0:00
Dune, Forest Gump, Benjamin Button.
Search this video
0:00
Eric Roth is the guy who wrote all those screenplays, and he's been nominated for an Oscar seven times, and he won the Academy Award for best screenplay with Forest Gump.
0:10
I asked him things like, "How do you find a theme?"
0:12
"What can you do in your writing to really move people?
0:16
What's it like to work with David Fincher and Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese? What's that like?" Let's begin.
0:26
The thing I want to start with is you said you were writing today and you're still writing kind of every day from page one. From page one. From page one. Well, yes.
0:33
I mean, it's sometimes I don't touch page one, but yes, I always start from page one. So, tell me about that.
0:40
Well, I just it's a way of um keeping myself um involved with the material where I'm living it, you know, in a way.
0:50
living it, you know, in a way. um that um I also sort of I I I call it sort of a sense of erosion that if there's things that need to be fixed and backfilled like dirt piled back up um that I could see that and I I see
1:07
mistakes and I see so when I'm done with my first draft which could take me a while but uh I think I've covered it pretty much you know and then of course after you read it you hate it and then you say why did I bother doing this but Um, yeah, I start on page one every day. Yeah. Tell me about erosion. Well, I Yeah. Tell me about erosion.
1:25
Well, I mean, uh, it's probably not the right word for it, but I It's like trying to shore up what is kind of falling down. That's how I look at it.
1:36
So, why is this not quite working?
1:38
How do I make this as close to uh as imaginative as it can be, fresh, something surprising, you know, the kind things you want to have in anything you write, you know.
1:50
Um uh so uh when I see something feels tired, I want to make it feel alive, you know.
2:00
Do you ever find that um when you're writing it for the first time, you're you're you're like sparkling with enthusiasm and then you kind of come back to the end and it and it loses that life.
2:10
Or do you feel like you kind of know intuitively now when something has life?
2:13
I think I've I've always I've always felt that I knew what had life.
2:16
I don't know what that is.
2:18
I mean I I I mean this is an odd thing to say, but I've never had writer's block.
2:21
I love that I get to write, you know, so every day is kind of an adventure in that sense.
2:27
It's almost corny, you know, that I can be a journalist one day and be a a pros writer.
2:33
I think I'm probably a frustrated novelist because I haven't written a novel, but I write a lot of pros in my screenplays.
2:39
I always tell this kind of cute story that we were doing a I did a movie Benjamin Button and uh they were doing a read through and they were reading the narration which was text and uh Brad Pitt said, "Oh, look at Eric. He's got a pros boner. And I probably did.
3:01
Yeah, that's a story I've told many times, but I've always got a kick out of it.
3:05
But I am, I think, a frustrated novelist.
3:07
So it's a little more difficult now because if you're going to write a lot of pros, the scripts are going to be probably longer than people want to see them.
3:15
Uh, so but to be concise is also difficult, maybe even more difficult, you know.
3:22
And how do your scripts compare to other screenwriter scripts?
3:25
Like when you turn something in and people are like, "Oh, that's an Eric an Eric script."
3:28
What what what does it have about it? I don't know.
3:32
You'd have to probably ask somebody else what they find uh attractive about it or not attractive.
3:38
You know, many don't get made to.
3:38
I think I'm particularly visual.
3:41
Uh more more importantly, I think I'm my scripts are particularly human and very emotional.
3:48
the car the characters all um the characters all are singular to themselves.
3:54
I mean I I believed a long time ago about uh you have to be true to the psychology of a character so that the voices are all different.
4:01
Um uh I I always tell this story too uh that I I did a rewrite for a movie that Michael Chimino made um called The Year of the Dragon, which was an okay movie and interesting and uh but I saw that he had given Mickey Roor a wallet that had all the ingredient all the stuff about this particular character's life.
4:25
And I'm sure Mickey Ror never looked at the wallet, but he knew in his back pocket was a picture of his supposed daughter.
4:33
I mean, things some things obvious, some things less.
4:37
You know, maybe a saying that he thought was interesting and put in there or a old crumpled uh phone number, but something that and as a aggregate, it's a life you form.
4:49
You know, if you're if you're trying I don't novelist, poet, anybody.
4:52
you're trying to make something out of nothing, you know, and or if in my case, uh, I've do I do mostly adaptations and even though I think I'd say a good 60 70% of the adaptations I do be become original only because uh either bad books make good movies, that's that's the slogan, or uh bad plays make better movies.
5:16
But uh um adaptations uh uh I think they give you something to look back at, you know, in other words, even if it's not very good. Tell me this.
5:29
We got a lot to talk about here, but I want to jump back to the psychology.
5:32
You're talking about true to the psychology of the character.
5:34
Paint that picture for me. What do you mean?
5:38
Well, I mean, I think that you have to know something about his backstory, something or hers.
5:42
Uh what what makes this person tick?
5:45
Why are they neurotic or why are they giddy or why are they quiet or what makes them angry?
5:51
I mean all those things uh you do it as hopefully as as uh concisely as you can within the thing but that everybody should be different.
6:03
In other words, everybody is different, you know, and so that you can find some pretty unique characters within uh I hope my scripts and you know obviously in good really great writer stuff they're uh they come with surprises and you know curiosity all those things.
6:19
So if I think of something like Forest Gump I think of his voice, I think of his relationship with mom.
6:23
I think of you know how he um his dress always very simple the sort of simple wisdom of the character.
6:29
simple wisdom of the character. So what else is it as you're building a character and you're kind of beginning with with him with that character that was from a book I mean so was semi-given even though the book was particularly farical the guy supposed to weigh 400 lb
6:45
and uh so I I got to take off and kind of and it was as much about me looking back on my life from that point which when I was probably 50 uh you know what had passed and that that started to resonate with uh people who went to see the movie because it was all these touchstone moments in all of our lives, you know, at that point. Um as to as to,
7:05
Um as to as to, you know, and I was aware of that.
7:08
I was aware of that that they and I time is very important to me.
7:12
Time is of the essence in a way um and memories uh and remembrances.
7:19
But uh that character I knew less of you know but I I I somehow could I heard his voice and so I knew you know sort of in this simplistic way because it's a very simplistic movie.
7:31
I mean, it's not exactly high sophistication, but uh he seemed human to people.
7:38
You know, he had uh two or three things he loved like his mother, his girl, you know, his girl he loved, Jenny, and I guess God in America or something.
7:48
And um uh and also there was a Quinton Tarantino said this about that he felt it was most ironic mainstream movie ever made.
7:57
And whether it is or not, I don't know. But why is that?
8:01
Well, the ironies of like, you know, uh, uh, he gets to go to the White House and he meets John Kennedy and then, you know, Bob added some humor, a wonderful humor.
8:12
Bob Zmechus is really terrific guy and terrific artist.
8:14
And you know, you have a picture of uh Maril Monroe in the bathroom, you know, or whatever the I call them ironies.
8:21
Maybe they're not quite Maybe they are ironic.
8:23
Some of it just, you know, uh how every everybody got shot, you know, we would do those kind of runs, you know.
8:31
Um with a movie like that, Forest and even, you know, Benjamin Button, one takes place in Alabama, the other New Orleans.
8:38
And how do [Music] you get that sense of the southern accent, the southern way of speaking?
8:47
Is that something that you do deliberately?
8:50
Research or anything like that? I I I research a lot.
8:52
Yeah, I do a lot of research.
8:54
So, the best thing that ever happened was the internet.
8:55
I mean, I have in the backyard here like sheds filled with research books before there was a uh internet, you know. Uh but um I don't know.
9:06
Oh, it's just a sound you get.
9:08
But I think it's also the characters then the actors obviously can portray them in a southern way.
9:11
I never thought of it that way.
9:15
I mean, in other words, I just thought that these people are southerners and uh I don't I don't know if I even know that much about the South, you know, particularly um more so in a movie I'm just finishing a script for now about the mafia coming to New Orleans in 1890. I'm doing it for Marty.
9:33
Um and we'll see what happens with it.
9:35
But uh this does kind of embrace the southern about the sort of the wisteria and the sort of difference in time way time kind of moves in south.
9:46
I mean whether it does or not I don't know but you know sort of a southern way um used to be sort of this fake sort of chivalry and gallantry and you know but it's in the details that things come. God is in the details.
9:59
I mean, you can't get if if the details are no good, you you're not going to succeed in any way.
10:05
And that's going to come out of the the research, the voice, research, the voice, and then maybe things I've lived even, you know, like Benjamin Button's a good example because I wanted to do something that was kind of out of the ordinary with it.
10:19
And uh and I had I remembered a scene in uh PT Anderson's movie Magnolia.
10:26
movie Magnolia. I think is the opening where I'm I I know a lot about movies and remember movies distinctly and uh I think a young man was committing suicide jumping out of a window a floor above where his parents lived and his parent
10:44
the father was I don't know testing a shotgun or something so he shot his son on the way down you know so anyhow but so I then got about five of these books the Darwin Awards they're called and that's where I came up with four or of the characters. There was a man who got
10:58
There was a man who got hit by lightning seven times.
11:00
There was, you know, whatever some of those characters were.
11:03
So, I said, if I could humanize them and make them seem real and have whatever problems they really have, you know, aside from the sort of extraordinary events that affected them, uh, that'd be interesting.
11:14
And so, that's what happened.
11:15
And I guess the tugboats came out of research. And tugboat. Yeah.
11:18
And then I c then I I because I wanted to put it on a tugboat. I had that captain.
11:22
And uh and then I had to find out was there ever a tugboat incident with a submarine, you know, so I guess pretty specific in World War II.
11:31
And there was uh there's a sort of a famous uh thing with which is what happened in the movie where the tugboat rammed the submarine as it was coming up and number of people had gotten killed.
11:42
But uh there was a tugboat a guy who uh made tugboats for sale at a little shop in I think Massachusetts.
11:50
and he told me all this stuff, you know, he gave me all the information. Yeah.
11:54
You know, one of the things also is with voice like you have this way of bringing the voice out in the characters like in in in Button the mom like she says, "Oh, you know that baby's still a child of God and like I really feel like her her soul."
12:10
But I was thinking about what is the one that I remember the most that I quote the most and it's Bubba when he goes, "Anyway, like I was saying, shrimp is the fruit of the sea.
12:17
See, you can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, sauté it.
12:22
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
12:24
Shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich.
12:26
That's that's that's about it.
12:31
And I got to know like where is that voice coming from?
12:34
Cuz it's vivid like that is the gun.
12:36
I thought about that and there were and it was it was with them doing two or three things in their duties as soldiers.
12:43
think they're cleaning a floor with toothbrushes and whatever we whatever happened where we staged it.
12:49
And uh I was just sitting um so I said I think I'll give you know every possible thing I can think of with shrimps what what you can do with shrimp and I was sitting with my family.
12:59
We were in a vacation house that we happen to own in Canada and everybody was sitting around and I would just yell give me shrimp dishes and I would type them you know as they as they gave me the dishes you know.
13:10
So, uh, you know, so we eventually ran out.
13:13
I think, you know, I think what I like about that and is not un it's not it's not unlike unusual because well, I'll find other things that happen like that and then you, you know, not necessarily do it with my family, but uh you find that, well, that's interesting.
13:31
How do we then, you know, dramatize that and make it feel uh uh something that uh resonates, you know, that uh uh it feels like something that would uh make the thing more special that will be remembered.
13:48
With movies, I always feel like uh there's something primal about them that they stick they stay with these books, too.
13:55
I mean in other words when you you visualize a character um but movies at least in particular to some extent uh when there are things that stay in your soul I guess you say that's it's not that I search for that but I'd like I'd like to have things that have some become memorable in some way that will then start defining the movie you know and how do you think about creating those memorable characters? Is it the voice? Is it the values?
14:22
I think it's all of them. All of it.
14:24
In other words, I think you start with at least I start with what's the theme of the movie?
14:28
What's the movie literally about?
14:30
It's not this isn't a story. This is something else.
14:32
This is about, you know, uh what is the what why are we writing why are you doing this all together?
14:40
You know, sometimes it's just a good story, but you you need more than that.
14:45
I think you have to have some thematic about what you're trying to say.
14:48
is always going to be underneath it that so that when you have a scene that feels inert that you have to find a way to uh to compare somehow utilize it with the theme of the movie.
14:59
You know, people have different ideas what the themes are, which is okay if you're sort of somehow oddly on the same page at some point, you know.
15:08
Um uh so um yeah, thematics is very important.
15:12
Uh the the other thing that's important is to try to and I'm not sure I've mastered it.
15:20
The great writers know how to write subtextually.
15:21
They don't write what's you're kind of literal.
15:24
They'll say it in like a metaphor or in some other way that's saying the exact same thing, but in other words, they're not saying what sort of evidence, you know, and you get sort of a it's hard and it's very hard to do that.
15:39
And really only the great writers can do it very well.
15:41
Some just do it instinctively, you know.
15:43
So, walk me through something that maybe started off as explicit where you said, "Ah, I got to bake this into the subtext."
15:53
I'll give you something that somebody else wrote.
15:54
Um, I'm do I did a play of High Noon and so Carl Foreman wrote the original screenplay and and only because it's on my mind.
16:03
Um there's a there's a a there's a part of a scene where uh the uh a judge is telling uh Gary Cooper who's Gary Cooper's now about to leave on his honeymoon and leave this town and what's going to happen and he's giving an example of what happens with from Athens Greece.
16:26
So he's talking about he's not talking about him on the bench, this judge.
16:31
He's talking about something that happened in Athens.
16:32
So it's about it was about a jurist even maybe, but was more about what is sort of like going to haunt this whole thing.
16:42
In other words, that they didn't really get justice.
16:46
justice. you know, I forget what it was exactly, but uh when you don't when you do it through some other whole story about someone burned their hand and or really good writers can do it, you know, about what memories are for kids or something, but it's not about what the
17:02
sort of screenwriting 101 is that people said tell you exposition as about what's going to happen, you know, saying and they're all they're doing is laying out the story in a certain way and uh and it's just not very good writing, I don't think, you know, It's it's a television does it a lot. I'm just uh you know it's
17:17
I'm just uh you know it's more traditional shows.
17:20
Um but sophisticated writing if you can get there is uh you talk about things that uh don't seem that they may even apply but then when you think about it they're just great metaphors.
17:32
I mean the great writers David Mamemoth can do it.
17:34
I mean, they do it in their sleep almost, you know, and it's it's just hard to do.
17:40
And it's uh the first thing I like to try to teach writers to try to do, you know, talk about a dream you had rather than tell us that you're upset with your mother.
17:50
You know what I'm saying?
17:50
You're telling your brother, "I'm upset with my mother."
17:53
Maybe it's better to do it off, you know, sort of off center. Yeah.
17:56
It's a It's uh It's very hard to do it though.
18:01
And it's also hard, but so you don't become pretentious with it. It's tricky.
18:05
It's just tricky, but it's it's much better than two brothers exchanging information that they both know.
18:10
You know what I'm saying? Right.
18:12
I mean, there was a director I work with uh he said the worst line of um uh exposition was, "Good morning, Mr. Water Commissioner."
18:22
Now, he maybe they could have found a different way to do that, you know.
18:28
So, go back to the dream thing.
18:28
So, if you're talking about the dream, explain what makes that such better writing.
18:33
I think you're getting two or three layers of things.
18:37
You're getting you're getting whatever the information is you want to give the audience about what's what's the problem or what's happy or emotional between these two people.
18:47
Um, then you get a kind of a sort of a fortune cookie aspect of it.
18:54
some kind of lesson for life if you're able to do without becoming pretentious and then in the day you might even find a way that's it's surprising because it's not exactly what you thought it was going to be you know so you get all you get a whole host of possibilities within just a um uh just one you know it can be monologue or it could be just 10 sentences but uh you have a way of um expressing things at a very more a sophisticated way.
19:24
The question I'm getting at here is do you go on the emotional journey that we go on as viewers sitting in your office? I think I do. I think I do.
19:33
And I try to do the dialogue and it's always so it sounds so bad because I I first of all I probably every voice sounds the same coming from me saying it out loud, you know, because I'm not an actor.
19:45
I'm self-conscious about actually acting and um uh but I I try to think of will this be emotional?
19:54
If it's emotional to me, will this be emotional to an audience?
19:58
And I think I've succeeded a number of times in doing that.
20:01
Um sometimes better than others, you know.
20:04
I mean, on the phone with a friend this morning, he said, "There's two movies that just make me weep every time. Gump and Benjamin B." Oh, yeah. I know.
20:11
And he said, "The same guy wrote both of those. Well, yeah.
20:16
I think, you know, they're they're they're similar in certain ways.
20:20
Some people have taken me to task feeling that they're too similar, but uh uh I I always say, "Well, gee, Marty Scaresi, you don't mind making four movies about the mafia?"
20:28
You know what I'm saying?
20:29
I'm saying? and and even though he's a genius but uh uh yeah they're both uh I think in and all in all I hope that all my mo most of my movies are about people and about what people's how they're dealing with problems and what what is
20:45
meaningful to them and where you then start feel tapped into how they're how emotionally they're they're handling things whe you know and you're moved by it you know I mean I was I I liked uh even though it was melodramatic IC at some point that the work I did on Star is Born. I mean, I love the whole
21:03
I mean, I love the whole audience was just sobbing, you know, saying now maybe it's kind of a cheap sob because the guy's committed suicide, but you know, it's a it's an emotional thing and it and that movie's really kind of held its own.
21:17
It's lasted, you know, which is really nice.
21:19
Um, I think in everything I write, I try to give some human quality to it that will make people feel something.
21:27
You know, if you're trying to feel something, are you a coffee drinker?
21:33
Because I would imagine that could So that's a strong Never I never never drank coffee in my life.
21:39
That's a strong I never liked I never liked the taste of it.
21:41
I don't drink liquor either. So Huh. Yeah. Yeah.
21:45
Well, that's interesting because drugs, I'll give you too many.
21:46
Hallucinogenics of everyone known to man except for Iwas. I've never tried that. I guess I should. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. So, what?
21:57
So, you're sitting up there and I mean certainly you're not always trying to get to some of those more emotional moments, but I think that's what stands out.
22:06
I mean, for me, I was uh just getting ready for this and I was uh went into YouTube, started watching some clips from Button and I just I couldn't watch them.
22:14
They just move me too much.
22:16
Yeah, they're I think they were quite emotion.
22:17
Well, it was uh also a personal experience.
22:20
I I lost both my parents while I was writing it. That's right. Yeah.
22:23
So that it um it it I was affected by that and I said, "How can I somehow I don't know translate this to the audience?"
22:33
Uh, and then David Finchu, who I love so much, uh, he really bent over backwards to try to make this work, which I think is not was not the usual movie David would make, you know what I'm saying?
22:47
But uh he tried I think it had to do with maybe the loss of his father not that year but uh uh so there's a humanity in David that's wonderful and he was willing to take to go to kind of a into a different direction and he's much tougher and you know colder in in a good way.
23:05
Um and uh so he he was willing to take sort of the emotional quality of that and make it feel uh important.
23:14
Is it okay if I ask questions about the death of your family?
23:18
And you can ask anything. Okay.
23:20
Well, I just want to be respectful.
23:21
Anyone want to know sexually? All right.
23:24
Well, who knows where we'll be in 10 minutes now. Uh, no.
23:26
But does that show up in Daisy's character?
23:29
Like, walk me through Daisy. Daisy's character.
23:33
Um, I'm trying to think because it's a it's a combination.
23:38
Um, my ex-wife was a big balletta mane dancing. Yeah.
23:45
So, I made her a ballet dancer.
23:48
So, that was really important. It's all about the line. The line. Exactly.
23:50
And uh and then that led to me to the whole uh which I think is pretty clever, the sliding doors thing with if the cab hadn't been late and the thing where she ends up getting hit by a car, which then changed her life because she got her legs where she couldn't use them as ballet anymore.
24:07
But that once I could, you know, so that was it.
24:10
you know, so that was it. I so I look back and my my you know this is this is set at a whole different era but what was a ballet then it was balanchine and you know that was the research I did and then you start looking at the things that could be so beautiful from it so it it one thing sort of starts going on top
24:29
of another so like I was writing that I would I know my wife's name was Deborah and is still Deborah uh um uh But, you know, I would go to the opera, I mean, the ballet with her and it was just so beautiful, you know, and the music's so beautiful and so who is this person who's a ballet dancer and and then how does she meet this guy, you know, and then what does that mean? And when she
24:52
And when she has a child and the child's growing backwards, all that stuff, you know, I mean, it's like at the end of that movie, it's just so gorgeous to me when she has that little baby, you know, that's uh this man she loved, you know, and so what's my name? What's my name? It's pretty amazing. I I love that movie.
25:11
Yeah, it's uh I don't think it's perfect by any means.
25:13
And uh I think you probably would now you could probably make it where it's almost flawless with the uh prosthetics and everything.
25:20
They don't need to probably do a lot of that anymore.
25:24
I did this little movie called Here that didn't work for anybody except for us.
25:29
Even though even though now I think is someone told me there's a whole subculture who's kind of embraced this movie is kind of pretty genius. and we'll see.
25:38
But uh there again, it was about uh that was at Bob Zmechus and I wrote it together and he directed Tom Hanks and Bob and Wright and it's about time passing, you know, what happens to a family and uh it's just the stuff I'm interested in. Yeah.
25:53
So if you're writing something like that, how did you think of the different layering of time?
26:00
Because there was a lot of work that happened visually to communicate that, but I would imagine that's hard to do as you're writing. It was hard to do. Yeah.
26:06
We we had to really keep track of and then I realized how hard it was going to be for Bob with all the art direction they'd have to do, you know, keep uh what what's what's the uh lamps look like and everything else, you know.
26:16
Um but we were I mean it it had its sort of um logic to it, you know, that was uh in keeping with what the piece was about. And what happened?
26:28
And what happened? you found the comic book and you said no Bob I was I called Bob um I wanted to do contact two huh I said is there that's a big job I know I said is that is that something we could do Bob and he said well it's very
26:43
problematic the Carl Sean's estate or the wife or somebody owns the whole thing and it's a little more problem he said but you know what I have this book here is how he talks I have this book here and uh uh take a look at this this
26:57
graphic novel and see if you think this is a movie and and I and I did you know I said this is great I love the whole idea of uh this you know that we're it's all wherever you are in some space and time this is what the lives are that you lead you know and that's this happens to
27:16
be the one but there had been all sorts of other people lived in the same house so it reminded me of uh city of god that did a wonderful thing with uh people who lived in an apartment and I mean the whole thing of time and place is amazing. I mean one of the reasons Marty
27:31
I mean one of the reasons Marty and I scores get along so well is we both love Puce. Yeah.
27:36
And so uh this whole idea of what does time mean?
27:39
I mean what how is it and it's how you can't stop it, you know?
27:45
So you have to appreciate it in some way.
27:47
And when is it becomes a big crushing force in your life and to the good too, you know.
27:54
Well, that's what's so unique about Gump Button here is we see the the arc of a life.
28:00
I mean, here the the part that melted me was when was just when they get divorced and there's been there's just been so long.
28:08
Yeah, I thought it was a beautiful speech when uh she has that cake and she said, "I never Yeah, I never went to Paris.
28:14
I never got to go to Yellowstone in the summer."
28:18
whatever she gives all the things that we miss out on, you know, and so she finally gets to do them.
28:22
Um I I was also pro I loved the little thing I wrote which is kind of sappy but he we had this kind of uh Thanksgiving of them together and he said she he says they breathe that she was going to bring Chinese food.
28:38
Chinese food. So I made that up and then I said uh let's see how this works and I said let's start he has thing where he says let's start a new tradition open the fortune cookies first which is only so I can get the scene written and uh
28:53
and you know he opens one and it says an old love will come back to you and uh and she says he said is that true and she said no yeah but uh and I I actually was then somebody said maybe that wasn't even the fortune that was in the fortune Maybe he just made that up. I I don't like that. You have so I I don't like that.
29:11
You have so many oneliners that are iconic.
29:14
And let's go back to Button cuz you're right.
29:19
We're meant to lose the people we love.
29:21
How else would we know how important they are?
29:24
Yeah, that's I don't know why these things come.
29:27
I mean, I'm always nervous about that.
29:28
They're going to sound completely pretentious, you know, and maybe they are.
29:32
know, and maybe they are. One of the things that's interesting about the button is that I wrote a a speech I'm really proud of that's in there about uh that Brad Pitt gives about uh part of a letter he's supposed to be reading aloud to his daughter even though he's all
29:48
over the world and and he says things like you know I don't know there's no rules to this if you find that you're you're not doing it the way you you wish you were then you can start all over and all this and so people have made it into like a plaque, you know, they have it on their walls, but they've attributed to F. Scott Scott Fitzgerald. Oh, really? Yeah.
30:13
And actually, I wrote it and but because it's from his short story, you know, right?
30:18
Which was actually a magazine article, but uh I thought it was always funny.
30:23
It's like, gee, I know he's a better writer than me.
30:25
This is pretty good, though.
30:26
Yeah, I'm trying to kind of bring all these things together.
30:28
But it's funny cuz just your presence very down to earth and you've written so many lines that are very that are very iconic, sentimental, valuable to people, but then you keep saying, "Ah, but I don't want it to almost be cheesy or something like that."
30:46
You kind of draw very fine line. Yeah.
30:48
Well, you have to try to be careful.
30:50
I don't think you also necessarily said how to write these things.
30:55
you know, you maybe you hope they'll become something.
30:57
Uh I mean, Forest Gump's a little easier because he would speak with apherisms, you know, about things and, you know, sometimes there just aren't enough rocks or, you know, stupid is stupid does.
31:08
I mean, all the stuff that he said, uh, you know, if they worked for people, they they become memorable.
31:15
You know, that was that was a lucky byproduct is all I could say.
31:20
You know, I mean, even in Gump, the classic one is life is like a box of chocolates.
31:24
You never know what you're going to get.
31:26
But the book line is being an idiot. Be an idiot. Is no box of chocolates. Yeah.
31:30
I don't know why it changed, you know. It just I don't know. I have no idea.
31:34
Just that's what just what it felt like to me. Yeah.
31:39
I I'm not even sure that makes much sense.
31:40
Life was like a box of chocolates. Never know.
31:42
I guess, you know, that wouldn't be my favorite one, even though that may be the most memorable. Mhm.
31:49
You know, I still I I liked uh sometimes there just aren't enough rocks when she's throwing those rocks at that house.
31:56
You can't undo things that happened and made you traumatized and everything else, you know.
32:03
Um but many times I tried to write things that would be me, you know, hopefully would be remembered, you know. Yeah.
32:12
Um, and for that movie in particular, yeah, I'm just trying to think what I'm writing now whether there's I think there might be some things that are kind of memorable, some of the sayings.
32:22
Uh, uh, the early mafia in Sicily had a saying, we do what we must. And I have that a lot. What does that mean?
32:32
It means that we're going to do what we have to do to sort of protect ourselves, protect, you know, our honor, whatever it is.
32:41
And so that uh it's it's used a bunch of times, you know.
32:46
It's like think of the Godfather, the great things that came out of that, you know.
32:50
It's like, you know, make him an offer he can't refuse and uh you know, take the canoli, leave the gun, and you know, uh I mean, there's so many great great lines.
33:02
Uh and I'm sure they didn't think of it that way.
33:04
They just they just came out of, you know, what was natural to the people's language.
33:09
When you're writing characters, do you find them saying things that you feel like you would have never said or are you like, "No, I feel like I got a good grasp of these these people."
33:18
I think I don't think I mean, honestly, I don't think they're real the people.
33:23
I mean, I'm not sure I'm going I'm going for some authenticity within their characters, but unless I'm doing something that's more like The Insider, which is about real people, I don't know.
33:35
Otherwise, I I see it them as um fanciful in a way.
33:42
In other words, even though I try to make them feel like they're that they have a life, they have their issues, they have a whole, you know, body of corpus telei and all that and uh they're they're somebody uh who exists, you know, but these are I I call them the other side of the moon.
34:00
In other words, that um these are, you know, really good movies last, but it's almost like there I say they're other side of the moon because I mean it still can feel like Fredo and Michael and the Godfather, you know, where he's saying, you know, when he kisses him and said, "I loved you, you know, and don't you ever whatever."
34:23
But it's almost like it's gone going, you know?
34:27
It's it's like with Forest Gump, it's even I if I see it's on television, if I'm flipping the channels, I'll stop and I'll I'll watch it till the end, you know.
34:37
So, but I think great movies kind of last, you know, uh and I guess great literature does and music and all these things that are part of you.
34:46
Um, but I always felt I always like this idea that these these these people are all living these lies while we're going about ours that they're real to that extent, but it's all fiction, you know. Yeah.
34:58
You know, it's not nothing real about them.
35:02
So, you use the word fanciful.
35:02
So, how do you where does fanciful kind of end and caricature cartoonish begins?
35:06
I think you got to be real careful.
35:09
Yeah, I think that's uh that's what you want to try to avoid so that they do feel real even though you're going in knowing they're not right.
35:17
That this uh Forest Gum to me was Candid, which is a famous play about kind of a guy who's just going through life and what's coming comes and what doesn't come doesn't come.
35:31
And uh it's a a little unusual because it's um it always has the same threeact or four act Shakespearean structure.
35:39
I don't care what who you are, what you're doing. You can't break that.
35:44
You know, you're going to the real simplistic version is you you state the problem in the first act, complicate the problem in the second act.
35:52
Third act, you resolve it or don't resolve it.
35:54
What you already decide to do and it doesn't matter.
35:59
You can stand it on its head.
36:01
You can do it backwards and forwards and it always will have three acts.
36:04
you'll come to eventually a catharsis or DS6 machina god a machine.
36:09
Um and uh that's that's just part and parcel of what it is to dramatize something.
36:16
I mean it it's always interesting to me like I wrote a version of Cleopatra which I thought I did pretty good job but I knew the same material that Shakespeare did because they they really didn't have anything that was contemporaneous with her very little bit.
36:31
So it's like from a historian 150 years later, but he had the same these were real people, you know, and it's then it's hard to believe because of all the things that you know that you think about them.
36:43
None of that's fanciful though.
36:45
Uh I'm talking more about these kind of um what's the word?
36:50
Even the myasmic kind of quality of a Forest Gump or something.
36:53
They're just not real, you know?
36:54
But they take on a reality for that two and a half hours.
36:59
And when you see a character in a book, in a movie that you feel like is wooden, that's hollow, what's what's what's usually? I I don't like it.
37:04
I don't like uh I'll even start books where if I don't think the names seem accurate to uh where they feel like they're invented, I sort of stop reading. Yeah.
37:17
I mean, I just I want I mean, I'm mixture because I want some authenticity, but on the other hand, I don't mind people being, as you say, almost cartoon to some extent, but I'd rather they were felt as I mean, people cry not because they're cartoons, but people people embrace them thinking this is uh somebody worth caring about. Yeah.
37:39
This from the beginning of the curious case, Benjamin Button, you say, "As all things do, it begins in the dark.
37:47
eyes blink open, blue eyes.
37:47
The first thing they see is a woman near 40 standing looking out a window, watching the wind blowing, rattling a window.
37:55
So, what's going on there?
37:59
And how are you thinking about I thought about that that it begins in the dark because it's like somebody being born. Oh, wow.
38:07
In other words, that's the darkness.
38:09
In other words, everything begins in the dark.
38:13
And then uh that for that, you know, it's a baby being born.
38:16
Um then there's the pros that I wrote to put you in the in the situation of, you know, already his blue eyes and a woman in her 40s.
38:27
So you already know this woman exists, probably his mother, I guess.
38:35
And then I guess it's a good cinema moment just because it's just it's big.
38:40
But that when she's standing at the window, the windows winds rattling it. I like that. I use that a lot.
38:44
Not the wind rattling windows, but that um I like when people in movies have their clothes are being ruffled by wind or something.
38:55
It it's it stops time to a certain extent, you know. Um I I did that today.
39:00
I wrote um something actually similar.
39:02
It's about it was a church wedding that's going on and um and there's sort of a it's very windy outside supposed to be in New Orleans and uh and the windows are rattling in the church and so uh then the director has a choice to how much he wants to make them rattle or not rattle at all.
39:21
He may think it's stupid, you know, but it will give you it'll it'll give you a feeling of what's feeling of the time and place.
39:29
You know what I'm saying? Mhm.
39:29
So that even in that that's pretty good I think because that tells you a lot in the space of like two sentences.
39:35
I think I always uh I always know the beginning scenes and the end scene.
39:40
And the only one in any movie I've ever written that changed was uh in Munich uh he moved it.
39:49
It was I think just on the street in Brooklyn but he moved it to be outside the um World Trade Center which was no longer there.
39:58
you know, when he filmed the movie, right?
40:00
So, uh, but otherwise, I think it's I think opening scenes are incredibly important.
40:06
So, you you just, you know, bringing the audience in and then the ending you have to hopefully get right so that they're they leave feeling either ex exalted by what they just saw or uh moved by it or, you know, that still lots to do with the theme of it.
40:25
it. uh you know forest compass of feather about is it destiny or is it you know is it uh just random you know uh um and then where's it going to go next because everybody has their own life you know uh so those are all the things you
40:43
think about and then you have to try to visualize them when you're doing a movie so that they are made clear to an audience what you're saying you know so when Brad Pitt makes the joke about pros he's talking about what we just read. Yes. Versus just the dialogue. Yeah. And Yes.
40:57
Versus just the dialogue. Yeah.
40:57
And all No, it's more than that.
41:00
I mean, many people now will write uh maybe just two lines, you know, it's it's a it's it's fall in Brooklyn.
41:09
And it'll go exterior Brooklyn night. It's fall.
41:12
And then they'll go into the scene. Yeah.
41:17
And it may be just a dialogue. Yeah.
41:17
So that means you're very visual.
41:19
Is your I like to be I like to be very visual.
41:21
I like some directors don't like it.
41:23
They think I'm giving I'm giving too much because I also give tone in it and they don't sometimes they don't like that which is a tone I think it should be.
41:34
Her name is Daisy Fuller.
41:34
She speaks with a southern lil. Nice. Yeah. Well, she does.
41:40
That's exactly what you're saying, right?
41:41
Like that's that's and but the director may but the director may not feel she speaks with a dust other than lil.
41:47
So with the the dialogue, what are you looking at Caroline? The windmother.
41:51
They say a hurricane is on its way. You've been asleep.
41:55
I was waiting to see you. Why?
41:57
Why start the movie there?
41:57
Sometimes it's good to start at the end and then you can go back and tell us why they're there. You know, I don't know. That's a good question. Felt right.
42:06
I guess tell me more about the theme.
42:09
Themes of you find the theme, you bring out the theme, and you kind of come back to it over and over again.
42:17
And once again, the the the core tension that has shown up the thread through all of this conversation is making a lot of these things simple and explicit, but not but teetering at the edge of going too far cartoonish where you just you almost pollute the whole thing and cheat it.
42:32
Well, a lot of people don't like Forest Gump, for instance.
42:36
They think it's uh saccharine or that's not real emotion's emotion, which is fine.
42:42
I mean, it's like just the way the ball bounces, you know.
42:44
Uh like uh I think um Killers of the Flower Moon which is one of the better movies I think I wrote um is about justice in inevitably about justice.
42:57
How these people didn't get any justice you know in other words they and you could probably say 14 other things but that was always on my mind you know justice. justice. Yeah.
43:09
I mean, in other words, what what do we do to them?
43:11
You know, never mind man's inhumanity and all that, which is I mean, I think it's just almost complicit with the whole thing.
43:22
But what about just one moment of justice, you know?
43:24
I mean, it ended originally, maybe it's still there, where um somebody says, "You got justice."
43:31
And he said, "Uh, there's no justice."
43:34
He said, "A jury is just as likely to find a man uh to to sentence a man for kicking a dog more than he will for killing an Indian, you know.
43:44
So, uh you get a sense of the uh uh it's a it's a long history in America.
43:52
It's gone through a lot of stuff, you know.
43:55
Um, and uh this this uh I'm very interested right now because of high noon in vengeance.
44:05
Is that a male characteristic?
44:07
I'm sure there are females who also want vengeance, but uh uh what does that what does that mean?
44:14
How what does that mean about anger and everything?
44:16
So, I'm interested in that.
44:19
And this thing I'm writing with for Marty right now is about kind of about what we what we were brought up to be we end up being in a way.
44:32
I'm not sort of necessarily but these people were brought up in 1860 1870 in Sicily and they went uncertain uh but they they were part of a this mafia and uh and they believe in what this is and that they're not going to really ever get out of it.
44:50
Um and uh they do what they have to do or we will do what we do we must you know right. Yeah.
45:01
There's a discipline about the questions a discipline about the themes you know like you could take oh we're just going to do a simple theme and and and somehow it feels shallow or flat but it seems like like my brain doesn't work like this.
45:14
I can't take a very simple theme and just keep going like I think you can.
45:18
It's like you have like a faith in the theme and just the ability to kind of stick with it.
45:23
That's what the movie is eventually about. Yeah.
45:24
And that uh so if I get in trouble with the scene, I'll say, "How does this apply to the theme of the movie?"
45:31
And I can go far field or be close to home with it.
45:34
But to find it interesting as to what are you saying relating to what this movie is supposed to be about so that you don't you try not to go too far a field.
45:50
What is it that I read about if you do get stuck, change the weather? Change the weather. Yeah. Tell me about that. I like that one. It's very simple.
45:56
I mean, it's like if you That's as close as I get to writer's block is that you're stuck and I just think, well, I think I'll make it rain and all of a sudden you look at it differently.
46:06
You know, it feels like a Sunday afternoon in the rain or you make a snow, whatever you want to do.
46:12
I always go to the rain, it seems.
46:13
But all of a sudden you have people acting slightly differently and it sort of unlocks to me or always unlocked me as to where I can go with this now.
46:23
You know, um uh you know, they're putting on coats, they're going out, they're putting on a hat, whatever it is, you know.
46:30
I just trying to think what I wrote recently I really liked about um Oh, I I was very windy.
46:36
Supposed to be very windy.
46:39
I got in trouble with a scene I was writing and this thing for Marty and uh I decided I'd make it really windy where they are and people's hats are all coming off so you have a whole I mean I would like to have 50 hats like a swirl.
46:53
Yeah, they're all swirling around.
46:55
I think that look like pretty good, you know.
47:00
Is so the weather there are other ones that you can No, I don't think I don't think I ever did it too much, you know.
47:07
Um, but I'm big at I will say that that is a correlary to that.
47:11
I'm big on what time of day it is.
47:13
So I like if you're doing something that kind of feels melancholic, maybe have it at the late in the day, night right before evening or maybe something at dawn or you know or dusk, you know, it's like uh I used to put in the scripts uh between this is a saying from um between the dark and the daylight when the lights begin to lower comes a pause in the day's occupation which is known as the children's hour by Lillian Helman.
47:45
So you get a sense of 5:00 on a street in Brooklyn and about people are mothers are about to call their kids in for dinner and there's this pause that kind of everybody everybody's doing no one's doing anything that may be of any importance but it's like something that you can almost touch you know I love that.
48:06
Well, what's cool about your movies is that the moments that really move us as viewers are just kind of everyday moments, which means that I would imagine there's got to be a sensitivity to life that you have. Yeah, I think I do.
48:21
But I don't think I'm as good as there's a a writer now named Jack Jack Thorne. Okay. Yeah.
48:25
He wrote adolescence along with this uh that other writer actor and he's done five or six things and he's quite extraordinary at doing the most uh basic things within dramatic situations.
48:41
Um and I'm not sure I'm as good as him that way.
48:43
good as him that way. This is kind of a very moving uh thing he did about he's big on disabled rights and uh he has a a thing that was on like Brit Box or Acorn TV the about a girl a little a girl is like 15 I think who has um I think muscular distrophe and she's doomed and uh becomes a battle between her parents about one one parent want to do everything to keep her alive and and
49:15
he thinks and he know she's in a coma now and the father wants to pull the plug basically but he then does such normal human things within that that's really quite amazing where it's not always about what the drama is and you
49:32
know like I I just I just liked one little moment where he got in a car to and someone got in with him he's driving to work I think and the guy offers him a stick of gum And he says, "No thanks." He said, "Yeah, you need it." You know,
49:45
He said, "Yeah, you need it."
49:45
You know, so it's just like, you know, he had bad breath.
49:49
You know what I'm saying?
49:49
It's like, so it's like he was able to put this humanity in there.
49:53
It makes you like the characters more and understand them better.
49:57
You know, you feel like it's important for every character to be likable or No. No.
50:00
I think I think it's Well, look, villains make great movies, you know.
50:05
Um, if you can find a great villain, you you're in good shape.
50:08
Uh, no, I don't think they should be likable.
50:11
I think you should potentially understand why they are what what makes them tick even if if you may not always understand it.
50:20
I mean, I'm not sure I understand psychopaths or something, but you can get close to figuring something out.
50:26
Uh it gets a little more complicated when people have kind of normal lives where no one's putting their hand in a oven or something, you know, where you're getting hurt, where you're traumatized so badly you want to lash out and kill somebody.
50:38
Uh, you wonder for instance about those and smarter person than me would have to tell me those two boys at Coline who had seemingly a pretty normal life and decent parents.
50:51
You know, they worked at a pizza parlor and this and that.
50:54
Why did they decide to go shoot all these people?
50:57
And I don't know the answer. Said that a few times. What makes them tick? Yeah. What makes them tick?
51:02
Why why are they who they are? Yeah.
51:04
I mean, you're going to start understanding when you read enough about it, sociopaths, right?
51:11
What's what's what's caused possibly and who are they?
51:17
What psychopaths, but when somebody does something surprising that's not within what you expect, you know, so that it that makes really interesting characters, you know.
51:28
Um, I brought in I'm not I'm not sure how this is going to work, but in this St.
51:34
to work, but in this St. Marty movie I'm writing that the lawyer who takes charge of things for our our hero or quotes our main character um is a small person and he's like a great southern character you know and so we'll see how you got all
51:51
these southern characters well this is New Orleans two movies got I got this other one's New Orleans yes nothing this was just there was just a great historical interest in 1890 that happened and that's just where it was you know Yeah. Um, uh, you know, the
52:05
Um, uh, you know, the kills of flower moons in Oklahoma, you know, you go where it takes you.
52:10
I don't think you have a choice about it, you know.
52:14
Uh, and every and then people act how they're, you know, they were brought up then, you know, why did the Native Americans were sent to all these Catholic schools, you know, and had their haircut and all this stuff.
52:27
I mean, so you know, start building up with the details what these people might become. Yeah.
52:34
You know, so you got the beginning of the movie planned out.
52:37
You got the end of it planned out.
52:39
Now, in the middle, how much surprise?
52:40
Middle seems like a great big blob. I have no clue.
52:44
And then I then I get me, you know, it's like, what's the next three scenes?
52:49
And I always want to um leave the day of writing with a scene I basically lick so I don't have to go strike fight with it the next day.
52:56
I can make it something hopefully that'll, you know, sore or not, but at least you'll feel like this is something that's great or good.
53:07
And I I'm going to go approach that the next morning when I woke up, so you're not afraid of, you know, what am I facing here?
53:13
Um, and so I always I outline just with one word like five scenes in a row, you know, wedding, shootout, uh, whatever.
53:25
You know what I'm saying?
53:26
Uh so uh that's it start and then it starts taking hold of the story you know you want to tell and where you're going and as you get to the last act as to what you know where you're going to end this thing.
53:40
So you have to try to start building on what is attention, what is the movement, what do you want to say about the people, what happens to them, how do they feel, you know.
53:49
So uh in the beginning you start to you start exploring who they are and they may surprise you or may not.
53:56
And then the middle they you want to sort of do things to me that you're not so sure as you were in the beginning as to who they were and maybe they're doing things that are even you know exceptional or something that confuses you in a way and then you're back to uh trying now finish that finish the whole tale.
54:18
You know, as a writer's thinking through scripts, what I'm seeing is there's the character dimension, there's the theme dimension, there's the plot dimension. Yeah.
54:27
For me, and dialogue, you have to say what you're saying.
54:32
And then you also have um what it's going to look like visually and and sound like you have to also get back into what the you know, the music of the piece is and what is the dialogue like.
54:44
I mean, there's all there's all the ingredients.
54:46
most of it's and then or you can be just very simplistic and write a story that has maybe even a great theme and you don't have to have all the stuff that I go into, but that's part of what I enjoy, you know.
54:56
Um, and some people do it almost effortlessly.
55:02
They don't have to fight fight it at all, you know.
55:04
You talk about what it's going to look like.
55:06
How have you expanded, refined, honed your visual pallet? I don't know.
55:10
I always had a pretty great visual mind as to what I think would make a good scene.
55:14
You know, in other words, what what would be memorable about New Orleans, for instance, and what would be great?
55:21
I'm not going to tell you what I did, but it's pretty great. Yeah, it's really great.
55:26
I mean, I think it's something that's almost expected, but unexpected.
55:31
Um, so that I think it's something that's be very special that people will say, "Oh, yeah.
55:35
Remember the scene when they did X, Y, and Z?"
55:37
You know, and then there's things you learn that you didn't know.
55:40
Uh, I didn't realize they had a street car already there in 1890.
55:45
actually was, I think, founded in 1840.
55:48
Um, and so how do I use a street car?
55:51
Do you go to New Orleans? I've been there.
55:53
I mean, it was on Benjamin Button.
55:55
I've been there a few times. Yeah. And other things.
55:56
I went, one of my first jobs was to rewrite a Paul Newman movie.
56:01
I was very young and they sent me down to Louisiana and I I always tell this story, but I I bought a new pair of corduroys and had a a faux leather briefcase and walked on the set and Paul said, "Our savior's here." You're right.
56:17
I was like literally 19 years old or something. It's like a kid.
56:22
And uh uh and it's always exciting, you know, that you and it's exciting to hear what people, you know, it's exciting to see the movie, hear what the characters are saying, how they interpreted what you wrote, um what these genius directors I've been lucky enough to work with, how they envision these things, and make them much more, I think, in most cases, uh uh more interesting than you imagined it was going to be.
56:50
not not all cases but in many many many um and then it becomes this whole thing that's an entertainment you know and I don't have a I mean I think you can do the same thing on a streamer you know uh this show adolescence just because it's contemporary right now is amazing the writing the acting so that um it just makes you think about things that all of a sudden you hadn't thought about and care about things you might not scared around.
57:22
So, a place like New Orleans, do you are you a notetaker in terms of a little bit? Not not not crazy.
57:27
No, I'll write what I think is the highlights of something, you know, that will remind me what I need to do, you know, like I'll just write tension.
57:39
Somebody will say they think we need more tension. All right.
57:40
Tension so I'll know where it came from. All right.
57:43
So, let's talk about beginning of Forest Gump.
57:47
There's nothing but blue sky. A legend appears. A lot of this is true.
57:53
And we see a feather lighter than air, floating, like time passing, slowly floating by.
57:58
It's interesting how you wrote that. Lots of commas.
58:00
The cadence of that sentence really matches the cadence of that scene.
58:04
And we see it's over a city.
58:06
A breeze catches it, moving it here and there above the city.
58:09
Now, I saw another version of this intro, I swear, that said Savannah explicitly.
58:17
Maybe that was a later one.
58:17
probably later because then when they decided where they're going to shoot it.
58:20
Yeah, because that's now the feather is the beginning of the movie, the end of the movie.
58:25
So that's explicit deliberate. Huh? Why a feather?
58:27
Because I think it you can decide that somebody put it there or it's just floating around in a breeze.
58:35
Yeah, that that had to do with the theme of the movie.
58:37
Um yeah, so that um uh and where is it going to go next and all that, you know?
58:44
Yeah, that was smart with that. I think I think so.
58:46
So, what makes for good intros?
58:48
Like is if if I'm sitting down, I'm ready to write a movie.
58:52
Like, what should I be focused on in a good intro? Oh, gee, I don't know.
58:56
I think it depends on how you want to get the audience into the book.
58:58
Same thing of writing a book.
59:00
Why do you what what's going to compel people to want to read past page two, you know?
59:04
Why, you know, it's like uh the great ones are it's the best, you know, worst of times, the best of times.
59:11
you know, you say, "Oh," or you know, "Call me Ahab."
59:12
You know, all these great moments that start things that you say, "Gee, I want to find out more about this."
59:20
And so that's what I try to do in a kind of literary way.
59:25
Um uh try to um bring people into the environment, you know, sight, sound, etc.
59:35
And um have you start feeling also that you've found a home. found a home. Yeah.
59:42
That you want to that you feel comfortable where this is.
59:44
It might be uncomfortable to you, but you feel like this is somewhere you want to try to you'd be willing to live for two hours.
59:53
You know what I'm saying?
59:53
Or it might be something that's frightening to you that you'll say, "I want to see what this does to me for a couple hours." Yeah. Yeah.
1:00:01
I think it's important in some of these movies when I say find a home is that you feel comfortable that you're in with with Forest Gump, you know, you find that he's he's comfortable to you that he he he's compassionate in his own way.
1:00:17
And Benjamin Button, they actually it is a home and they have borders and people and there's noise and life going on, you know.
1:00:26
Um, we we almost we we almost did this, which I found was kind of lovely, and but David decided eventually not to do it, but we were going to end the first Benjamin Button with um with the end credits were going to be um uh supposedly orbituaries from various newspapers of all the characters. Huh.
1:00:48
It's spectacular what he had drawn up and everything, you know, from wherever they the time, you know, the Times Pikyune I think was a New Orleans newspaper or if they'd moved, you know, like man killed by hit by lightning seven times, you know, right? That kind of thing. And it's kind of great.
1:01:04
So, you have these kind of whole lives that you feel like you've now experienced, you know? Yeah.
1:01:13
when you're teaching the writer's workshop, what do you feel like the writers don't get that you really need to impart on people?
1:01:20
I think part of it's just somebody's I don't know ability to just tell a story and try to encourage you to join it and be as Ben and everything.
1:01:32
I mean, it's like I was thinking of a script that I didn't like, one of the writers had.
1:01:35
And I think it was it made you feel like you're not going to ever you're not going to be part of this.
1:01:41
So, somehow you're it pushes you away.
1:01:43
And if you can get people to come in and be a party to it and you know, they don't have to like it even in a way.
1:01:52
I mean, you want them to love it obviously.
1:01:53
They want them to be charmed by it and moved and all those things, but uh uh you have to make it so that um I think that's why I say they feel like they're home.
1:02:04
Well, here I mean I'm just looking at this now.
1:02:09
You can see there's a lot of pros here.
1:02:11
Yeah, that's too they would never let that happen again.
1:02:15
How many pages is that script?
1:02:15
Well, this is just one page.
1:02:17
No, I'm just saying how many pages of the whole script? Oh, yeah. Let's see.
1:02:20
This is 260 something pages. It says cherry revision.
1:02:26
So maybe this is a compilation. That's all. Yeah.
1:02:27
So you're gonna have half scenes. There's no way in hell.
1:02:33
266 is, you know, it's a minute a page.
1:02:37
So 60 into 260 is a 4 and a half hour movie or something, right? That's not happening. No, this a compilation.
1:02:44
No, that's a compilation of stuff. Yeah.
1:02:49
How'd you improve your ability to write dialogue?
1:02:50
Well, I don't know if I ever was good or bad at it.
1:02:52
I mean, I just I just write what I think I want them to say.
1:02:57
And uh you know, and also the directors will change a lot of it.
1:03:01
Or I mean, the most the most impactful one for me was uh on the movie The Insider.
1:03:09
Uh uh I had written like a page and a half monologue that I thought was pretty damn good.
1:03:15
Pacino called me that morning before he was going to shoot it and he said I can do this with one look and I said really I said let's call Michael man see what Michael says and Michael said let's shoot it both ways and in the movies one look so he didn't need all the the words
1:03:32
you know but sometimes I'm trying to find ways to describe things that maybe I go overboard or something you know or maybe an actor can then take it make it their own make it their own way of speaking and as long as they're able to impart what you're trying to say. I
1:03:45
I don't have any big feeling about it. Right.
1:03:49
What are the things that you're thinking about sort of the axioms, the principles as you're writing dialogue?
1:03:55
Well, I mean, I think you have to carry the scene.
1:03:57
Uh you want to present issues in the scene that they're trying to work out or they're romancing about or whatever.
1:04:05
Uh so that it becomes uh uh I mean so it becomes valuable.
1:04:09
You don't want to just kill time or what they call shoe leather, you know. Why is it called that?
1:04:16
Because it's just wasting time walking around, you know. Okay. Yeah.
1:04:21
You want to have something.
1:04:21
It doesn't have to be, you know, gigantic revelation.
1:04:25
But you also want to have the a move the story along.
1:04:28
So, you know, like if you have a character say, "Will you marry me?"
1:04:33
All of a sudden, you're into something that's could be way larger than what you had anticipated, you know? Right.
1:04:39
like this thing I'm writing is uh the woman he's in love with is the daughter of his rival like Romeo and Juliet in a way and uh and uh it's dangerous you know so when as they get closer and closer it becomes more fraught um and uh wow and eventually the father says you're dead to me you know so and eventually he may even kill her you know so anyway so it becomes this more dramatic.
1:05:11
I hope so simple your stories, right?
1:05:13
Like I can just hear that and I could see it and I there's a discipline to simplicity. I think that Yeah.
1:05:19
I wish I had more of it in a way.
1:05:21
I mean some people can really write simply and with such sparse pros and sparse language but says the same things with so so many less words than I use.
1:05:32
You know, I'm less sophisticated using language as I wish I was.
1:05:38
I mean, but that's that's just some people just like I'll say mixed about some of his works, but uh like Jonathan um what's his name? Safford.
1:05:47
No, him I know quite well.
1:05:51
We did Extremely Loud, Incredibly Close. Yeah. No, he's a good writer. Very good.
1:05:55
I was thinking more of a you know who wrote Crossroads and Connections?
1:05:58
Jonathan um what the hell's his name? It's ridiculous.
1:06:01
But he he probably writes the best sentences.
1:06:03
I mean, I don't know if he spends time looking up words because he uses words I've never heard of, but they seem to come naturally to him. Uh, Jonathan Franson. Jonathan Franson. Yeah. But it's natural to him.
1:06:17
And when you read his, you sort of gush because you go, "Oh my god, how do you write this sentence?"
1:06:22
And then here comes another one.
1:06:24
You know, they're unbelievable.
1:06:27
You know, the big deal is with a writer is that you have to put one word in front of another. Mhm.
1:06:31
And you hope you're putting the right words in the right way and that's the best lesson you could get.
1:06:37
And those who are really good at it are simple and they're Hemingway or they're uh you know, you know, so some of the just those writers who just come second nature to them.
1:06:48
I don't know what makes it bubble up inside of them, you know.
1:06:55
And what is it about rewriting that that feels laborious to you?
1:06:59
Well, you've had the adventure of trying to create something new.
1:07:01
So, now you're just trying to improve what you've already written, which is fine, but it doesn't feel so adventurous and it's a little more feels more like work.
1:07:11
I think that's revealing that you just said the adventure of creating something new.
1:07:18
I think that that tells me a lot about how you write. Yeah, I think it's true.
1:07:22
I think I've lived my life that way.
1:07:24
Yeah, I've had uh a lot of children.
1:07:27
children. I've had more than one wife and things and um and I think a great adventure and sometimes haven't behaved the way I should have but uh um and I've learned what I've learned and decided not to take lessons from what I've learned and all that you know but that's
1:07:48
with writing too in other words trying to create something that will people say wow you know this is really it might be too big might be too expensive ensive might be all sorts of things, but they'll never say they're not interesting or a good story. I don't
1:08:00
I don't know why I had the maybe it's because we're in Santa Monica.
1:08:04
I just had the image of someone who's just like surfing a giant wave and you're kind of like I don't know, I'm going to go and you kind of like come back up and you're just on this wave and the entire time you're like we're just going to stay on this wave and I know that if I can stay up the whole thing's going to go.
1:08:16
But the fact that you're calling it the adventure of trying to figure out something new, I think just says so much about what it is that you're going for and the kind of unfolding, but then you do also know what your destination is because you start with that end in mind.
1:08:30
Well, yeah, but also I'm helped along by since, as I said, I do a lot of um adaptations, I know what the material is to unless I'm creating something.
1:08:37
I mean, I think a lot of the things I've written are strict adaptations to some extent, even though I I I play with them.
1:08:47
um in ma major ways or um they're almost all original writing like Benjamin Button was just a bad short story that Scott wrote for for uh he needed some money for Kier's magazine and uh but what it was obviously I didn't come up with was the idea of as aging backwards which is profound you know really yeah it's profound the closest I came to that in my own writing was I had someone else write We'll see if it ever gets made.
1:09:17
But I had someone write it about 10 15 years ago.
1:09:21
So I woke up and I said to my wife, I had this idea.
1:09:24
I said, um, what if uh what if I died?
1:09:28
what if I died? you woke up and you found I'm dead and you happen to like me and uh you're you're grieving and you are with a priest or a rabbi or somebody who could give you some consolation and you say and he says to you or she says
1:09:45
to you what could I do to make your grief feel you know easier to you and and she says I would like to spend just one more day with him so I had a thing written about a 24-hour where it comes true that this guy who was dead all of a
1:10:02
sudden came back to life and they had he had 24 hours left to live and what was their relationship and what did they get to solve and what did they get to it's pretty great that's beautiful yeah it's really beautiful and as the time compressed you know as in your last hour
1:10:17
and she knows that he doesn't know it and you know things that she wants to accomplish in that those moments it's pretty beautiful I don't think it's as profound as aging backwards but there's something to it that I think was quite touching. Eric Cross from Forest Gump.
1:10:31
Eric Cross from Forest Gump.
1:10:33
You know, when you win your Oscar at the very end, you say, "I may not be the smartest man around, but I know what love is." I sure do. Thank you.
1:10:41
And Forest Gump says, "I'm not a smart man, but I know what love is." Yeah.
1:10:46
Well, that was I did that because of that. And I do. I did know.
1:10:47
I do know what love is for me.
1:10:50
I mean, as I say, I have a lot of children, so I know that when they love me, and I love them.
1:10:54
and I have many many many people in my life.
1:10:59
So, uh I'm surrounded by love as best as possible.
1:11:02
So, yeah, he was saying it quite differently because he's saying that he's not intelligent, but that he he knows a love, you know.
1:11:09
I mean, I think that's that's that's that's what we see in in in a lot of your movies is is is that feeling of love.
1:11:16
I mean, to go to extremely loud and incredibly close, you know, it's losing your father. Oh my goodness.
1:11:23
you know, it's like a sense of just like aching, grief, and separation and uh you really feel the pain of that.
1:11:34
There's something about the way that your movies Well, you know, I was uh I think it was Elvis Mitchell, you know, that is No, he was uh he was a New York Times film critic and then he's been a he does like he does for NPR he does radio interviews with a lot of entertain film people and he when I and he's a friend and uh he said your movies are all about loneliness. Yeah. And I think it's true.
1:12:02
about when you really think about us is people being and you know I'm not sure I'm that lonely but uh I don't like being alone I'm not great with that but uh yeah loneliness is probably a driving force so it might be a driving force for my characters what was wild is after I finished a rewatch button and after I finished it last week I wept about things in my own life like I hadn't wept in so long I mean I cried cried out to God.
1:12:32
Like it just it fully I was on my bed and I mean I practically had to wash the dang the dank pillow case because I just you made me feel certain pains that I've had around loneliness and and and sadness and feelings of just emptiness in my life and I just something about that movie just brought it up and I just I I I just wept.
1:12:53
I I I just wept. I I wept so like you know when crying was it was it cathartic you're not in well well that's the thing you know when you're just weeping and you're just like you're completely out of yourself like afterwards it is really
1:13:08
nice and there's something about the shedding of tears is a kind of catharsis and you know what's strange is it feels really good to cry that much because there's no resistance yes there's no resistance yeah once you can do that it's important I think you know oh wow Wow. Wow. Well, I'm glad that it Wow.
1:13:24
Well, I'm glad that it affected you that way. Yeah. I love that.
1:13:29
Well, what's wild is that first the movie affected me and then it influenced it showed me something about my own life. Yeah, that's nice. Yeah.
1:13:38
Well, then maybe there's some truth to it.
1:13:40
Maybe I hit on the truth. I don't know.
1:13:42
But on a truth, you anyway.
1:13:42
I'm sure there's other people say it's ridiculous, you know. Yeah.
1:13:46
I just can't even imagine what you experience writing these these movies. Emotional.
1:13:51
I'm moved by I'm moved by them and they a lot of come out of my own life, you know, things that are painful to me or how I can experience them and I mean it's a lot. Yeah, it's a lot.
1:14:05
I uh I was at a I was at a panel discussion and at the writer's guild and I think I had been nominated for writer guild award.
1:14:18
Anyway, that was who the people were.
1:14:20
And the moderator said started by saying, "I want to be Eric Rock."
1:14:25
I said, "Okay, well, you've had to have had cancer three times.
1:14:28
You have to have been divorced a few times.
1:14:31
You have to had some other tragedies and children and things."
1:14:36
And so, it was like after a while it started it was laughable, you know.
1:14:39
So, everybody's like laughing because everybody's, you know, has their own stuff, you know.
1:14:46
So, you may want to be successful in some way, which I am, but uh it's not I'm still me.
1:14:52
Do you feel like going through those things makes the grief, the suffering so much more real in your in your films?
1:15:01
I don't know if that I don't know.
1:15:01
I don't I can't speak to that.
1:15:03
I mean, you'd have to I mean, we have this thing I'm doing with Ben Affleck, which is really interesting.
1:15:10
Uh he wanted me to he calls me he says I want to do a m room.
1:15:15
I said what are you talking about?
1:15:17
He says you know that movie m you wrote and well actually David Fincher's father wrote but we we we helped it out anyhow.
1:15:23
And uh I was a producer on it and um and I said yeah that's how they did writer rooms then they did that's how they did movies in the 30s and 40s whatever.
1:15:34
Um they would uh you know they'd bring in great writers and they p overpaid everybody and they'd sit around and the studio said we want a movie about a vampire.
1:15:43
So they'd figure out a vampire movie go away and write.
1:15:46
Anyway, he says yeah that's what I want to do.
1:15:48
I want you to find me if you're willing to do this.
1:15:52
Find me like four or five writers and you be Yoda and let's put together a room and I'm probably going to pay just basically minimum.
1:16:00
So which which made me then my ability to get all the writers I would have maybe liked even though I ended up great writers uh they were all TV writers because they hadn't you know they were they were pretty well they're pretty successful like showrunners and stuff.
1:16:16
So we had a room of four and I think we got maybe three really good scripts out of the four which was great and now he wanted to do it again.
1:16:26
So now we have eight more writers.
1:16:28
Um, and so I'm like Yoda to them and I like doing that.
1:16:31
But everybody's different, you know. Yeah.
1:16:36
So you you learn from everybody else.
1:16:38
And on Fridays every week for the duration of our first room anyway, we had a a salon and I'd have Fincher came in and Michael Man and David O.
1:16:48
Russell and Bradley Cooper and Rob Reiner and spectacular.
1:16:53
But there was no cameras, no nothing.
1:16:56
just them talking to the writers and then some guests we had.
1:16:58
But the thing that was most consistent about everybody, authenticity.
1:17:06
So they wanted authentic.
1:17:08
You can be in the most sort of unauthentic Marvel movie and they wanted that to be authentic within that realm, you know.
1:17:16
Um, and so that was the that's almost everybody.
1:17:19
It's sort of amazing that that was the key thing for everybody.
1:17:23
So whether that's true or not, I don't know, but that's what it it might be right. Yeah.
1:17:27
What is it about collaborations that you've really been drawn to?
1:17:32
I mean, you've collaborated with the most insane group of people.
1:17:36
Scorsese, Spielberg, Fincher, you're talking about Bradley Cooper, we've talked about um No, it's it's it's insane.
1:17:44
Michael, man, like but I think I learned I'm not stupid and I learned that directors for me were the key to get movies made.
1:17:50
Oh, so that I I linked up with directors.
1:17:53
They happened to like my material, so I was a leg up on that.
1:17:58
Um, I wrote a movie for Kurissawa. Yeah.
1:18:02
Called Rap City in August.
1:18:02
Um, yeah, I've worked with uh the best actors and best directors in my for the 60 years I've been at it.
1:18:11
You know, there's a bunch of people I wish I had worked with, you know, probably, but uh um yeah.
1:18:17
Um and each one's different.
1:18:20
You know, it's a marriage though.
1:18:20
You have to be willing to get married.
1:18:24
What'd you learn from Spielberg?
1:18:24
Some things I won't say, but I'll say he has a uh incredible sense of um entertainment also um being able to um portray things, you know, with uh that that that are childlike in in some ways.
1:18:42
And um and the entertainment value of his work is incredible.
1:18:48
He can do uh what I call Rube Goldberg.
1:18:51
He can do uh like a maze of things, you know.
1:18:55
He can have I think I think his saving prior Ryan had thinking where someone got shot and thermos and B blood was dripping and something else. I don't know. He can do that.
1:19:07
In other words, something he can reach for a box of cereal and 12 other things happened, right? Yeah.
1:19:11
He's a he's very talented that way. He's very quiet.
1:19:16
He's he's a lonely sort of man in a way.
1:19:18
Nice man, you know, but uh um he lives in his own world to some extent.
1:19:25
Every but they're all different, you know.
1:19:26
Everybody's um some are more generous, some are less generous.
1:19:28
Um but it's a it's a marriage.
1:19:31
You have to find a way to negotiate in a way because as strong as you may feel about something, eventually it's the director who's going to make a decision.
1:19:41
And um so I like to find what I say is like the third rail or the third way where we then both can agree on what we'd like it to look like, you know, and that doesn't always happen, you know.
1:19:56
Sometimes I'm disappointed and sometimes I'm thrilled and you know um so I continue to work with directors as much as I can.
1:20:03
I'll work with Den Villanuv again and That's right. Yeah. Yeah.
1:20:08
Um I'll work with uh um Marty again.
1:20:12
I hope we're just getting pretty old, both of us. So, we'll see.
1:20:16
Um uh and I I'd like to There's a few new directors I'd like maybe to work with, you know.
1:20:24
But, uh they're all there.
1:20:24
You said to me in the kitchen, I always enjoy the writing. I always enjoy writing. I love the writing. Yeah. I like every day. I enjoy it.
1:20:32
And is that because of the topics that you choose? Like part of it? Yeah.
1:20:36
I go into worlds that I love love trying to negotiate. And what do you do?
1:20:42
You just wait for the pitch, wait for the pitch and then you kind of like find the fat pitch and you just kind of go for it or like what is I have an idea of what I want to write, what this what's the goal in the thing and then it is true what you said though I keep as you know going back to page one I and I know the first time I go and write it, it's not right and I what is the story I'm telling?
1:21:03
Why is it going this way? Why is it stopping?
1:21:05
Why am I how can I do this better?
1:21:08
Then all these details start filling in and I say I like this, you know.
1:21:11
Okay, tell me more about the details.
1:21:14
Well, the details just pop up when you're doing, you know, like 1860 Sicily, you know, and and then you start reading about, well, they were fighting for citrus, who was going to control the citrus crop, and the the winner was eventually this one family.
1:21:34
And as I love this detail, as a as a sign of their victory, they put a lemon on top of their uh their gate.
1:21:39
I mean, it was a high tall gate, but uh a lemon on top, and that was that made them the victors. And uh I don't know.
1:21:48
And so I had a scene where uh in this thing I have a scene where our hero uh or I'm not sure he's so heroic but anyway the lead in the movie is is uh wants vengeance on a um rival Don and uh he he comes sneaking into an opera and while the opera is going I have him slit his throat and the and the and the and Guy who's throaty slitting is a guy who danced himself as kind of a singer.
1:22:22
So he's doing a baritone with the opera singer. Yeah. So that was pretty good.
1:22:31
Wait, so how in the world with like 1860s Italy like I wouldn't even know how to think through character.
1:22:39
I mean I guess you can read a lot but there's I read some but also I I just envi envision well let's say it's an amphitheater.
1:22:45
So it was outdoors I did it, you know, because they had outdoor amphitheater.
1:22:49
It's supposed to be a small kind of town.
1:22:50
And he sneaks behind this guy, this kind of rotunded guy who's sort of full of himself and unscrupulous guy.
1:22:57
He probably deserves to get killed if you believe in that stuff.
1:23:02
And and he has and I have him cut his throat.
1:23:05
So what I did then was because that wasn't enough for me, I have that the opera singer is the only person who saw him cut his throat.
1:23:16
So he has this for the rest of our movie and he becomes a slightly instrumental character because the whole group of them are come to New Orleans because they for various reasons they brought all these Sicilians to New Orleans and uh that's where the mafia started in America.
1:23:33
But yeah, but uh this guy knows that he cut this guy's throat and he has that on him in a circuit way. Yeah.
1:23:41
How deliberate are you about cultivating inspiration?
1:23:44
I mean, we've talked a lot about you mentioned proofs, you read a lot of novels, you watch a lot of movies, there's thousands of references you can pull from.
1:23:53
Is that something that's deliberate or is that sort of a That's deliberate.
1:23:57
I mean, but it's also I'm so I like to even quote things that because I'm just so moved by them. So, I like to use them.
1:24:06
Like that Lillian Helman thing I said to you, you know, I think I'd use that in a couple scripts, but because I less love it.
1:24:11
It's just so textural and everything else.
1:24:14
And uh and uh I mean, I've quoted other things or used them where I'll give credit.
1:24:20
I mean, I don't plagiarize them.
1:24:21
I'll say and so and so said, you know, um or describe something and I just think it makes it more I think it makes a richer reading experience for the for the reader, you know, because most people now just read the dialogue.
1:24:37
They avoid question the reader.
1:24:40
So as you're trying to shop the phone, yeah, you have that also.
1:24:42
So you have to do you have to make a script for a reader for somebody to say, "Oh boy, I see this.
1:24:49
see this. I can see why I would want to make it aside from whatever their judgment is about commerciality of it with expenses and how long is it going to be all those things you know earlier you were talking about things standing the test of time how do you think about
1:25:02
making something perennial well I think you can't know but I think certain things like I think Forest Gump survived and continues because I think parents show it to their 11 year olds that's what happened to me yeah so their 11 year olds love it and you censor out the little bit of sexuality in it. Right. Right. You or just say I actually Right. Right.
1:25:22
You or just say I actually didn't realize until I was preparing for this that um Forest Gum's mom had sex with the principal.
1:25:30
So I learned that this morning and I was like I've seen that movie like five times. I somehow had no idea. Bob and I laughed.
1:25:35
Uh we can do something for you Mrs. Gump.
1:25:41
Anyhow, uh I had no idea. Yeah.
1:25:41
So, but anyway, I think that's why that's persisted.
1:25:48
You know, Benjamin Button, we'll see.
1:25:50
I think maybe maybe the loveliness of it will make it persist, but I don't think you can know.
1:25:54
Um, and certain things last and certain things don't.
1:25:58
I mean, I could tell you that I think Stars Warn has really lasted and it's outlasted the movies that like the movie that won best picture, the Green Book.
1:26:09
I'd say I defy anybody to have the same feeling about.
1:26:12
They may like Green Book or whatever they like, but uh I think Star is Born though because the music and Lady Gaga and all that makes it still feel very fresh, you know. Um I don't know.
1:26:26
I'm not sure about Dune whether it'll last away same way. I don't know. Dune one and two. I don't know. Did you write Dune 2? No. No.
1:26:32
I I told him I had other worlds to conquer, which was funny.
1:26:39
I thought, how do you think about the premise?
1:26:41
Like, is that something that you're looking for a lot?
1:26:44
Because that's what you found with Benjamin Button.
1:26:45
We've been talking about character.
1:26:46
The premise I think uh the premise comes along with when you're adapting something, right?
1:26:52
So, there's something in it that uh I'm going to do a uh Sydney Sweeney movie that Yeah.
1:26:56
She found this wonderful short story called I Pretended to be a missing girl.
1:27:03
So the premise is of a a sort of down andout 20-year-old sleeps around and drug like drugs or alcohol and sees on a motel uh lobby a poster for a missing girl amongst other posters and the girl kind of looks like her and she says I think I'll go sort of scam this family and get some money from them and get the hell out of there.
1:27:31
So, she goes to the family and knows enough about the girl and learns enough about her to where the the parents want her back so bad that they're convinced it is her.
1:27:40
Um, and she's going in to meet her younger brother who's like nine years old and the younger brother says to her, "Run, run as fast as you can."
1:27:54
And it's spectacular what happens.
1:27:57
So, when you hear a premise like that, what is your thought? Is it like this? I love this. Is was it juicy?
1:28:01
Is it that you can do something with it? It's juicy.
1:28:05
It's um uh it makes me It also I was interested in doing something that I could get made rather quickly as I'm get I'm 80 years old.
1:28:15
So, I mean I'm running out of time here.
1:28:17
So, uh, I thought with with her being a big movie star and this kind of idea, which I think I could build on, um, I already said, well, it shouldn't be just this girl's missing photograph there. It should be hers, too.
1:28:34
So, in other words, we know that she's a missing person and have her then maybe I'll do probably that's probably I'll start the movie and they'll have her go park out in front of her home and you'll see her mother and father and she'll eventually leave, you know.
1:28:47
Now, as you think about themes for that movie based on what you said, I'm not sure what that is yet because I don't know.
1:28:56
That may just be a pot boiler.
1:28:56
You know, some things are just Hitchcock movies or something, you know. So, I'm not sure.
1:29:03
I'll probably find something in I want the I know I want the villain, which is the father because he actually has his daughter in the basement.
1:29:10
But uh I want him to be so evil that but he's intelligently evil like Silence of the Lamb.
1:29:21
So he's a great kind of you have this dynamic between these two people, you know. I know that.
1:29:28
That's that's what I know so far.
1:29:30
And is your writing you're still writing on that program that gives you no access to the internet that was invented by the Egyptians, right? Yeah. It's a DOS program. Yeah.
1:29:40
That uh um the worst part about it is it runs out of memory at like 40 pages or something. 40 pages. Yeah.
1:29:48
So, you know, at least you've got an act written.
1:29:50
So, but you better you better you better print it out or it's going to go away is a problem because once it'll all of a sudden it'll say too much memory or something overloaded memory and it'll make pages disappear.
1:30:04
So, you don't want to get there, you know. Yeah.
1:30:09
Uh but I'm just I'm just superstitious.
1:30:12
I'm probably just I should probably learn how to use Final Draft and call it a day.
1:30:16
But And then what do you do?
1:30:18
print and you just I print it and then my assistant retypes it based on your edits. Yeah.
1:30:22
Well, I have edits and then we'll edit together and I'll keep going through it till I'm going to turn it in and she'll retype it.
1:30:31
Um because I I do I do the um my movie program is the bulk of the writing but I'll also because um it's you know when you're a writer I say most or 24 hours a day it's on your mind and so I'll I'll I'll like put an email I'll write a scene in email or in text and just on scrap paper or something you know so it's always uh it's always evolving in some way you you know, or you think of something.
1:31:02
Oh my god, I got to put that in.
1:31:03
I I realized I had left out something in the script.
1:31:05
It was a little tiny thing, but that so I had to run back and I wrote myself a note so I didn't forget it, you know. Yeah.
1:31:12
And how much of what you write comes out of your own life conversations that you have?
1:31:19
I not that much, I don't think.
1:31:19
have? I not that much, I don't think. I mean it depends probably if depends on the millu you know in other words it's something that's more I wrote not a very successful movie called lucky you which was a poker
1:31:33
player I know a lot about gambling and uh so I could put a lot of stuff I knew in there but uh um that was because of the subject matter you know um I also had a television show on called Luck with David my lovely David Milch and that was about horse racing which I know a lot about. So, I could put all sorts
1:31:52
So, I could put all sorts of stuff in that.
1:31:54
You know, you feel like you learn more from the successes or the failures. I don't know.
1:31:59
I think it's a it's a it's a different question you'd have to ask a different writer because I've had so many movies made.
1:32:06
I mean and that I'm not and a lot of a lot lot of things that were not successful that it becomes I don't want to say less important but not as important in a certain way that the writing is equally important to me or maybe even more important that I can create something that's new and different explores areas and all that that I love about it.
1:32:30
Um, and if it doesn't work, then I, you know, I probably miss something, which is fine.
1:32:38
And I don't have the same ego that way in it.
1:32:41
Now, I just love to do the work without questioning what's going to happen with it, even though I still care.
1:32:48
And and it's sort of meaningless to have a screenplay that's not going to be filmed, you know, you know, it's just going to go on a drawer. So, I don't know. That's a great question.
1:32:59
what you learned from when you made mistakes.
1:33:01
Uh I'm not sure if you don't try to start attributing those mistakes to others.
1:33:06
It's a good cheap way out, right?
1:33:09
You know, uh to to a director or the actors didn't do the right or they didn't cast the right people and I don't.
1:33:16
Do you feel like the market for movie popularity, the Oscars, is efficient?
1:33:23
And what I mean by that is if you were to take your most popular movies, how much does that correlate with what you feel are the best movies? Oh, my movies. Yeah.
1:33:31
I think I think each year is different as to what I would say is a movie maybe I would have rather have written.
1:33:39
You know what I'm saying? Yeah.
1:33:40
But I that's not that's something that's not in my But do you feel like the the movies that you're known for that are the most popular are those your best movies or do you feel like there's these other movies that either didn't get picked up, they didn't do well, you're like, "Dang, that was a darn good script."
1:33:56
Uh, I have a few of those.
1:33:58
I I have a I have a pretty ridiculous batting average, so for getting movies made, so I don't have that many scripts that haven't been made, so I can't hearken back to that.
1:34:06
I mean, I I'm batting I don't know what pretty high.
1:34:12
It's gone a little less as they make less and less movies, you know? Yeah.
1:34:17
So, um it's harder to get than me.
1:34:20
I love the line from Button or at the funeral.
1:34:23
She taught me to play the piano and what it meant to miss somebody. Very you line. Yeah, that is. I like that line.
1:34:31
Um, I think one of the lines I remember from that movie, I don't remember exactly what he said was, um, when the tugboat captain's dying, he says, "You can rail at God." And something like that.
1:34:43
And he says, "When it comes to the end, you have to make peace."
1:34:47
And basically, that one I like. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for doing that. Thanks for doing it. Good. Thank you. Lovely question. It's really good job. Thank you. Yeah.
1:34:58
This is better than the normal