Kurt Sutter sent an email Thursday to the cast and crew of Mayans, telling them that he has been fired from the show.
He was a co-creator and executive producer. For the past 15 years, the prolific writer has been a part of 20th Century Fox TV, now DisneyTV, where his overall deal still stands. He will continue with his overall deal at 20th Century FoxTV, per Deadline, which broke the news.
There appears to be an internal dispute over Sutter's involvement with Season Three of Mayans, and he attributed his firing to Dana Walden and John Landgraf, the heads of FX. Sutter was scheduled to hand the reins of the project over to Elgin James, who was the series' other creator, before Season Three. The show is in the middle of its second season now, with both Sutter and James performing showrunner duties.
While it is a surprise to see him step away, Sutter is known for having a hard edge and rubbing people the wrong way. In a September 2018 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Sutter shared a letter detailing his "unprofessional behavior" on Sons of Anarchy and with executives at Fox 21.
It is a wild read.
More as we have it.
What You Can Learn
No matter how successful you are or can become, no one will tolerate certain unprofessional behaviors for long. Eventually, "a**hole" behaviors will catch up to you and infect working relationships. Eventually, those relationships will dry up as a consequence of actions you can't take bet. We all do the best with what we got. Some better and more effectively than others. All of us have vulnerabilities, pain points, and sensitivities. The trick, especially for showrunners -- who have to have more than a writer's muscle set to do the job well -- is to find a way to identify and accept them that doesn't compromise the success you have found or the personal integrity in which you found it. Cope ahead as mindfully as you can for what you can do and what you need to do better.
Long story less long: Don't be a jerk. Ain't nobody got time for that. Your career will thank you.
