The ex-showrunner for Netflix's 'The Get Down': It was 'one of the odder TV experiences'

Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP

"The Shield" creator Shawn Ryan says his time on Netflix's expensive hip-hop musical series from Baz Luhrmann, "The Get Down," was "one of the odder television experiences" he has had. But he also says there are no hard feelings surrounding his departure from the series.

Nearly two and a half years ago, Ryan was hired as the original showrunner on the ambitious project from Luhrmann, the noted director of "Moulin Rouge" and "The Great Gatsby." Ryan's time on the project was cut short when the director decided to move the production from Los Angeles to New York City.

"I worked for probably a year on 'The Get Down,'" Ryan told Business Insider at this week's Television Critics Association press tour. "And then when things moved to New York and things changed, I became very divorced from it. But there were no bad feelings. So there was nothing ugly, or dark, or insidious about it. I’m looking forward to the show coming out."

Set in the late 1970s, "The Get Down" tracks the emergence of hip-hop through the eyes of kids from New York City's South Bronx.

Richard Shotwell/Invision/APRyan referred to his former role on the show as "insurance" for production company Sony Pictures Television and Netflix in the event that Lurhmann "flaked" or didn't want to continue on with it. Neither of those things happened.

In fact, Luhrmann decided to take on the showrunner role himself when creative differences led to a second showrunner in New York, Thomas Kelly ("Blue Bloods," "Copper"), leaving the production. In the end, and for a variety of other reasons, "The Get Down" ended up costing $120 million to produce — Netflix's most expensive original series to date.

If fans are looking for Ryan's touch on "The Get Down," which premieres the first half of its first season on August 12, the producer can't guarantee that any of his work (other than bringing on producers and writers Kelly, Seth Svi Rosenfeld, and Nelson George) will make it onscreen. He even had his name taken off the project's credits.

"I haven’t seen the full product," said Ryan, whose upcoming time-travel drama "Timeless" premieres this fall on NBC. "I can’t say I brought anything to 'The Get Down.' I chose to remove my name from the credits on the show just because I didn’t think it was fair to sort of put a Shawn Ryan brand on something that I didn’t have an influence on what the final product was. I was there at the beginning. I like to think that some of the stuff we worked on and created then has survived and made its way through, but it has become a whole new different thing and it’s Baz’s baby."

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