I will start to come up with questions about the episode.

Then I will research the actor or person themselves, and look at every interview they’ve ever done — video, print, written — like archival. And then I’ll go back and often watch other work that they’ve been in to try to get a better understanding of their career arc and kind of the choices they make as an actor.

So I’m sometimes watching a ton of stuff. It’s fortunate that I’m very familiar with British television. So a lot of the stuff I have seen already, and a lot of these people I’m familiar with as actors, but sometimes, yeah, it’s someone sort of newish or someone I’m not really that familiar with. And then I compile three pages worth of questions. Most of them are not going to be necessarily asked.

And then I send it to Jack, and Jack looks it over and has suggestions, additions or deletions, and we kind of talk about things. We talk about the character arcs and what we’re trying to get across and themes that we’re exploring. And, yeah, then it gets uploaded to Google Docs, and Jack has it and I have it.

GBH Drama:
That’s A LOT work. And, Jack, do you feel like you have to catch up on all the MASTERPIECE shows so that you’re prepared to give good comments and help with the arc of the episode, or do you just sort of catch up from where you are and go with that?

Jack:
Yeah, I watch everything as well. You don’t always have as much time as you’d like, but we both watch everything.

Jace:
And does sometimes Jack have to go back and watch nine seasons of Endeavour to write a recap?

GBH Drama:
Oh, my goodness.

Jack:
That was fun. Yeah. For Endeavour’s final season, the ninth season, I went back and rewatched everything from the start, the full first eight seasons, and then we made a recap episode about that and then did our interviews for the ninth. So that was fun.

But yeah, Jace’s prep is so incredibly thorough. He recently found — what was it? It was like a program or something from a high school play that Samantha Bond did with Hugh Grant. Like that level of research is just… I mean, who does that? Only Jace.

While Jace is writing his questions, I’m usually writing the script for the intro and the section at the end that’s kind of like next time here’s what’s coming up. So usually by the time Jace sends me his questions, I review, I also send him my script. And so yeah, we usually record those after the interviews.

Jace:
Then I get to walk away and it’s all you.

Jack:
And then the post-production begins.

GBH Drama:
Have either of you had a guest who you expected to give a very specific type of interview and was really different when you ended up talking to them?

Jace:
I think not necessarily in terms of tone, or that I thought they would be really loquacious and then they were sort of terse or something like that. I think it’s more like it goes to unexpected places and the guest is actually more vulnerable than you necessarily thought. Sometimes there are tears, and that is sometimes really amazing, and sometimes challenging because it’s often not related to, say, a MASTERPIECE project. So it doesn’t necessarily make it into the episode.

But for example, I was interviewing Angela Lansbury — rest in peace — before she died, and that was in studio. So we were together for an hour, and we had this whole interview, and she’s talking about her career and highs and lows and challenges, and she’s talking about the day World War II began in Britain and the sky being black from anti barrage balloons, and getting on a ship with her family and going to Canada, and then the ship being torpedoed on its return voyage and it sank.

So she’s saying all these things, and she’s in true Angela Lansbury fashion kind of, you know, telling you a story. And I’m sort of leaning in, and she’s saying all these things, and then we talk about Murder, She Wrote, and we talk about Beauty and The Beast. And I mentioned “you sang the theme song for Beauty and The Beast, and it’s something that people still to this day are so connected to emotionally.” And she starts talking about how she recorded it with the London Philharmonic and she says, “I thought I would have all day to sing this; I only got to sing it once.” And she starts crying. She sang it, the director said, “great, you’ve got it. That’s it. You’re done. One take, that’s it.” And she was so upset that she only sang it once. And all these years later, sitting with me in the studio, she starts crying about Beauty and The Beast. And that was something I did not expect to happen, at all.

GBH Drama:
The Angela Lansbury story is going to stick with me. That’s amazing. The thing I would worry about as a person who’s never really interacted with actors in this capacity is getting starstruck. Do you still experience that?

Jace:
I would say usually I’m not starstruck. I’ve interviewed probably thousands of people over the course of my career. So it’s rare for me to get starstruck, but it does happen occasionally. I would say Helena Bonham Carter. Yeah. Definitely starstruck. And she was incredible. And the whole time, I kept thinking, you know, I can’t believe I’m interviewing Helena Bonham Carter right now! I don’t typically get that kind of butterfly kind of feeling, but Helena Bonham Carter? Yeah. Definitely starstruck.

Was I surprised when she put me on the spot and asked me what I thought about something? Yeah, but it made for a great conversation, and you just have to kind of roll with it. Do you ever get starstruck, Jack?

Jack:
I wouldn’t say starstruck. I think it’s those minutes leading up to the interview that are most nerve-wracking because it’s also like, what if the guest doesn’t show up? Or what if they show up really late? Or what if there’s a technical difficulty?

GBH Drama:
Jace, you mentioned Helena Bonham Carter asking you what you thought about something, and I was thinking about this earlier when you were saying your background is as a critic. I’d be curious to know what happens if you’re talking about an episode you didn’t love, or you want to talk about things that aren’t strictly promotional. How do you balance the fact that this is fundamentally a MASTERPIECE podcast with the fact that you’re a human with your own tastes and thoughts?

Jace:
Yeah. I mean, we are engaged in brand journalism. I guess I would say here, we’re an extension of the brand and we are part of that brand. So we are representing MASTERPIECE in everything that we do. I’m at a point where I have been writing criticism for almost 20 years — it’s aging me, but almost 20 years. And, you can always find something to question, something to discuss, something to delve into, even if it’s not your favorite thing. Yeah, there’s still issues at stake. There’s still themes that are worthy of being explored. They’re still fantastic performances to sort of dissect and analyze, and there’s always something at stake that’s worth discussing.

So it’s about finding those things and drawing those things out. Even if it’s not your favorite episode, or it’s not your favorite show, you can still find avenues of exploration.

I think people are coming to this because they love MASTERPIECE. It’s about finding those things that people are going to be talking about — and it might not be the thing that you’re thinking about at the top of your head that week, but it might be the thing that these people are obsessing over. So can you shine a light on that? Yeah!

GBH Drama:
Speaking of the fans — podcasts often sort of invite a parasocial relationship. Have you had that experience of people coming up to you, either online or in real life, and saying “I recognize your voice” or “I feel like I know you?”

Jace:
I think because we maintain sort of a barrier — so the podcast isn’t about me — I’m not inviting that parasocial relationship where I’m talking about my life. In fact, I’m sort of not talking about it at all. Or maybe I’m talking about it quite a lot by the questions I ask and the sort of things I’m interested in, and the kind of avenues of discussion. But, you know, it’s not a comedy podcast. It’s not a personal podcast. Occasionally I’ll meet someone and then they’ll be like, what do you do? And I’m like, “oh, I work in audio.” That’s always sort of my go to answer. What does that mean? I have a podcast. What podcast? And I’ll say it and it’s like, “oh, I know that podcast.” Or usually it’s, “oh, my wife is obsessed with that podcast.” So that is nice. But I think it’s not video, it’s audio. And we are pretty clear about the boundaries that we’re not delving into. I think the most personal we’ve gotten is our introduction to the 10th anniversary episode at the top of 2025, where I kind of talk about me a little bit.

Jack:
Yeah, I like to be behind the scenes as much as possible. Because that’s my comfort zone. But I think I’ve gotten more comments about if I’m wearing my MASTERPIECE socks or carrying my GBH tote to the co-op or something like that. People will be like, oh, MASTERPIECE, or GBH, and then we’ll get to talking. But I don’t put my face out there and put my voice out there, so unless someone’s like, oh, your name is Jack — I saw your name in the credits of this thing... it’s pretty limited.

Jace:
But I think it is fun when people love MASTERPIECE. And I love discovering that.

GBH Drama: 
Very classic question: can we talk a little bit about favorite interviews you’ve had over the years? I know it’s probably really hard to pick.

Jace:
So, Helena Bonham Carter for sure. We won a Signal Award this year for best host for that episode with Helena, so really proud of that one.

Jack:
Two Signals!

Jace: 
Two Signal Awards, for that episode. Thank you. And, my favorite moment in that was when she turned to me and sort of asked me, well, what do you think? And, I on the fly kind of gave her my feelings about that scene at the end of Nolly. That was a great moment. I mean, Dame Angela Lansbury, as I said before, crying about Beauty and The Beast. Tom Brittney, always a treat. Glenda Jackson talking about getting a check for £0.09 for the broadcast of Elizabeth R in Nigeria, I think was an amazing moment.

Sam West talking about the spirit of connection and poetry and what was missing during the pandemic. I mean, the cast of All Creatures Great and Small as a whole. Lesley Manville, Sanjeev Baskar, the cast of Downton Abbey — Hugh Bonneville, Laura Carmichael, Michelle Dockery — Keeley Hawes. Kenneth Branagh, recording that in the rain at a cottage at the Langham Hotel in Pasadena. It’s pouring, and we’re sitting in front of a fireplace, and he was like, “next time we should do this with brandy and cigars.” And I was like, yeah, okay. I don’t smoke or drink anymore, but okay. And let’s see, David Oyelowo was amazing. Anthony Horowitz, talking about secret escape hatches and secret doors. Yeah. I mean, I could name a zillion. We’ve done almost 300 episodes at this point, so, a ton of guests.

Jack:
I think for me, the most exciting one — the one where maybe I was kind of starstruck — was when we had the composer Blair Mowat on. And that was also from Nolly . I’ve been a fan of Blair’s work probably since around 2017 when I saw the movie Frequencies that he did the score for. So, you know, as a sound designer and composer, he’s always been someone I have admired and whose work I’ve looked at. And then one day Jace sent me an email. He’s like, “hey, this guy Blair wants to be on the podcast. Do you know him? And I was like, oh my God, Blair wants to be on the podcast! Amazing! And then also just to nerd out, I think he was using a 414 microphone to record himself. I have a pair of those, and he sounded great. I also thought he was a really good guest. He had great energy and insightful answers.

I think maybe in my time, our most ambitious request was for Paul McCartney, also for Nolly, because I believe — I might have the story wrong, but I believe he’s a fan of Crossroads, the show that Noele Gordon was on. And he wrote a theme song for the show that he recorded with his band Wings that I think they used on the show for a little while. So I was like, this might be my chance to finally meet Sir Paul. And so we wrote to him and we got the second best response, which was a no. Because it’s always better than just, you know, not saying anything.

Jace:
Paul McCartney would be up on the wall of the ones who got away. For sure. That was an exciting and then heartbreaking couple of days where it was like maybe? No.

Jack:
Did you ever think he was actually going to say yes?

Jace:
No, but it was like, Schrodinger’s podcast interview, you know? For as long as we didn’t hear, it was both yes and no at the same time. So you could live in that excitement.

Jack:
Yeah, I figured there was a 30% chance he would say yes.

GBH Drama:
30% is not nothing! Do you have other big ones that got away?

Jace:
I mean, Dame Diana Rigg, rest in peace. Most of the time it’s because sadly, they have passed. Another would be Dame Maggie Smith, who doesn’t do any press. I would have loved to have gotten her for Downton Abbey. The ones that I think hurt the most are the ones that you didn’t get to talk to them and then they passed away.

So I feel, you know: Glenda Jackson, Angela Lansbury, Michael Gambon, Tim Pigott-Smith, like, amazing that I got to talk to these people before they died. And it’s, you know, a privilege that we get to hold on to their voice afterwards and that we have a piece of them talking about their craft.

GBH Drama:
I was thinking about how nice it is actually to remember the ones that you got, you know, just under the wire. And sometimes if it’s one of their last interviews — that’s special.

Jace:
Yeah, yeah. I mean, Michael Gambon saying “Jace, you know your onions” will stay with me for the rest of my life.

GBH Drama:
A lot of times in interviews, the goal is to get an interesting scoop. How does that balance with the need to not share spoilers, or things that may be embargoed for whatever reason?

Jack:
I think you look for the nuggets that you can talk about. So you know that this character’s going to go away in episode five, but we’re talking to them for episode three, so we don’t really know that yet. Okay. We can’t go there, but what are some other things we could talk about? I think it’s also fun to — well, I don’t know, this might sound not fair, but I kind of like offloading that onto the guest as well. You can kind of see them work through it in their head, like, okay, I know I’m not supposed to spoil this, but how can I talk about it?

And they always have like a different angle because they’ve embodied this character for so long, so they can probably bring some other element forward that we might not be able to see just as viewers. But yeah, I mean, sometimes people do spoil and we have to cut it. What do you think, Jace?

Jace:
It’s a difficult needle to thread sometimes. You know, actors, especially nowadays, are very conscious of spoilers and not wanting to spoil, and often will err on the side of caution, I think, until we remind them like, no, this is coming out after. So you can talk about that, and I’m going to ask you six more questions about just that. So don’t worry about it. If anything they’re kind of holding back a little. And I think they are used to media being more spoiler-centric so that’s what people are after — give me a spoiler, tell me something that’s going to happen.

I’m looking for something that is more humanistic than spoilery. So I’m looking for insight more than just this little nugget that’s like, “oh, yeah, and my character dies next week” because that’s not serving the conversation. That’s not serving MASTERPIECE. It is more about, you know, what was going through your head when you had to shoot this scene? When this very dramatic thing happened to your character, how do you channel that emotion, and do you take that home with you? If we’re on a crime drama, like Unforgotten, it’s “how are you going to bed that night?” Do you just leave your character at the door when you take off that coat?

So it’s more about that than getting them to say something that is shocking or salacious or spoilery in some way.

GBH Drama:
I know this is maybe asking you to do a thing we just talked about that you don’t normally do on your podcast, but do you have anything you can tell us about what to expect in the coming 10th anniversary season?

Jace:
We are scrambling at the moment to finish those very things, or in some cases to start them, but, yeah: 10th anniversary year, we will be covering things like All Creatures Great and Small and Miss Scarlet, Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, which I have seen and is great.

Jack:
Miss Austen.

Jace:
Miss Austen! And then who knows what beyond 2025. Hopefully we can have more of an audience feedback loop. We’re looking to do something with that. And, maybe being able to record more in the field as a possibility.

Jack:
Yeah, a lot of big potential things that I think Jace said as much as we can about.

GBH Drama:
Very exciting — thank you guys.

Listen to MASTERPIECE Studio wherever you get your podcasts or on the MASTERPIECE website here .