For the last two years, I have fallen in love with THE LAST SHIP, an incredible show on TNT. When it originally premiered, back in 2014, I kept missing it. However, I finally jumped on board when the third season was underway and have been hooked ever since. Now that the fifth and final season is airing, it makes me sad that we are going to have to say goodbye to the crew of the USS Nathan James in just in a few, short weeks.

For those of you who haven’t seen it before, on the surface, it’s the story of the USS Nathan James, a Burke class guided missile destroyer, as they try to find a cure to a global pandemic that wiped out much of the world’s population. However, it is so much more than that, with the show being an incredible dramatic and action-packed series that leaves you at the edge of your seat. And while this global catastrophe does not result in zombies or supernatural forces, it does deal with a pretty epic end-of-the-world scenario that feels right at home here at HorrorBuzz.

It was sometime last year that I realized that a friend of mine, Dan DaCunha, whom I know through my various immersive theater adventures, works on the show. And so, I thought it would be a good opportunity to showcase his work and give fans of the show a little more insight into what he does as script coordinator, and his incredibly varied career before he worked on the show.

HORRORBUZZ: Tell me a bit about yourself. What was your upbringing like?

DAN DACUNHA: I had a great childhood. My parents divorced when I was two so I never really knew them together but they were incredible about making sure I still had equal time with both of them. They’re great friends now and we still go to most parties or family functions together.

HORRORBUZZ: I did some internet stalking before this, and I saw you were an actor in college. Is that what you majored in?

DAN DACUNHA: I went to the University of Rhode Island and got a Bachelor’s in fine arts. Yes, my concentration was acting. I loved every minute of it. And really, I had every intention of pursuing an acting career.

HORRORBUZZ: At what point in your life did you decide that this writing thing was the thing you wanted to do instead of pursuing acting?

DAN DACUNHA: That’s an interesting question. I was always a writer. In high school, I wrote a lot of my own Twilight Zone episodes and gave them to teachers and the principal for notes. The acting bug got me but it’s much easier to be an actor in high school and college than in Los Angeles. Once I got to LA, I realized that I didn’t want the life of auditioning all day and tending bar all night. So, I went back to the other thing I was good at, writing. I wrote my first feature length script during those months while working production and sound mixing on several docu-series. Then I finally got my foot in the door at Happy Madison and I’ve been climbing the writer ladder ever since.

HORRORBUZZ: Did anything ever come of that feature you wrote? Or did you just use it as a way to get your start?

DAN DACUNHA: It was kind of my start. I got pretty far in some big screenwriting competitions with it. Top 100 out of 10,000 so that’s pretty good. I’d still really like to make it someday. It’s an R-rated prequel about how Captain Hook became who he became. It’s my first-born, if you will.

HORRORBUZZ: What did you do at Happy Madison?

DAN DACUNHA: I worked on a sitcom called Rules of Engagement with them. And later, a show called Breaking In. Rules is my other favorite show (aside from THE LAST SHIP). The family environment there was just incredible.

HORRORBUZZ: As an east coast guy, I assume that you came out to LA to pursue this career more seriously, right?

DAN DACUNHA: Really, it was just the knowledge that LA is the town to be in if you want to make films and television. That was my plan throughout college and my whole family was so supportive of it. I really wouldn’t be out here without all that support.

HORRORBUZZ: You mentioned working at Happy Madison earlier, but was that your first gig out in Los Angeles?

DAN DACUNHA: No, my first gig in LA was as a set PA on a docu show called 30 Days by Morgan Spurlock. It was one episode where a hunter from North Carolina (hey, George!) moves in with a vegan PETA activist family in Beverly Hills for 30 Days and has to live their lifestyle. That was a fun project. The matriarch of the family smelled a quarter pounder on my breath one time and scolded me. We took George out for a big steak on day 31.

HORRORBUZZ: You also worked on ENTOURAGE as well. What was your experience like there?

DAN DACUNHA: ENTOURAGE was such a great experience on many levels. I worked in production and it came to a point that we realized we needed a script coordinator. I offered to do both jobs and I got it. It was a daunting movie to work on. There were so many cameos that the script literally changed every day depending on which celebrity was available to show up. And Doug, creator of ENTOURAGE, was the writer and director of the movie so he could only make changes after directing for 14 hours. So, it was a lot of long days. But it was a great experience and I worked with a lot of close friends. And we were at Warner Bros. right when they opened the big Batman exhibit, so I got to walk into that for free. Which was nice.

HORRORBUZZ: The perks of the job! Let’s talk about THE LAST SHIP. How did you get the role you’re in now? And what do you do these days for it?

DAN DACUNHA: I got on THE LAST SHIP from a supervisor from ENTOURAGE, actually. Also a good friend. He hired me as a PA with the intention of moving me up to Script Coordinator. The rest is history. These days, I really only interact with fans online. Season 5 has been ready to go since spring. I’m onto a new show now, STAR on Fox. Season 3 premieres September 26!

HORRORBUZZ: You were the script coordinator on the show. What exactly does that entail?

DAN DACUNHA: A script coordinator essentially fixes the script and makes it production ready. There’s also a lot of writing involved. If there’s a newspaper or magazine or TV news footage on screen, odds are I wrote it. With THE LAST SHIP in particular, I actually had to learn how to navigate a guided missile destroyer. Every coordinate you see on screens in the background is real world accurate. With each episode, I post pictures on Instagram of the charts I draw for each episode (which you can see at www.instagram.com/dan.dacunha). And with losing our satellites in season 5, I had to confront my greatest fear… learning trigonometry.

A lot of it is dealing with clearances, too. Coming up with names for people, businesses, ships. It all has to be cleared legally. That is a daily struggle.

HORRORBUZZ: I love that tidbit; if there is a newspaper or something, your hands are all over it. How often does that sort of thing come up? I know it’s dependent on the show and the episode, but how much time and writing do you invest in something that is only on screen for a very short amount of time?

DAN DACUNHA: It happens daily, man. Just this morning I wrote a whole news article that will probably get one second of screen time. In season 4 of THE LAST SHIP, I wrote all the articles about Dr. Vellek. In season 2, I wrote the immune manifesto. Every day, there’s something new that needs to be written.

HORRORBUZZ: You clearly LOVED your job on THE LAST SHIP. How sad are you that the show is ending? Because, let me tell you, I’m sad that it’s ending.

DAN DACUNHA: THE LAST SHIP was the most challenging, yet rewarding show I have ever worked on. It truly was a family. I’m very sad that the show is ending but I’m also very excited to see how everyone reacts to what we’ve done with the final season. It’s the most ambitious and epic season we’ve ever done. We figured…let’s go out with a bang. And we really do.

I actually want to share this with you because it should be shared. All of us in the writer’s department always look at what the fans are saying. I connected with one group called DDG-151. The founder of that group (what up, Ash) put me in touch with an Army Sergeant by the name of Tom Richardson. He was suffering through chemo with stage 4 cancer in his bones, lungs, you name it. The only way he got through the treatments was watching reruns of the show. I took it upon myself to send a little care package to him, unbeknownst to anyone on the show (for fear of getting in trouble), with a vest, a Nathan James t-shirt, challenge coin, and a note for him.

His wife sent me the video of him opening the package. The smile on his face and the tears in his eyes, man. I decided to show that video to Eric Dane one day and, with tears in his eyes, he said, “We have to do more for him.” So I found out which episode was his favorite, printed that script out, got everyone in the cast to sign it. Eric and Adam gave their personal Tom Chandler and Mike Slattery challenge coins for the new gift. Then they wanted to do a special video message to him. I gave that video to our editors who added the main title sequence to it. It was a big surprise for him on his birthday.

Then he was on his way out, and the VA wouldn’t pay for his military funeral. His wife started a Gofundme for it and the cast stepped up. Within hours, the funeral with full honors was paid for. When he died, his wife sent me a bullet casing from his 21 gun salute. I hid it on the Nathan James set where it remained for all of season five. Now it sits in my own challenge coin case.

THE LAST SHIP was more than a show, man. That’s the kind of thing that stays with you. Fair winds and following seas, Tom and Debbie. We have the watch.

HORRORBUZZ: Wow…that is incredibly powerful and leaves me speechless. I think shows a real testament to not only THE LAST SHIP itself, but also your values as a human being. This is not a question, but more of it “I respect you immensely for this.”

DAN DACUNHA: Thank you, Jeff. Tom and Debbie made a huge impact on my life and I miss our weekend calls. Credit also goes to Ash, Sue, Bob, and everyone at the DDG-151 fan group for helping set all of that up. And to the cast and crew. I remember asking Bridget Regan to sign the script and she said, “But he doesn’t know who I am yet.” I said he’s gonna keep fighting so he will. (This was during season 3 filming, Sasha wasn’t introduced yet). Another reason why the show was so rewarding.

HORRORBUZZ: What is your own, personal writing process? Do you write at a set time every day? Or do you fit it in when you can?

DAN DACUNHA: I really fit it in when I can. It’s hard balancing writing your own personal stuff while keeping up with the writing at work. I usually hand write an idea first and then try to just go with a beat sheet of what needs to be there. Most writers do outlines, but I usually just dive right into the script once I have the idea in my head. It also requires a great deal of research beforehand. I wrote a pilot about Richard III that I did a good year of research on before actually writing it.

HORRORBUZZ: Do you have a favorite part of the process?

DAN DACUNHA: My favorite part is that “eureka!” moment. So often, you’re met with a block that just won’t go away. But then comes that random moment completely out of nowhere and you go, “I’ve had an apostrophe!” “I think you mean epiphany” (quoting HOOK). It’s that moment where the thing that has been holding you up for so long finally makes sense and you suddenly write 30 pages.

HORRORBUZZ: To your point of balancing your personal writing and your professional writing…do you find it challenging, after a long day of writing for work, to get into the groove for personal stuff? Do you have any tips or tricks to get yourself back into the “personal writing” mood?

DAN DACUNHA: That’s a really good question. After working all day, the last thing I want to do is work more. But… sometimes you think of something out of nowhere and just have to write it. I’ve learned to just let those moments happen. That’s when the best writing starts. If you try to force it, you end up spending months fixing what you did. Like I said, those Eureka moments!

A big thank you to Dan for not only for taking the time to chat with me, but also for being a kick-ass human being in general.

New episodes from the final season of THE LAST SHIP airs every Sunday at 9PM on TNT. And if you haven’t seen it before, check it out the first four seasons streaming now on HULU. It’s fantastic.

About the Author

Jeff Heimbuch writes. A lot. On a variety of things and in different mediums. He also created the fiction podcasts LIGHT HOUSE and RETURN HOME (of which you can find both on all podcasting platforms), loves all things horror, works in social media, and is probably writing something right now. You can find him on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok at @jeffheimbuch.