[Ellin was looking for a rapper who had not yet made it, but had the talent to do so.] As we were writing that script, we thought it was going to be a nightmare if we didn't find anyone, ... We loved his charisma and personality.

We'd love to be a breeding ground for new music. I'm hoping that Saigon becomes a big star in the next four months. If he wants to come back, we're definitely going to bring him back.

I had more agents tell me that was the most frighteningly realistic episode they'd seen,

Andrew Abatemarco, who's now in the display business (and is the model for Vince) or Ricky Zimmerman, who's Johnny Drama, and is a banker, and then there's Paul Schneider, who's got a little bit of Turtle in him [and] he's a lawyer.

I had no kids when I started writing and two when they green-lit the pilot.

The show has always been about the shallow moment-by-moment existence of life in the business. But we keep discovering subtleties, like, in Hollywood, even a guy who makes $5 million is constantly insecure and struggling.