Constance Zimmer as demanding EP Quinn King in UnREAL.

Particularly when it comes to managing actors.

Six showrunners of some of the biggest series around right now sat down to chat with The Hollywood Reporter recently and revealed some hard learned lessons. Talking about the tedious process of casting the perfect actor in every role, Sam Esmail, the executive producer of Mr Robot, said there was one important rule: “ ... In particular with TV, you don’t want to cast an a**hole, as good as they might be,” he said.

“And even if you haven’t cast an a**hole, some of them turn into assholes,” added Downton Abbey creator and executive producer Julian Fellowes.

But what happens if an a**hole finds their way onto a show?

Marti Noxon, the executive producer of UnREAL, recalled an industry rumour going around Hollywood about Steven Bochco, the legendary creator of NYPD Blue and Doogie Howser.

“It’s probably apocryphal, but there was a story that was told that Steven Bochco had a death scene for each of his characters on all of his shows, and if one of the actors started to really become problematic in a way that was destructive to the show, he’d just call them up, pull it out and hand it to them and say, ‘Read that’. I’ve always thought about that,” she said.

“Ritter can deliver a ‘f**k’ with her face” ... Krysten Ritter as Jessica Jones.Source:Supplied

The showrunners also spoke about another ongoing struggle: censorship from the TV networks.

“On ABC, you can’t say ‘a**hole’, but you can say ‘a**’ in any other combination of words. So we have this litany of a** fill-in-the-blanks: a**-can, **hat, a**- … anything,” joked American Crime creator, John Ridley.

And while Netflix is a lot looser with their standards, Jessica Jones’ Melissa Rosenberg still has restrictions.

“The beauty of working at Netflix is you don’t have limits. But I also work with Marvel, and their brand is generally PG-13, so no f-bombs. And if anyone was going to say f**k, it would be Jessica Jones,” she said of her strong female lead character. “But what’s funny is that people have said: ‘She didn’t say f**k? I could have sworn she did’. Because (Krysten) Ritter can deliver a ‘f**k’ with her face.”