The KCET Cinema Series continued its spring season on Tuesday, March 8, at the ArcLight Cinemas Sherman Oaks with a screening of forthcoming comedy, The Bronze.
The film stars Melissa Rauch (Big Bang Theory) as fictional former gymnast Hope Ann Greggory, who rides on bronze medal-winning fame in a small, Ohio town. Greggorys life changes when shes coerced into coaching an up-and-comer who may steal her place as hometown hero.
Co-writers Melissa and Winston Rauch were on hand for a Q&A session led by Deadline columnist and KCET Cinema Series host Pete Hammond following the screening of the film. Listen to the full conservation in this weeks Cinema Series podcast and read an edited version of the chat here.
The KCET Cinema Series is generously sponsored by E. Hofert Dailey Trust and gives audiences the chance to view films prior to their theatrical release and sit-in on conversations with the creative minds behind these movies.
On the inspiration for The Bronze.
Melissa Rauch: There were a couple things that inspired the idea, two little seeds. One was, were huge fans of the Olympics and have always loved watching them and we always thought it was funny that the announcer would have to say, Ah, theyll have to settle for the bronze.
Its third best in the world! Its still amazing, but theres this negative connotation with that. We thought what if someone hung their hat on that.
Then, there was this moment that happened, years ago, when I had one of my very first jobs on TV and I went back to my small town in New Jersey. We were at the mall and we went to the pretzel stand and the manager there said that he really liked the show and he gave me a free pretzel and Winston and I shared it. We were so excited. That pretzel tasted so good.
Winston Rauch: I asked for extra cheese sauce.
M: He did. He tried to get extra cheese.
W: Pushing my luck.
M: It tasted very doughy and delicious and then, a few months later, the show I was on was canceled. We went back to the same mall. The manager sort of acted like he didnt know me. He charged me full price for the pretzel. It sort of highlighted how I was feeling in my life for the moment. I was really scared that I wasnt going to get that next job and him not giving me the pretzel was like pouring salt into my wounds-- pretzel salt in my wounds.
We just started talking about celebrity and the fickle nature of celebrity and what that could do to the psyche, especially on a grander scale, so we sort of melded those ideas together.
On writing together as a married couple.
W: Our story is, 14 years ago-- thats when we became a couple-- I used us writing together as an excuse to hang out with this girl that I really had a crush on, but I think, for her, it was more about sharpening her craft and actually writing and taking it seriously. I like to write, but I wanted to hang out with her more.
We actually ended up writing our first project in a 200 square foot New York apartment, fifth floor walk-up. When you do that and you dont have any place to write except your bed-- thats where were writing-- its like boot camp or the most extreme situation.
Now that were in L.A., space is a little bit more liberally allocated and everything feels palatial compared to the 200 square feet.
M: We started writing together even before we were a couple, so we had this sort of best-idea-wins mentality that has carried us through, which should bleed into our marriage. I actually use it in an unfair way, Best idea is for you to take out the garbage.
On creating Hope Ann Greggory.
M: It was important to us that the story we were telling was truthful to her circumstances and we didnt want to make her likable just for the sake of, well maybe it will be a little more palatable, shell be a little easier to swallow, because she is in such a bad place in her life. Shes bitter and shes angry. Shes unable to reset and reengage in this stage of her life and shes not likable because she doesnt like herself and whats going on in her circumstances.
We talked about it a lot. I think even for female characters, theres even more pressure for them to be likable, potentially. I think thats also because theres pressure on women to be likable in general.
We didnt want her to make this huge journey to, all of a sudden, at the end of the movie, be a totally different character and put a big, fancy bow on it at the end. We wanted her to move baby steps. In real life we, many of us, if were going through something and it could take years for us to move a little bit, much less in an hour-and-a-half. We wanted it to be truthful to her circumstances.
On outlining their stories.
W: We do a lot of hard work, sort of structuring. The show you mentioned, the Miseducation of Jenna Bush, where Melissa portrayed the wayward daughter of George W. Bush. At the time, she had two drinking citations over a five-week period. We thought, this is pretty fertile for satirizing the presidency through a fictionalized perspective of the daughter.
We did that by looking at the structure of the events that had happened throughout the Bush presidency and we used that as a way in of structuring what Jennas experiences would have been like in a Forrest Gump kind of thread, as she watched all that happened. What was she thinking at the time? We just kind of imagined that.
We try to structure the stories as much as we can. We do improvise some as well. Like that coach bait scene was Melissa improvising how a famous coach would try to teach the protoge stage presence.
M: We outline like crazy. You can sort of tell our moods by where we are in the script because we both, we really love writing the dialogue, but the outline is always something where were constantly thinking and because we live together, theres really no breaks from that. We cant lie to each other and say, Im busy this aft
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
06/12/2025
In a live broadcast from the Reagan National Defense Forum, L3Harris Chair and CEO Christopher Kubasik joined Morgan Brennan on CNBCs Closing Bell: Overtime. Ku...
06/12/2025
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. A new survey from Pixitmedia by Datacore revealed a major shift in the Media & Entertainment industry in media archiving, with 85% of resp...
06/12/2025
HACKENSACK, N.J. LiveU has announced that the national public broadcaster Czech Television has completed one of the largest LiveU live production deployments fo...
06/12/2025
NEW YORK The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) presented the Excellence in Production Technology Emmy Award to NASA+ and Dr. Tom Leight...
05/12/2025
2025 Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame: Curt Gowdy Jr. - Master Storyteller, Nati...
05/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Veritone's Sean King on the Power of Mining Video, Audio DataThe company's Data Refinery offers users total control and governance over da...
05/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: Inside the Nashville Predators' Unified, Flexible, Sca...
05/12/2025
Netflix Reaches Agreement To Acquire Warner Bros. Following Planned WBD SplitThe deal does not include WBDs sports assets like TNT Sports (US, UK, LatAm), Euros...
05/12/2025
FOX Sports Returns to Indianapolis for Primetime Broadcast of Big Ten Championsh...
05/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Digital Engagement & Monetization Workshop Tackles the ...
05/12/2025
Atlanta United Lights Up New Emory Healthcare Studio With First Live Broadcast f...
05/12/2025
As Messi Takes the Pitch, MLS, Apple, NEP Roll Out Largest MLS Cup Production Ev...
05/12/2025
ESPN Enters College Football's Most Intense Month With Elevated Workflows fo...
05/12/2025
It's about that time! Awards season is in full swing, and the Film Independe...
05/12/2025
Every year, Spotify Wrapped offers a personalized look back at the audio that defined your year. It's a snapshot of your listening habits, designed to tell ...
05/12/2025
In 2025, Spotify's EQUAL, GLOW, and RADAR programs celebrated women, LGBTQIA , and emerging artists who turned moments into milestones. From breaking record...
05/12/2025
In our latest blog, we explain how Wi-Fi 7 rollouts can drive consumer loyalty with value-add services such as consumer cybersecurity. We also explore how this ...
05/12/2025
LOS ANGELES Netflix announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion....
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Nielsens Gracenote has launched Gracenote Content Connect, a new ad platform that provides agencies, brands, supply-side platforms (SSPs) and demand-si...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK In an most important update to the workings of deal-based programmatic advertising, IAB Tech Lab has released version 1.0 of its Deals API for public c...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Pass the turkey. Pass the stuffing. Pass the cranberry sauce. All are common requests of Americans celebrating Thanksgiving Day with family and f...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Iris, the new cloud-connected camera control platform, has officially launched with features that turn virtually any PTZ camera into a software-connect...
05/12/2025
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. Netflix announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion....
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Iris, the new cloud-connected camera control platform, has officially launched with features that turn virtually any PTZ camera into a software-connect...
05/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has approved AT&T's $1.02 billion acquisition of spectrum from UScellular in a decision that was issued sho...
05/12/2025
The Best Coldplay Songs: 21 Tracks That Shoot for the Stars From Yellow to Viva La Vida, Fix You to Paradise, this playlist goes back to the start.
December ...
05/12/2025
Zafris Lecture Series Brings Nabil Ayers to Berklee The 32nd annual James G. Zafris Distinguished Lecture series was held on Thursday, November 13, with guest...
05/12/2025
Introducing New Perks to Help You Get Even More from LinkedIn Premium Published on Dec 5, 2025 Categories: Company News, Product News
LinkedIn Corporate Co...
05/12/2025
Friday 5 December 2025
A new Game of Thrones Tale: Official trailer for Sky Exc...
05/12/2025
Back to All News
Don Lee, Lee Jin-uk, and Lalisa Manobal to Star in Netflix Act...
05/12/2025
Tis the season of giving once again and this year we've taken our Give Back Fridays' concept and turned it on its head.
In the autumn we were approach...
05/12/2025
Brayden Gogis doesn't remember a time when he wasn't completely fixated on games in all forms. In preschool, when they asked us to dress up as what we ...
05/12/2025
The Grinch steals the spotlight as the theme for The Late Late Toy Show 2025
Tune in tonight at 9:35pm on RT One and worldwide on RT Player
#LateLateToyShow...
05/12/2025
RT Announces New Presenters of Flagship News Programmes
New RT Six One News co-presenter Tommy Meskill
Sarah McInerney & Justin McCarthy join Morning Ir...
04/12/2025
ToolsOnAir Blackmagic Design HyperDeck Event Presets for just:in mac pro 2025 & ...
04/12/2025
ToolsOnAir AJA Ki Pro Event Presets for just:in mac pro 2025 & just:in linux
More Details:Starting with version 5.5, both just:in mac pro and just:in linux sol...
04/12/2025
Wangu Kanuri from Kenya and Godwin Asediba from Ghana are two of this years finalists for Thomsons Young Journalist of the Year Award. The pair are runners-up i...
04/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: ProximaVision's Claudio Lisman on Why Tethered Drones Could Be...
04/12/2025
SVG Campus Shot Callers: Imry Halevi, Senior Associate Director of Athletics, Co...
04/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: LiveU Lightweight Sports Production: A Step Change in Spor...
04/12/2025
London to Riyadh: DAZN brings the boxing glamour to new production levels for Be...
04/12/2025
Analysis: Paramount bets on the battering ram' with Champions League play By Callum McCarthy, Editor-at-Large
Tuesday, December 2, 2025 - 10:12
Print ...
04/12/2025
Space City Home Network Launches SCHN DTC App for Astros and RocketsThe Rockets and Astros were previously the lone NBA and MLB teams without a DTC appBy Jason...
04/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Content Workflows Workshop Spotlights Evolution of Spor...
04/12/2025
New Sponsor Spotlight: Geotech's Patrick Wambold On the Unreal Engine Revolu...
04/12/2025
Curt Gowdy Jr. - Master Storyteller, Nationally and RegionallyBy Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S.
Thursday, December 4, 2025 - 1:52 pm
Print This Sto...
04/12/2025
(L-R) Rebecca Lichtenfeld, Mohammadreza Eyni, Sara Khaki, and Judith Helfand att...
04/12/2025
SBS launches Future Frames initiative to support emerging First Nations video ed...
The KCET Cinema Series continued its spring season on Tuesday, March 8, at the ArcLight Cinemas Sherman Oaks with a screening of forthcoming comedy, The Bronze. 
