February 25, 2015
In The Mix

Lunch Off the Lot

Tara Butters and Michele Fazekas share more than showrunner duties on Marvel's Agent Carter and Resurrection.

Shawna Malcom

It's just before 12:30 on a Monday afternoon when Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters are kicked out of their red leather booth at Don Cuco.

For the past hour, the writer-producers have been hanging in the back room of this festive Mexican joint, a Toluca Lake, California, staple since the early 70s. They've been savoring margaritas, enchiladas and a brief breather from their shared gig as the showrunners of two ABC dramas, Marvel's Agent Carter and Resurrection. But with a large party set to arrive, these Hollywood players have been asked to relocate,

Not a problem, they say. They will, however, be taking their drinks with them, thank you very much.

The lack of protest shouldn't be surprising: after nearly 20 years in TV, Fazekas and Butters have learned to roll with the punches, especially now that they're handling two shows.

"We've had to split up our duties more than ever before, just out of necessity," reports Fazekas, settling into the new booth with Butters as mariachi music spills from the restaurant's speakers,

"So Tara might be in the [writers'] room at Resurrection —"

"While Michele's over at Agent Carter doing a rewrite," Butters finishes helpfully.

Little wonder that they can't remember the last time they left their offices on Burbank's Disney lot for lunch. "What's 'going out'?" Fazekas cracks.

They first met in another office on another lot, as assistants on Fox's The X-Files.

Hired within days of each other in the mid-'90s, the Buffalo, New York-reared Fazekas worked with the writers while San Diego-bred Butters was in licensing and merchandising.

Fast friends, they found themselves driving around L.A. one day, plotting out a spec script for the WB's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which was starting to stake its place as a pop-culture phenomenon. The brainstorming began "just as an exercise," Fazekas notes, but by the end of the ride, a partnership had been born.

One of their earliest official gigs was as story editors on Ed, NBC's comedic drama starring Tom Cavanagh and a pre-Modern Family Julie Bowen. They'd no sooner packed up and moved to the East Coast than their relationship was put to the test.

"It was a really hard job," Butters begins.

"A job where most of the writing staff got fired every single year," Fazekas adds. "We realized we only had each other, and that could've destroyed our relationship. But luckily it solidified it."

Some showrunner teams spend so much time working together, they can't wait to spend time apart, but these two share personal lives as well.

Fazekas is married to former CBS national correspondent Vince Gonzales, who was first a friend of Butters's husband, Arrow executive producer Marc Guggenheim.

They often vacation together in Hawaii with their families, which include Fazekas's son, Rory (six), and daughter, Zoe (three), plus Butters's girls, Lily (nine), and Sara (seven),

During the pilot shoot for Reaper, the cult comedy they created in 2007 for the CW, Fazekas's sister flew to Vancouver to nanny Butters's daughter. And these days, Fazekas drives the mile from her home to Butters's place each weekday so they can walk their kids to school before heading in to work.

Sitting together with their sleek blowouts and complementary black shirts, the women even look in sync as they polish off their margaritas.

But there are definitely days when they're not on the same page, they admit, and over the years, they've developed a system for resolving conflicts: whoever has the more passionate argument wins.

"And," Fazekas says, laughing, "you can always eventually tell who feels the strongest."

If their glasses weren't already empty, they just might drink to that,

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