Leonora

I'd wanted to write sitcoms since I was in college and thought my chance finally came when Friends hit the airwaves in the early nineties. I figured it had to be my time because I resonated with all of the characters, mostly Ross, because I'd just divorced my first wife after she'd fell in love with another women. Classic, huh?

So, I wrote a few spec scripts in Colorado and then moved to California in search of an agent. In the land of miracles, I found one inside of three weeks at the Gersh Agency. I was told how much they loved the script, "The One With The Swedish Meatballs," about Joey and Chandler meeting twins who are porn stars seeking to recruit them for future movies. Everything then went really fast and the agent set up a meeting for us to meet with the producers.

I'd found a room to rent from Leonora, a woman with a heavy accent from South America.  I adored her because each time my girlfriend called Leonora would yell, "Yim, phone for chu!"  It was never "you."  That experience never left my head and so I decided when writing The PriVILEged that I would try to make Father Dominic just as interesting with him saying such things as, "Chu come with me, Mateo."

I was looking forward to starting a life in California with my girlfriend, but things didn't go as planned. However, if the only reason I ended up in San Francisco was to experience Leonora's accent, I think you'll agree it was worth it.