Interviews 191 results

The Wife’s 14-Year Road from Hollywood to Europe and Back Again

Even if you haven’t seen the film The Wife starring Glenn Close, you probably know that Close is cleaning up this awards season having won both the Golden Globe and SAG Award for Best Actress. She’s also nominated for her seventh Oscar for playing Joan Castleman, a wife who must face her life choices when her husband Joe (Jonathan Pryce) is set to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. Soon, however, the question of who’s really the literary talent in the marriage begins to plague the long-married couple. Secrets, repressed emotions and anger all begin to bubble to the surface.

The 3rd Annual National Screenwriters Day is Jan. 5!

 “Film’s thought of as a director’s medium because the director creates the end product that appears on the screen. It’s that stupid auteur theory again, that the director is the author of the film. But what does the director shoot—the telephone book? Writers became much more important when sound came in, but they’ve had to put up a valiant fight to get the credit they deserve.” – Billy Wilder

‘On the Basis of Sex’ writer gets notes from his aunt, Ruth Bader Ginsburg

On the Basis of Sex is a biopic about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg written by first-time screenwriter Daniel Stiepleman. It’s pretty rare that the subject of a biopic will give notes to the screenwriter, but this case was special. Stiepleman is actually Ginsburg’s nephew. His mother is Ginsburg’s husband Marty’s sister, so I asked him what it like having a groundbreaking Justice in the family.

Video: ScreenwritingU interviews writer/director Joel Edgerton on Boy Erased

ScreenwritingU sat down with Australian filmmaker Joel Edgerton to get his take on this emotional story. He writes and directs this film based on the memoir of Garrad Conley. In his early 20s, Conley personally experienced abuse at the hands of Love in Action, the fundamental Christian program for gays.  Edgerton himself plays Victor Sykes, lead counselor at the gay conversion ministry who’s clearly in over his head.

First Man writer Josh Singer on writing a nontraditional character arc

As storytellers, many of us frame our screenplays around The Hero’s Journey architecture, where the hero goes on a dangerous quest and returns forever changed. In many ways, the new film First Man, about astronaut Neil Armstrong, is the ultimate hero’s journey – he spends years sacrificing as he prepares to go to the moon, then, despite setbacks that are both scientific and personal, he makes the perilous journey to the moon – a huge victory for himself and for humanity – and returns home triumphant.

Video: Bad Times at the El Royale writer shares tips for writing multiple protagonists

We sat down with Goddard to find out what inspired him to make Bad Times at the El Royale and get tips on writing a screenplay with multiple protagonists. 

Ethan Hawke’s surprising emotional journey to make his new film Blaze

Ethan Hawke directed Blaze from a screenplay written by both himself and Foley’s former wife, Sybil Rosen. I talked with both Hawke and Rosen to find out what the writing process was like. Hawke claims it was a near miracle the film happened at all.

Crazy Rich Asians says ‘No’ to Netflix payday to bring Asian culture back to Hollywood

With a current score of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes – a rare feat for a rom/com – screenwriters Adele Lim (TV’s Lethal Weapon, Reign) and Peter Chiarelli (Now You See Me 2, The Proposal) tackled a mountain of characters from a trilogy of books to write Crazy Rich Asians. Chiarelli says the process was painstaking.

The Spy Who Dumped Me writer tackles action/comedy with a bang

The Spy Who Dumped Me is an action/comedy film, one of the most difficult genres to get right. I sat down with writer/director Susanna Fogel to discuss the challenges of adding thrills and kills to the laughs.

Writer/director Rawson Marshall Thurber has wanted to create an action/thriller movie since he was eight years old.

You may know some of Thurber’s films that aren’t in the action genre. Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh and Central Intelligence all land in the comedic zone, so how did he finally get to make Skyscraper?

British novelist Ian McEwan calls writing a screenplay a ‘happy demotion’

You probably know British writer Ian McEwan best for his award-winning novels like Atonement, Black DogsandThe Comfort of Strangers. But he also writes plays and screenplays, and his novella On Chesil Beach has now been adapted for the screen by none other than McEwan himself. Dialing in from England, we chatted about the film, and the differences between writing a novel and a screenplay.

Comedian Natasha Leggero on why she’s a ‘writer by necessity’

Comedy writer and actress Natasha Leggero, star and co-creator of Comedy Central’s Another Period, has a brand new standup comedy special on Netflix called The Honeymoon Standup Special. Not surprisingly, it’s hilarious. But I’d expect nothing less from the woman who owns every comedy roast where she flings scorching zingers from the dais. Check out the barbs she throws down in this roast of Justin Bieber:
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