Dean Devlin began his career as an actor, and a successful one at that, but eventually moved into screenwriting -- and has had even far greater success.  Along with his partner, director Roland Emmerich, the two have made some of the biggest blockbusters in recent years.  As I've noted previously, the Email Interviews are generally standard questions which differ because of the answers, but here I veered off a bit and asked a few movie-specific questions, as well.

Screenwriter Dean Devlin has co-written the epics, Independence Day and Godzilla, both of which he produced, as well as the films Stargate and Universal Soldier.

He is executive producer of the TV series, Leverage, for which he’s also written and directed.  Devlin was also executive producer of the three The Librarian TV movies.  And he produced the feature films The Patriot, Cellular, and Stargate.

[Subsequent to the interview, two new movies based on his characters for Universal Soldier have been produced.  And two sequels based on Independence Day have been announced – ID Forever, Parts One and Two – though production and further details are still a ways off.  He also was executive producer of the acclaimed documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car?]

>>>  Were there any movies, TV shows or books that first got you interested in writing?

DD:  I'm the son of a screenwriter and film producer, so my interest dates back to early childhood, enviously watching my father work.  But I think it was the Syd Field books that really got me going.


>>>  When you write, how do you generally work?  Is there a specific time you prefer to write? 

DD:  When I write, especially when in partnership with Roland Emmerich (my business partner and the director of the films we've done together), we usually go for total immersion.  We usually will leave town and spend every waking hours writing intensely until the script is finished.  It's an intense period but the scripts get finished faster that way.

We find that if the script gets written quickly, we're more open to the idea of re-writes.  When it takes a long time to get something written, there is a tendency to become married to what's on the page.


>>>  Do you have any specific kind of music playing or prefer silence?  Are you a good procrastinator?

DD:  We're big believers in "mood" music.  When we wrote "Stargate" we had "Carmina Burana" and the soundtrack to "Dracula" a blasting the entire time.

As for being a procrastinator...I'll get back to you on that later.  No, seriously, when I'm writing at home, I notice that my house becomes spotless.  I'll take any excuse, mowing the lawn, washing the dishes, ANYTHING to keep me away from that computer.  That's the  other advantage to writing in partnership.  When you've got a partner sitting there, it's much harder to procrastinate.


>>>  What sort of characters interest you?  What sort of stories?

DD:  Humor is one of the most important aspects to characters that we write.  Just like the audience, we want to be entertained by our characters.  And while you don't always have to go for the laugh, a certain amount of humor seems to add humanity to the characters.  We usually will base every character on someone we know and try to capture the humor of that person.

There does seem to be a reoccurring theme to most of our central characters, however.  They usually are people who believe in something, even though everyone around them disagrees.

Roland and I have talked about this and why this seems to reoccur in our work.  I think that when you start out in Hollywood, everyone thinks you're never going to make it and that you're nuts for trying.  Perhaps it was that very experience that both Roland and I went through that has us injecting that character trait into our leads.

>>>  How do you work through parts of a script where you hit a roadblock in the story?  Do you have any specific tricks to help, or just tough it out?

DD:  So far, every script I've ever written, I've always hit a roadblock as I near the end of the second act.  I've talked with other writers who have had similar experiences.

It's really tough because you're more than halfway finished and suddenly everything you've written feels like it doesn't work. 

During this time I usually do two things.  First, I never finish writing a scene or a  line of dialogue at the end of a writing session.  I always try to stop before I've finished so that the next morning I already know what I'm going to write.  It's a good way to hit the ground running and avoid that awful..."what comes next" pause that can start a writing session.

The second thing I do is go back to the mid point and try to structure my way into the third by taking a completely other tact.  This will either prove to me that my original idea was stronger or show me a better way.  If in fact it is a stronger way to handle the second act, then blasting forward with this renewed energy will get me over the hump.  If it's not, then I recover my confidence with the work done and can move forward.  But, as I say, this is ALWAYS the hardest part for me.


>>>  What were the hardest things about "Independence Day" to write?

DD:  The hardest thing about writing "Independence Day" was to keep the tone consistent, keep the humor going in the face of all that destruction, and never take ourselves too seriously while committing to the drama of our story.  You see, we were trying to embrace the style of the old Irwin Allen disaster movies of the '70's.  We loved those movies growing up and wanted to tap into that style of story telling.  Those movies had this great ability to jump from comedy to melodrama without missing a beat.  We wanted to emulate that style, use the inherent kitschiness without becoming a farce or parody and develop that great kind of thumb nail sketching style of establishing many characters interwoven within this world wide disaster.

So we rented "Poseidon Adventure" and "Towering Inferno" and watched both several times.  We decided to try and write our film exactly how it may have been written back in the '70's.  We decided to do it straight -- Irwin Allen-style.

That balance was hard to maintain, but it also gave us focus and made the writing process really fun.


>>>  What was it like destroying the world?

DD:  It was one of the most guilty pleasures I've ever enjoyed.  On one hand it was thrilling, in the same way it's thrilling to light fireworks.  The explosions and destruction of hundreds of buildings was spectacular and amazing to watch.  On the other hand, these were nightmarish images that one would hope to never see, even an approximation.  I think it is that dichotomy that makes it feel like such a rollercoaster ride.  It's thrilling and chilling at the same time.

We had wanted to make our villains insurmountable.  So we decided to take symbols on  continuity in our lives, images that we've seen our entire lives and expect to see for our entire lives, such as the Empire State Building and the White House and have our villains destroy them.  If they could get the White House, the symbol of the free world, then they could do ANYTHING!


>>>  What is your best experience as a writer?

DD:  I had been an actor for over twelve years before I became a professional writer.  Roland hired me to write his first American film.  When we went in to have our first meeting with the Executives on the movie, before we began an assistant asked me if I'd like some coffee.  I told her that I had acted for 12 years, had been a lead on the New York stage, had been a lead on two network television series and had been the lead of a feature film, but that was the first time anyone had ever asked me if I wanted a cup of coffee.  I decided right then, I liked writing better.


>>>  Was there any particular writer who acted as a sort of mentor to you?  If so, what things did you learn?

DD:  Gary Rosen was the first professional writer who took me seriously when I decided I wanted to write for a living.  He would go over my writing and help me.  He showed me how to write economically and tell my stories with the least amount of description.  He also taught me a great deal about dialogue  and character development.  Without his help in the beginning, I don't think I would have been able to make the transition.


>>>  Why do you write?

DD:  It's cheaper than renting cameras and equipment.  With a blank piece of paper I can make any movie I like, and I don't have to wait for some executive to give me a "green light."  I think there is nothing like disappearing into your own imagination.

When Dana Stevens agreed to do an Email Interview, she'd just written her first big, breakout hit.  Previously, she'd been an actress and had regularly gotten parts, but all in small, supporting roles.  She started to move in a different direction and sold her first screenplay, the thriller, "Blink."  A few years passed before she wrote the screenplay for the romantic fantasy, "City of Angels."  Her writing career has kept going upwards since.  In rereading what she had to say back near the start, I found it particularly amusing and appropriate that one of her influences in writing was the J.R.R. Tolkien novel, "The Hobbit."

By way of reminder to readers new to this, the Email Interview were originally written for the Writers Guild of America.  I sent a series of questions -- usually the same, core ones -- to each writer, and they did the harder work of answering them.

E-mail Interview
With
Dana Stevens

  Edited by Robert J. Elisberg

At the time screenwriter Dana Stevens did her Email Interview, her writing career had just started to blossom.  She had first written the thriller, “Blink,” and then a few years later wrote her breakout hit, “City of Angels.”  Subsequent to the interview, she has written “For the Love of the Game,” “Life or Something Like It,” and last year’s “Safe Haven”.  She also created the TV series, “What About Brian?” and currently has filming the upcoming CBS crime drama series, “Reckless.”

>>  Were there any movies, TV shows or books that first got you interested in writing?

DS:  I was very influenced as a kid by “The Way We Were.”  It was the first “grown-up” movie I saw, and after seeing it on television recently, I have come to realize that I am writing "The Way We Were" over and over again. It has influenced my writing style right down to the rythms of the scenes.  That movie is really underrated and terrific, despite Barbra Streisand’s over the top performance. It’s a movie where so much is said with so few words.  That’s what I try to do;  it’s a game, how much can I convey with the fewest amount of words?  I think screenwriters are like poets in this way.    Another influential film was “Annie Hall,”  because it was so theatrical, it broke rules, and it was personal.   Books?  I was very influenced by fantasy books like C.S. Lewis’ “Chronicles of Narnia” and “The Hobbit.”  I started out as a kid trying to write my own fantastical story.  Later it was “Franny and Zooey” by Salinger.  Yeah right, me and every other college girl.  A guy I dated a few times, a Cuban named Carlos gave me that one and it really changed my writing style.

>>  When you write, how do you generally work?  Is there a specific time you prefer to  write?

DS:  I would like to be like a writer I admire, Nick Pileggi, who works from nine to five and takes lunch and coffee breaks and just does his work, like a normal person, but I have a hard time settling down.  I get very distracted.  I have recently rented an office and am attempting regular hours from nine to two.  I used to love to write late at night, but that was when I was single.   Writing a script is a very workman-like process for me; it doesn’t all come in a flood.  Each day I work and slowly build up the connective tissue, slogging my way toward the end.   After four hours my brain really gets tired and I start to hate everything I’m writing.  So I stop.  The next day I can look at it again and really see whether it’s good or not.   I spend weeks prior outlining and thinking.  At a certain point I do feel “ready” to jump in, even if the outline isn’t exactly complete.   My one ritual is that I make a tape, a compilation of music I feel evokes the tone and emotions I’m trying to convey.  And I listen to that tape until it wears out, all through the writing of a project.   Sometimes I make a second one.  The music really gets my head in the right place to imagine the film.

>>> What sort of characters and stories interest you?

DS:  Well, I love a love story.  I don’t think I would be a writer if I couldn’t have a romance in the plot.    I’m not an action writer or a comedy writer.  I tend to like to drive my plots with psychological motivations, with relationships, as opposed to outside forces.  I like melancholy characters who are searching for something.  I like a good cry.  I am very inspired by people I see in the street or on the beach or whatever.  I see certain little tableaus or hear snippets of conversations and I imagine the movie of their life.  I also like research, real stories and places help me come up with ideas.   I sometimes see a movie someone else has written that is totally unlike anything I would be attracted to or would be able to write, and I love that too.

>>> How do you work through parts of a script where you hit a roadblock in the story?

DS:  What a horrible horrible feeling, those roadblocks.  I had great advice from a friend recently who told me to take a break and just stop, even for days.  I tend to think I have to sit there all day till my eyes bleed to solve it.  But distance really does help.  I also think it helps to just stop, go out for coffee, and think to yourself, “What would I do if I were this character?  In this situation?”  Try to make it really real.  I also sometimes go back.  Sometimes the actual problem is not where you are stuck at, but an earlier turn that was wrong and led you in the wrong direction.  It’s good to go back and ask yourself, what if I change my mind, what if the character does this?  How far would that get me?   I think the secret of plot is a very clear chain of cause and effect.  This happens.  And because that happens, the next thing happens, and because that happens, the next thing happens and so on.  It can be a psychological or actual events, but this is the key.  If you’re stuck, it’s probably because there connections aren’t logical.  Someone in the story did something that didn’t follow logically from the last thing.

>>> What is your best experience as a writer.

DS:   “City of Angels.”  I was very included in the process by the director and the actors.  I loved the crew and being on the set, I learned a great deal about film-making, I made mistakes, I saw what worked in my writing and what didn’t. 

 

>>> Was there any particular writer who acted as a sort of mentor to you?

DS:  Ed Solomon.  He was my boyfriend off and on all during my 20’s.  He was a successful writer, but he encouraged me greatly when I made my early attempts.  To this day he is my touchstone, my toughest critic, but also the smartest.  He makes you go back and really think.  Be clear. And be true to the vision you are trying to realize.

7)  Why do you write?

DS:  Here’s my touchy feely answer.  I write because I like to feel.  I love drama, all those intense, swept away feelings that movies can give you and have given me my whole life.  I love to create those intense moments, to live in the fantasy world of the movie, and hopefully to see it realized on screen.  I also write because I find it comforting to be able to take my time, in my little room, getting everything just right.  Much better than the extemporaneous communication we have to face out there in the real world.

Though David Franzoni's first produced screenplay was for a modern-day thriller, since then his career has taken a big step back -- but in a good way, as he's become known for writing major (and highly successful) historical epics.  For one of of those, Gladiator, he received an Academy Awards as one of the film's producers.  He also got an Oscar-nomination for co-writing its screenplay.

Screenwriter David Franzoni most recent film credits include the scripts for King Arthur, Gladiator and Amistad."  In addition, he wrote Citizen Cohn for HBO.  Among Franzoni's other credits are Jumpin' Jack Flash.

[Subsequent to this interview, David Franzoni wrote the screenplay for a film currently in production, known as ‘Untitled Yang Guifei Project,’ a romantic drama in 8th century China.  The story is focused on the relationship between Emperor Xuanzong and imperial concubine Yang Guifei.]

>  Were there any movies, TV shows or books that first got you interested in writing?   

DF:  La Strada. 

Until I saw La Strada I had seen film as merely a pop art form.  Admittedly I hadn't been exposed to any serious film.  Although I do recall a local Vermont TV station running the Apu Trilogy and that unnerved me...

But La Strada is a masterpiece.  Hemingway's vision of life and of writing are that we should as artists and humans work close to the horns as possible: Get too close, you get gored (you write embarrassing crap), you get too far and the work is cautious and weak.  In La Strada, Fellini and Pinelli worked close to the horns all the way, as did Masina, Quinn and Basehart.  The simplicity overlying enormous complexity, the clean novelistic metaphors, the tragic irreconcilability of Masina and Quinn's natures and the time Fellini took, the patience of the work in allowing characters room to breathe (as Spielberg allowed me in Amistad, by the way) were revelations to me.  And that final scene when Quinn gets drunk and as the brute, the fallen man, fights his way out of the restaurant, knocking over garbage cans and getting dumped in the gutter – then making his way to the sea, the end of everything... he's killed the brilliant and free Basehart, driven the pure soul Masina mad... and now he's come to the end of everything knowing that Masina too is dead... and that he can never make it right with her, never make it right with himself... and in that moment of crushing alienation he has the greatest revelation of his life: that he has loved.

>>  When you write, how do you generally work?

DF:  I am absolutely dedicated to sharing my time with my family. I go to bed, generally, right after my son.  Then get up around midnight and I work through to about 5am when my son gets up and we play like hell before he goes to school.  If I listen to anything while I write it's usually punk.

>>  What sort of characters and stories interest you? 

DF:  Generally people who can step up, step away from the bleating mass and create something important with their lives.  The stories of these people should be –  essentially – a psychoanalytic break down of their personality into a narrative. 

>>  How do you work through parts of a script where you hit a roadblock in the story? 

DF:  I keep writing.  Usually.  Especially when we're talking about the first draft.  My productivity will be reduced, that is, good stuff versus pages consumed, but I know I'll get at least 10% and that's better than doing nothing.  I'm more cautious on the rewrite, or even on the polish of the first draft.  I have never had 'writer's block', because there is no such thing.  You either have something to say or you don't.  Once I'm through a good first draft then, of course, that's not an issue; the polish is about how to say it best. 

>>>  Were there any responsibilities you felt you had to deal with in writing Amistad -- not just as an historical film, but largely unknown history?

DF:  The most important issue for me was that this is a movie about Black Americans.  And I don't mean that in the way you might think.  I am absolutely not a politically correct person.  For me there were two issue that needed resolving or it wasn't worth doing the picture at all. 

First, this could not be a 'white-guy-saves-black-guy' movie.  That's a big issue when it comes to a film about Blacks who – on the face of it – owe their lives to a pair of white lawyers.  My take, and the take that was followed, was that Cinque, the Black leader, saves John Quincy Adams just as Adams saves him.  The Africans from the Amistad save America as much as America saves them. 

For example, Adams' core motivation was to keep his father's work – the creation of America – alive and slavery was an abhorrence to that work.  But this put him essentially in an impossible bind: the House of Representative had created the 'gag rule' which was an instantaneous tabling of any issues concerning slavery.  In other words, he was gagged over his opposition to slavery.  Yet the most powerful platform extra-government – the abolitionists – was out of the question because abolitionists were considered so fringe that his association with them, as former President, might help shove the country toward civil war.  Of course, Cinque needed to be freed... and to do that Cinque brought Adams to the Supreme Court. 

In other words Adams freed Cinque but equally, Cinque freed Adams by getting him to the Supreme Court where he could finally rage against slavery within government and so carry on the work of his father.  Thus I have created a parallel of Cinque telling Adams about how his ancestors will help him in the trial and Adams calling down the ancestors of the American Revolution including his beloved father to help him.  The fact that the incident was little known was an asset. 

>>  What is your best experience as a writer?

DF:  They've all been memorable... but the best?  Amistad. 

For me what constitutes a great experience in this business is working with people who are as moved about the project as I am.  And, for me to write a script it's got to be about something, if you will. 

Amistad was my best experience because right from the start there was a sense that we were doing something that could change the world.  Or at the very least make serious ripples.  And right from the start Steven gave me carte blanche to write it balls-out.  Debbie Allen was a powerful inspiration.  Laurie MacDonald and Walter Parks were magnificent throughout.  So, even outside the material, I had to live up to the very high expectations of others.  Plus I was pedal-to-the-metal because if Steven was going to do it, it had to somehow slot in between Lost World and Private Ryan.  It got to the point during the rewrite that Steven was almost literally reading over my shoulder as I was writing.   It was exhilarating.  Now it's opening and we'll see, but that Debbie had a hand in getting it to open at the Magic Johnson theatre is absolutely reward enough for me.

>>  Was there any particular writer who acted as a sort of mentor to you? 

DF:  Stanley Mann and Bill Kirby.  Many things for which words would be but empty thanks.  I also make it a habit of always learning.  You can never take it for granted that you know what you're doing all the time. 

I have learned from reading/watching Robert Bolt, Oliver Stone, Ron Bass, Steve Zaillian, Tonino Guerra, Federico Fellini, Tullio Pinelli, Kurosawa, the list goes on. 

>>  Why do you write?

DF:  Believe it or not, to change the world.  And to be free.  As writers, society pays us to be free.  I have been putting together a collection of laser discs to pass on to my son – books are easy, but how do you pass on a film?  In Vermont I grew up on John Wayne.  Then I saw Fellini and my life changed.  For him it's the same except I can't guarantee there will be a Fellini unless I keep those films for him.  Sound silly?  Do you realize how many great films are out of print?  Let's hope DVD can save the great films from extinction. 

Yesterday, I posted the trailer for a movie that looks quite wonderful to me, Saving Mr. Banks, about the contentious making of the film Mary Poppins.  It was directed by John Lee Hooker, who been developing a fine career as a director in recent years -- but he began his career as a screenwriter.  And indeed often directs his own screenplays.  (Though he didn't in this case.  Saving Mr. Banks was written by Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith.)  I just thought that that would make it a fine time to offer this Email Interview with the fellow.

As I've often noted, these Email Interviews were generally the same, standard questions about writing that I'd send to writers, and they'd do the hard work.  On occasion I'd throw in a few different, specific questions, and this is one of those cases.

E-mail Interview
With
John Lee Hancock

Edited by Robert J. Elisberg

Screenwriter John Lee Hancock most recently wrote Snow White and the Huntsman.  Previous to that, he both wrote and directed The Blind Side, which was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar (and won Sandra Bullock the Academy Award for Best Actress).  He wrote and directed The Alamo.   

Among his other credits are the screenplay for Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and A Perfect World, both directed by Clint Eastwood.  He also produced the film, My Dog Skip starring Diane Lane, Kevin Bacon and Frankie Muniz.

[Subsequent to this interview, John Lee Hancokc directed the film, Saving Mr. Banks.]

>>  Were there any movies, TV shows or books that first got you interested in writing?

JLH:  In elementary school I read all of Matt Christopher's sports books, which were basically mortality tales set on the gridiron or hardwood.  Sometime after that I began writing short stories, one a day, all describing football games that were played only in the head -- a hybrid (real people,fictitious games) sports report, I suppose.

As for books, my mother read Mark Twain aloud to me and my two brothers.  It seemed unreal that this world essentially existed in Clemens's head; that he created characters and made up things for them to say.  Buoyed by this revelation, I set out, in fifth grade, to write a spy novel.  I made it through two chapters before I realized my skills weren't sufficient to finish.  Someday, perbaps, when I've reached that level, I'll try again.

As for movies, my family really didn't make a habit of going, but my mother's favorite was "Lonely Are The Brave," and I must say it had an effect on me and exposed themes that still appear in almost every screenplay I write.  During high school and college I fell in love with movies and some of those movies are still my favorites -- "Badlands," "The Conversation," "The Candidate," Downhill Racer," "Network," "All The President's Men," etc.


>>  When you write, how do you generally work?

JLH:  I'm fortunate enough to have an office on the Warner Burbank lot, so I have a place to go every day that means work to me.  Before the office I worked at home, usually at ungodly hours of the night, when it was quiet.

If I'm in the middle of something, I come in at a reasonable hour, have some coffee, read the trades and work a couple of hours betore lunch.  After lunch I work until I wear out.  When this happens I'll return calls and take care of correspondence before I leave for the day.  If I'm working under deadline, I'll go home for dinner (only 10 minutes away) and return to work for a few more hours,


>>>  Do you have any specific kind of music playing?

JLH:  I prefer silence when I'm writing but, as all writers know, when you're in the middle of something, you're always "working" on it.  So when I'm driving around or relaxing at home I try to play music that relates either thematically or nostalgically to what I'm working on.


>>>  What sort of characters and stories interest you?

JLH:  Flawed characters, real characters.  The problem I have with most movies today is you know immediately what archetype a character represents -- she's the hero or the villain.  Because of this, most characters in films are celluloid instead ot flesh and bone.  I tend toward writing antiheroes, underdogs and the great unwashed.  I have no time or tolerance for movie heroes unless they're extremely flawed.

As for stories, I like the ones where the character's struggle informs the plot.  I like to see movies where even if I hate them, I want to discuss them over a cup of coffee. I like earnest characters, I hate earnest movies.  I like sappy characters, I hate sappy movies.  I like characters with agendas, I hate movies with agendas.  I like romantic characters.  I hate romantic movies.

This will offend some people but what the hell.' I hate comic book movies (I hated comic books as a kid -- I'd never met a single person in real life who dressed up in silly outfits and fought bad guys).  I hate insect and alien movies whether they're dramatic, satirical or comedic. (Funny, isn't it, how there was a time when studios made character movies that informed our lives and B-film-makers made insect and alien movies?)  I hate a lot of what's out there, but I also admire a lot.


>>  How do you work through parts of scripts where you hit a roadblock in the story?

JLH:  If I'm not under intense deadline pressures, I'll give the problem a few days to solve itself in my head while I'm working on something else.  If I'm under deadline I try to write my way through it.  As for tricks, sometimes I'll try and turn a character or a scene upside down, to make it the opposite of what I'd intended, as an exercise.  Or sometimes I'll rewrite a scene that's not working as if it were the first or last scene in the movie.  Sometimes that exposes the flab and gives it more of an edge.


>>  What were the particular challenges of adapting a book like "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil"?

JLH:  When the book was offered to me, I read it, loved it and turned it down.  I thought it was a borderline impossible task.  Then a waek later I was trying to describe to someone how much I enjoyed the book and I thought, just maybe, I could embrace what I loved for the very different medium of film.

The most difficult part of the adaptation, I think, was creating a linear, narrative spine that was malleable enough to support the free-flow feel of Savannah and her amazing citizenry.  For anyone that thinks the Characters I wrote were over the top, please know that they are extremely toned down from the real people on whom they're based.

A magazine writer said that this book resists adaptation like a cat resists a bath.  I have to agree.  I knew this going in.  I also knew that many critics would, instead of reviewing the film, editorialize on the differences between the critically well-received book and the movie.  It goes with the territory.  No one but other writers will ever understand the difficulty of this adaptation.  I also knew that going in.  But for me, thaf's enough.  If you don't      challenge yourself, you don't grow.

As is the case with any movie, there are changes that occur from script to screen, even when you direct the film yourself.  There will always be some changes you like, and others you don't.  It's the big leagues -- high risk, high return.  You don't bitch, you don't moan and you don't talk out of school.  You take the criticism as discreetly as you accept the praise.  You learn.  You grow.  You write again.  You did it for free for a long time and you'll do it again if you have to.


>>  What is your most memorable experience as a writer?

JLH:  When I first moved to Los Angeles, I started a theater company with Brandon Lee and George Davis.  Sadly, they are both now gone.  But when we were together and doing plays (I was writing, directing, building sets, designing lights, taking tickets, working the booth and cleaning toilets), I felt more alive than at any time in my life.

>>  Was there any particular writer who acted as a sort of mentor to you?

JLH:  When I moved here eleven years ago, I was in search of a mentor, I had several things in common with Kevin Reynolds (writer/director), including the fact that we went to the same law school and both practiced before starting new careers in Los Angeles.  After a few phone calls (I pestered him, I admit), he agreed to have lunch with me.  When I explained my search for a mentor he told me that you usually get a mentor when you really don't need one anymore.  My dreams of mentorship now dashed, I went to plan B, which was to extract any advice from him that I could.  Before he gave it he asked me it I would take it.  I enthusiastically agreed to heed his words of wisdom.  "Okay," he said, "go back to Houston and practice law."  I was stunned and replied that I wouldn't do that; that I would write ferociously and prove him wrong.  He smiled and paid for lunch.

If you think you need a mentor before you can write, you're not a writer.  If you'll give up your dreams for a more obvious, more traditional, and for me, less fulfilling life, then you lack the strength to be a writer.  If you're a writer, regardless of talent, regardless of advice, regardless of financial pressures, you write.

So, in a strange way, my mentors have been great writers, most of whom I've never met, for they challenged me through their skills to became a better writer.  As for favorites,

I'll go with Flannery O'Connor.  I learn something from her each time I read her work.

>>  Why do you write?

JLH:  If my leg didn't itch I wouldn't need to scratch it. If I could answer this question, I probably wouldn't need to write anymore.  So, if you know the answer, please keep it to yourself, I have an approaching deadline.

Winnie Holzman has an extensive career writing mainly for television, though has written for feature film, as well.  However, it is for her work on Broadway for one particular musical that here career is firmly established.  She wrote the book for the massive hit, Wicked, which last month became the 11th longest-running show in Broadway history.  At the moment, it has run for 4,129 performances, and will be celebrating its 10th anniversary in three weeks on October 30th.

But oddly, it's for an acting cameo that's she's most recognized.  That came when her friend, writer-director Cameron Crowe, put her in his movie, Jerry Maguire, as one of the "women's group" of divorcees who meet at Bonnie Hunt's home to offer one-another support.

(For those new here, the Email Interviews were done quite a few years back for the WGA website.  Generally, with a few exceptions, the same, basic questions on writing were emailed to the participating writers who did the heavy lifting.)

Winnie Holzman has had a long and successful career writing in television – and then moved to the stratosphere when the wrote the stage book for Broadway musical phenomenon, Wicked.  Previous to that, she was best known for her work on two critically-acclaimed television series –

thirtysomething (for which she wrote nine scripts during the show's last two seasons) and My So-Called Life, which she created and also served as Co-executive Producer.  She also wrote extensively for the series, Once and Again, and co-wrote the pilot and developed the series Huge for ABC Family.  Her first feature film screenplay was Til There Was You.

[Subsequent to this interview, Winnie Holzman was the associate producer of Janeane in Des Moines, a cross between a documentary and fiction, where a fictional character interacts with real-life political figures in the Iowa Caucuses.]

>>  Were there any movies, TV shows or books that first got you interested in writing?

WH:  I began studying acting at age thirteen. My teacher was a Russian disciple of Stanislavski: Sonia Moore. Consequently I was influenced in general by the entire Stanislavski system. Also I read a great many plays during this period, especially Chekhov William Inge, and Tennessee Williams. Two of John Van Druten's plays "The Voice of The Turtle" and "I Am A Camera" affected me deeply, both feature a quirky, irresistible, sexually experienced yet essentially innocent heroine named Sally who was very real to me.  I can vividly remember seeing "Chinatown" for the first time when I was about fifteen: How adult and multi-layered it seemed, how inspiring that depth was for me.

>>  When you write, how do you generally work? 

WH:  I don't have a specific time period for writing, I often feel this must be a terrible flaw. It's really just rebelliousness.  I struggle with procrastination constantly and have recently begun accepting this as just "how I am," trying to judge it less.  I tell myself to write very little but write something, I promise myself I need only write one or two lines, this helps me with my procrastination.  I prefer to write with people around me who are interacting with each other but (hopefully) not with me -- I have several cafes I frequent.

>>  What sort of characters and stories interest you? 

WH:  Characters who have problems.  Who behave badly.  Who have much to learn.  Who lie. Who do things without knowing why. I'm bored by "good role models."  As to what kind of stories interest me -- if I have a story, I feel I'm ahead of the game.

>>  How do you work through parts of a script where you hit a roadblock in the story?

WH:  What seems to happen to me is not so much a feeling that there's a roadblock in the story as the sudden horrible certainty that there is no story, that I've run out of story or that I've been deluding myself thinking I had a story.  See above!

I've come to expect this feeling to overtake me once or twice during every script, but it's still quite uncomfortable.  I try to remind myself that all the elements of the story which I now take for granted and have grown horribly bored by will be less dull -- hopefully -- to the audience.  I don't usually buy this, though, and for days become convinced that what I imagined was a story is in fact way too thin.  Sometimes at this point I turn to books that recount the Great Myths, or one of the ten million books out about story structure, to reassure myself that I even know what a story is.  This usually helps, if only because taking any action when one feels fear usually helps.  I also like to say to myself: "What would really happen, forget the cliché, what would happen if this were really happening?" 

When I studied with the brilliant writer Arthur Laurents ["West Side Story"] he told us to put ourselves in the character's shoes.  I've been struggling to do that ever since.  I rarely if ever feel when I'm writing like I'm telling a good story, or that I would know a good story if one bit me.  This is just a feeling I've grown accustomed to and I try not to let it hold me back.

>>  Was there any particular writer who acted as a sort of mentor to you?

WH:  As I mentioned above, Arthur Laurents was my mentor. Having him as my teacher was a huge turning point in my life, the biggest stroke of good luck and just plain fun.  I can't describe everything he taught me, it was such a complete experience.  His belief in me made me see myself as a writer.  On a technical level there was so much. He taught me brevity.  He was incredible with a red pencil: He would look at a speech and just show you how you could say the same thing with fewer words.  And of course say it better.  To this day whenever I see a big speech I immediately ask myself what I can take out.  When I'm thinning out a script I feel Arthur is reading over my shoulder, reminding me how few words I really need. He showed me my tendency to have a "ping pong" thing happen with my dialogue, because I will fall in love with the sound of my own clever words and things will start to be clever instead of interesting or real or surprising.

I co-wrote a musical that opened off-Broadway, it closed because of bad reviews, and a few months later I was on the phone with him telling him I didn't know if I could write again.  He said it was like being thrown from a horse, and that I had to get back on the typewriter.  He is still and always will be a treasured friend.

>>  Why do you write?

I can't explain it.

For this week's Email Interview, we have that rarity -- a TV writer you may actually have heard of.  This is for two reasons, one of which he's likely pleased with, and the other he could probably do without.  The fellow's name is Chuck Lorre.  And many people know of him for the whimsical and thoughtful "end cards" he puts after the closing credits of the shows he's created, with his ruminations on various subject.  Things in very small print that zip by, but people have gotten to recording on their DVR and then pausing when they pop on.  The other is the very public spat he got into with the then-star of his show Two and a Half Men, Charlie Sheen.  Alas, this interview was done for the the WGA website long before his more recent -- and highly successful shows -- went on the air.  But at least here you don't have to hit "pause" to read what he has to say.

Chuck Lorre has had an extensive and varied writing career.  He co-created and executive-produced the series Dharma & Greg; created and executive-produced Cybill, Grace Under Fire and Frannie's Turn; and was co-executive producer on Roseanne.

In addition, Lorre was the writer of Debbie Harry's French Kissin' in the U.S.A. and co-writer of the theme and score for the TV series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

 [Subsequent to this interview, Chuck Lorre wrote for CSI, and was on the writing staff of Mike & Molly.  He then co-created Two and a Half Men, The Big Bang Theory, and the new series Mom, all of which he also serves as executive producer.]

>>  Were there any movies, TV shows or books that first got you interested in writing?

CL:  The passion, anger and exhilaration that informed the music of the sixties was my first major influence.  I was in love with the way music could bypass a lot of the mental censors we carry around.  Then everything really changed when I discovered Randy Newman around 1970 or so.  This was the first time I'd heard character-driven story-telling with a sharp comedic slant brought to pop music.  I was hooked and spent years trying to emulate that approach to songwriting.


>>  When you write, how do you generally work?

CL:  Every Dharma & Greg episode is initially written by a group of 4-6 writers.  In addition to writing, I act as sort of editor/guide to the process.

After many years of banging my head against the wall, I finally admitted that for me, the first draft process never really worked.  With the group approach, I have some semblance of control of the script at every point. Also, no one feels they have a first draft to defend, so things move much more quickly.


>>  Do you have any specific kind of music playing or prefer silence?

CL:  No music, but if you can't write amidst a healthy dollop of chaos, I don't think you can work on a sitcom.


>>  Are you a good procrastinator?

I put off this interview for three months, what do you think? But when doing a show, the big, scary train of production keeps me from screwing around too much.


>>  What sort of characters interest you?

CL:  For me, main characters have to be extraordinary in some way, even if they're extraordinarily dull.  Supporting characters must have a life outside of and prior to the story. That way they bring something to the process and are not mere story props or situation catalysts.


>>  What sort of stories?

CL:  The story must be about something.  Jokes and comedic scenes are obviously essential, but ultimately the story must have a spine, a theme, something you can keep an eye on to determine if you've gone off the track.  It could be very simple or very complex, but I find that if you can't explain the hero's journey in simple terms, you're headed for trouble.  In sitcom terms, story trouble generally means you'll be faking
your way through the episode by linking jokes together -- something I find extremely hard to do.


>>  How do you work through parts of a script where you hit a roadblock in the story?

CL:  If the story presents obstacles which defeat our best efforts, it usually means the story is, for the time being, defective and should be abandoned.  Coherent stories generally reveal themselves without a lot of heartache.  The process still takes several days, but no one has an aneurysm along the way.


>>  On those occasions when you do hit a roadblock, do you have any specific tricks to help, or just tough it out?

CL:  One trick is to try and see the story through the eyes of the characters.  How would they react?  What would they do or say?  What do they want?  This seems to free up the thought process a bit.

But my best trick is simply to hire really smart people and hope they can fix the stuff I'm too dull to figure out.


>>  When you create a series, at what point do you feel comfortable turning over your creation to others so that it can move in different directions, or do you feel it more important to stay fully involved since you know it best?

CL:  With Grace Under Fire, Cybill and Dharma I've been very hands on.  Some might say obsessively so.  Okay, screw it, I'm a control freak and I need help.  But.... I am fortunate on D & G to have an incredible staff, so the turning over process is one I'm slowly becoming more comfortable with.

It's actually quite a joy to see great work being done that I have nothing to do with.


>>  What is your most memorable experience as a writer?

CL:  The first episode of Roseanne I was involved with.  I was standing on the stage watching a run-through, and I looked at Bob Myer (the exec) and we shared a wonderful moment of disbelief that these big stars were actually saying the words we wrote.  Of course that was probably the only good
moment in two years, but it still shines brightly.

But the best would have to be the night of the taping of the Dharma & Greg pilot.

It was so stunningly clear that we had somehow put together something extraordinary.  There was never any doubt in my mind, or I think anyone else's, that we had created a hit show and that Jenna and Thomas would become big stars.


>>  Was there any particular writer who acted as a sort of mentor to you?

CL:  That would have to be Bob Myer.  He was very patient with me in my wilder days.  VERY PATIENT.  He also taught me to be patient with writing.  To believe that good material would come if you don't quit on the process.  If you have a so-so joke, keep hammering away at it until you are convinced you have gold. Don't bullshit yourself by saying the actors will make a mediocre line work.  Or the audience will buy it.  Also, he
showed me how good a show can be if the exec gets his ego out of the way, surrounds himself with good writers and trusts them.  In my humble estimation, that was why years 3 and 4 of Roseanne were the best years of the series.


>>  Why do you write?

CL:  I can't hit a curve ball and Bruce Springsteen doesn't need a third guitarist.

I've mentioned Mark Evanier enough here that many people might think they're now best friends with him.  And many people here, I suspect, even stumbled on these grounds thanks to being directed here by the good fellow.  So, I figured it only made sense to make my Email Interview with Mark the next one.

(For those new to these parts, these Email Interview were done initially for the Writers Guild of America website.  I sent basically the same standard questions to members of the Guild, and they did all the heavy lifting.) 

One note of clarification in this interview.  When I identify the speaker as "ME," that's not me.  It's Mark Evanier.

Mark Evanier is a longtime writer of "Garfield & Friends."  His many and varied television credits include "Welcome Back, Kotter"; "That's Incredible"; "Bob" and "Pryor's Place."  Evanier also admits to having been named in 1996 as one of the 100 coolest people in Los Angeles by Buzz Magazine.

[Subsequent to this interview, a new series of "Garfield" returned to the air, and once again Mr. Evanier is the head writer.  He is the writer and co-creator with Sergio Aragones of the comic book, Groo the Wanderer.  And each year at Comic-Con hosts more panels than might possibly exist.  Also, recently his blog here, News from ME, was named by Time Magazine as the 17th best blog in the United States.]

>> Were there any movies, TV shows or books that first got you interested in writing?

ME: Comic books, cartoons, comic strips...then things like the Dr. Doolittle books and Dr. Seuss.  I was literally determined to become a writer that early in life. Laurel and Hardy were an enormous influence on my creative impulse, such as it is, as were Mad Magazine, the Marx Brothers, Stan Freberg, Bugs Bunny and loads of comic books. After that, I read all the authors everyone reads in English Lit classes,

though I read them before I took those classes. But I decided I wanted to be a writer about halfway through "A Cat In The Hat."

>> When you write, how do you generally work?  Are you a good procrastinator?

ME: Take a long walk, work all the problems out in your head, then race back to the computer (formerly the typewriter) and write it as quickly as you can, then fiddle with it afterwards. I write best at a time when the phone isn't ringing, which usually means late at night. The

invention of the laptop computer has made it possible for me, when deadlines press, to go hole up in a Las Vegas hotel room and write.

Music or a movie on the TV can act as a good "audio night light" while working on projects where I know where I'm going. For the real intense/uncharted territories, silence is usually required. And I don't procrastinate, so much as I put off writing something until I've mentally solved all the outstanding problems.

>> What sort of characters interest you?  What sort of stories?

ME: If there's an over-all theme to my work, no one has noticed it yet, self-included. I do specialize at times in stories of people who think their way out of a dilemma. Beyond that, the only thing that most of my stories have in common is that each is about something that is tenuously

related to something I care about in "real life." 

>> How do you work through parts of a script where you hit a roadblock in the story?  Do you have any specific tricks to help, or just tough it out?

ME:  Often, when you get stuck on page 19, you should go back and tear up page 18; it means you took a wrong turn somewhere. But most often, a roadblock means you've lost your way; that maybe you have deviated from (or unnecessarily complicated) your basic idea. In those cases, you try to take an emotional step back from the work to locate the spine of what you're writing. You may find that you've strayed, in which case you need to get back on the path. Or you may find that you've started writing a different story, in which case you have to decide on one and

go with it. 

>> What is your best experience as a writer?

ME:  I wrote eight years' worth of the "Garfield & Friends" cartoon show.  After the first few episodes, I was left largely alone, and I enjoyed the challenge of trying to keep it fresh, and to continually explore new levels of the characters.  I also wrote certain comic books where I had not-dissimilar experiences...and I enjoy greatly, a series of columns I've been writing for years in various venues, none of which pays me a dime.  Many of the things I do for TV are so collaborative in nature that it's a welcome change to write something that's done when it leaves me.

>> Was there any particular writer who acted as a sort of mentor to you? If so, what things did you learn?

ME:  I apprenticed in the comic book business with a gentleman named Jack Kirby, considered by many to be the most imaginative artist-creator that the field has ever seen.  Jack was a wonderful, modest man whose unbounded love of people permeated his work.  He also had a work ethic that boggled the mind; he was incapable of giving less than 110% on any project, even when he knew his work would be mangled or, as too often happened, purloined.  I learned from him to give every project your all, to be prolific, and to invest everything you do with a chunk of your heart.  Would that I could always apply everything I learned from this man.

>>  Why do you write?

ME:  I write because I discovered early-on that I could; that, however skilled I was at it, I was even less competent at everything else.  But really, at the risk of offending others who may be answering this question, I am suspicious of anyone who has too pat a reason for writing.  "I feel like it" is a perfectly valid explanation...and maybe the

only valid one. Folks should accept that and not force us to make up complex rationales involving primal needs to tell tales, or childhood traumas leading to self-expression. We write because we are writers.  (The money is also a valid reason, too...)

This is an especially gracious and interesting interview I did with Marc Norman, who won two Oscars for Shakespeare in Love.  To be clear, the "interesting" part all comes from him, as he shows here why he's such a good storyteller.  I find particularly fascinating his discussion of the technique he uses for getting past a roadblock in a scene he's writing.

As I've mentioned previously , these come from a series I put together several years back for the Writers Guild of America website.  I did the easy part, sending the screenwriters and TV writers largely the same basic questions about the process of writing.  They did the heavy lifting.

E-mail Interview
with
Marc Norman

Edited by Robert J. Elisberg

Marc Norman won two Academy Awards for co-writing and producing Shakespeare in Love, winner of the Oscar® as Best Picture.  Among his many other screenplays are Waterworld, Bat-21, Zandy's Bride, Breakout, The Killer Elite and Oklahoma Crude.  He also wrote one of the first "ABC Movies of the Week, The Challenge.

For the stage, Norman wrote and directed Ormear Locklear, which premiered at the Mark Taper Forum.  He has also directed for television.  Among his novels, Norman wrote Fool's Errand and Oklahoma Crude.

[Subsequent to this interview, Marc Norman wrote the wonderful book, What Happens Next: A History of American Screenwriting.  If you're interested in storytelling and how movies got from there to where we are today, you can find here.]

>>  Were there any movies, TV shows or books that first got you interested in writing?

MN:  I suppose the movies that come to mind are "Citizen Kane," "Red River," "The Maltese Falcon," "Casablanca," "Rules of the Game," "Paths of Glory," "Bridge on the River Kwai," "Lawrence of Arabia," "Amadeus."  The interesting thing is that I saw all but the last three in l6mm in a storefront theater on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley between 1960-64.  That was my film education. The theater was run by the wife of a lawyer who lived in Oakland and wanted something to do on her own, so she opened a revival house. She was Pauline Kael [later film critic for the New Yorker magazine].

In terms of books read, the great American novels of the century when I was in high-school: Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Dos Passos, Wolfe.  In college, the Brits. Chinese poetry. I got a lot from Dickens.  Also from Chaucer.

I was reading all the time.  I pretty much hoovered libraries.

In terms of writing, I started out writing poetry at Berkeley.  I never considered being a novelist--I didn't think I was up to it although I've published three since).  After blowing off he idea of teaching as a career, I drifted into writing.  It seemed to me that being a Hollywood screenwriter was an interesting way to fail.

Poetry's helped me a lot with screenwriting.  Poetry and chamber music--I think those are two good things to have in your head when you're writing a movie.


>> When you write, how do you generally work?  Are you a good procrastinator?

MN:  I've pretty much established a method I like for writing over the years. I start with a pen and paper (20 pound buff, Razor Point IIs) and just sort of free-associate, jotting down ideas for scenes, characters, snips of dialogue. I don't direct it for a month or so--I let it wander. Then I start making conclusions, but I don't force them--one thing I came up with early for myself was hold off decisions about anything until the last possible moment.  The form that moment takes is a kind of mental water breaking at the end of a kind of mental pregnancy--the thing has to be born, I'm sick of notes, it's time to get on with it.  I'd say the proportions of time spent between notes and actual draft writing is about three to one.  And I rewrite as I go along. I like my first draft to be my last draft.  I probably actually do four or six or eight drafts in the course of my first reaching page 120.

I bought a house in 1973 because there was an unfinished room over the garage and I thought I could work there.  I was right.

I haven't moved since.  Music?  Not even.  My neighborhood's very quiet, but maybe fifteen years ago, I decided to build some furniture and I went out and got some power tools, and to use with them, I bought a pair of industrial strength ear protectors.  One day I was writing and somebody was chain-sawing up on the hill behind me, so I went down to the garage and fetched the ear protectors and put them on. Ever since, I use them whenever I write.  I have a fetish attachment to them--those ear protectors have gone with me all over the world, even though they don't pack very well.

I have never understood how any writer with a family, children, and monthly bills can procrastinate, so I have nothing to offer on this question.


>>  What sort of characters and stories interest you?

MN:  I was never sure what kind or characters attracted me, except maybe ones that work in movies, or characters that bankable actors want to play.  But looking back, I suppose what they have most in common is that they're all makers. They're making something-- homo faber.  I think I've always admired people who make things because I saw it as a concrete acting out of what interests me most in all the world, and that is creativity.  I love creativity, in myself, and other people--it's what I like most about us as a species.  But it's abstraction, isn't it, something hard to show, absent some thing that's being made. So Lena in Oklahoma Crude makes an oil well, and Hertzog in the script with his name makes a revolution, and Shakespeare makes a play and we wait to see if it works or not.  It's a natural dramatic structure, the making of something, and I suppose it's the one I gravitate to most often.  I just finished a script about young guys making hotrods.


>>  How do you work through parts of a script where you hit a roadblock in the story?

MN:  I was always a little annoyed the press on "Shakespeare in Love" described his problem at the beginning of the film as "writer's block," because that wasn't my intention, and in fact, I don't think there is such a thing.  It's not that we're "blocked" as writers, that there are moments when nothing at all comes--stuff comes, but what comes sucks, and we don't know how to get anything better, and we refuse to write anything until it does.

When I'm at that point of not liking what I'm writing, I may try to analyze it systematically, in terms of remembering my earliest intentions, things like that. But I usually have the best luck just turning it over to the actors. I did some directing once, and I've imported a technique I picked up there into my writing. The technique is simply to admit to the people you're working with you haven't a fucking clue what you're doing and asking if they can help you.

In writing, I do the same thing in the rehearsal hall of my mind.  I take my characters out of the scene, I put them in an open, well-lit neutral space, and I say, "okay, I give. You guys take over. What do you want to do?"  And sometimes they'll bumble around for a while, and they'll do some real external things like fuss with their costume or their walk, the way actors do, but usually they get around to saying, "well, this is what I think I want in this scene."  And the "want" of characters seems to me to be the best sort of kick-starter for a fresh take on a scene or a theme or a plot that's gotten stuck.  It's a little simple minded, but you can argue that all dramatic writing consists of a number of people who want things, most often badly, and those things conflict with each other.  It's rare this isn't a useful technique. In fact, I reel stoked when the characters have taken over and are dictating the structure and the dialog, because that means my subconscious (or whatever) is working for me, and I don't have to muscle the thing so much out of my forebrain, which I don't have much respect for, and seems to me to be the elephant's graveyard of cliches.


>>  How do did you develop the story for "Shakespeare in Love?"

MN:  I mentioned I was an English major at Berkeley, but I avoided Shakespeare in favor of other writers back then. Treating Shakespeare as a young man just starting off in his career when I began the screenplay seemed a promising, if simple minded idea--young Sherlock Holmes, young Gandhi, you get the idea.  All great men were young once.  And I did reread most of his plays, and I suppose I got some of the swing and lilt of the Elizabethan/ Californian style of dialogue I came up with from that.

There isn't much to read about Shakespeare himself (there's maybe five unarguable facts), but there's a fair amount to read about his world, the world of Elizabethan theater, and that's where the research hit paydirt.  Because what I discovered was our business, the entertainment business, in fact the commercial entertainment writing we do, not on some quaint ye-olde English tea shoppe level, but full-bore, cut-throat, the way we know it with lawyers and goniff producers and blood on the floor, the business we're all still in.  And that was the mainspring-- Shakespeare in Development Hell, showing promise, writing crap, and not knowing how to get off the merry-go-round, how to get better.  Everything else followed from that.


>>  What is your most memorable experience as a writer?

MN:  I once worked for Sam Peckinpah [director of "The Wild Bunch"].   I showed up at his office for our introductory meeting.  He had a couch that folded out into a bed in his office--he was lying on it, on crumpled sheets, naked as a jaybird in a particularly cracker-scrawny way, getting a huge vitamin B-l2 shot plunged into his ass by his secretary. He looked up at me and smiled, as if to say, "Welcome to my nightmare."  He was about half dead from alcohol at that point, and couldn't keep food down.

The working relationship went downhill from there.

I once wrote a script for a Swedish director I thought was pretty good.  He was going to shoot it in Big Sur with Gene Hackman and Liv Ulmann.  He came from a pretty low-key Swedish film industry--you'd call up Sven and you'd call up Liv, and you'd put the Arri in the Volvo and pick them up and drive out into the country and make a scene. The studio promised the director he could work the same way, but they lied, and when he showed up to work the first day, there were thirty trucks, a hundred guys yelling on walkie-talkies, and a DP who wouldn't let him touch the fucking camera.  He went into a sort or Nordic catatonia and shot my script exactly the way I wrote it.  That's the only time that's happened to me.

I see these both as great, life-affecting experiences, by the way.  Peckinpah was hell, but I learned a lot from him.  You learn the most from your enemies.


>>  Was there any particular writer who acted as a sort of mentor to you?

MN:  I had lots of help from guys early on who helped me get jobs.  Burt Nodella got me out of the mail room at Universal and working with Leonard Stern on "Get Smart."  From Leonard, I went to New York and worked for David Susskind.  None of them mentored me as a writer--I wasn't that lucky--but I was very lucky to have guys like these who paid me while I figured out what to do with my life simply because it was their nature to be generous.

Susskind wanted me to marry his daughter.  God knows what would have come from that.


>>  Why do you write?

MN:  As to why I write, I used to say it was because I was incapable of anything else, which of course is a description of a compulsion--something that has power over you, something whose reins you don't hold. But lately, I explain it more along the lines or the "making" stuff I mentioned earlier.  I think I like to make worlds and populate them.  You're sort of God, and you're sort of a miniaturist at the same time.  You can make up a world and you can design the door knobs they use.  I used to make model airplanes--all of us did when we were kids.  Most of my friends threw them together, sloppy, with great globs of glue, and then blew them up with firecrackers.  I worked for hours, painstakingly, on mine, getting books of pictures of the airplane or ship or tank in question from the library and adding details, tiny bits of things, rivet heads, all to the purpose of realism, which is another way of saying, the illusion of reality.  And I suppose I'm still operating along those lines.  I like inventing people and putting them in settings so finely drawn that the viewer, for some short period of time, forgets he or she is yoking at an artifice and thinks it's real.  That's my performance.  That's my, for lack of a better word, magic.

There was a big spike of interest in science-fiction around the turn of this century.  In that incarnation, the themes weren't galactic battles and aliens--they were ghosts, spiritualism, seances.  Somebody asked Joseph Conrad why he didn't write a book in that genre, since it was so popular with the public.  He replied, "Because it would imply that the quotidian was not miraculous."  That's always rung a bell with me.  I find the lives we lead here, in our flawed world, endlessly fascinating.

Last week, I came up with the "Why in the world didn't I think of that before??!" idea of posting some of the "Email Interviews" I originally wrote for the Writers Guild of America website.  You can read more about what those were here, but the short version is that it was an easy way for me to get content for the website -- I came up with a set of generic questions about the process of writing that I'd sent to screenwriters and TV writers, and they'd do the heavy lifting.  Occasionally, I'd throw in a few new, specific questions, but usually not.

Last week, I started at a high standard, difficult to top, with Anthony Minghella, who gave easily the best, most thoughtful, generous of his time, and detailed Email Interview.  This week, we go from the sublime to the sublime.  This is Larry Gelbart.  And to writers, that's pretty much all you have to say.  Larry Gelbart was just a gem of a guy.  Here's my favorite Larry Gelbart story, which I think encapsulates him well.

In the early days of the Internet, the Writers Guild had a BBS, which was like a precursor of today's chat rooms.  One day, I was having a private chat with Larry (a sentence that even today as I write it, I am in awe of).  To make clear, we'd never met in person, just through Internet exchanges.  Offhandedly, I mentioned that I'd seen the revival of his musical, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, when it played in Chicago with Phil Silvers before going to Broadway.  And there was a new song added to it that was so wonderful, "The Echo Song" -- but they didn't make a new cast album from this Broadway production, the song was never included in later revivals, and I'd spent a couple decades trying to track the song down.  I asked if he knew whether or not there was a recording of it.  He answered that he wasn't sure, but he'd check with Steve the next time they talked.

That's nice, I thought, though I didn't know who "Steve" was.  Maybe his assistant.  Then it hit me -- he meant Stephen Sondheim.  Well...yeah, that really was nice.  Mind you, I didn't have a clue when they'd next talk, and I didn't suspect he'd even remember the question whenever that was, but still, what a nice thing to say.

And then a week later I got a note back from Larry.  "I spoke with Steve today.  He said that he has a recording of it being done in a little revue, and he'll send me a copy.  What's your address?"

So, today, I have a copy of this little-known song via Larry Gelbart through Stephen Sondheim.

That's the kind of person Larry Gelbart was.  Eventually we met, became friendly, and it only got better.  Pretty much anyone who met Larry Gelbart likely says the same thing.  (Unless you really pissed him off...)

And so, here is the piece I did with the good fellow.

Larry Gelbart is part of the legendary writing staff for the classic television variety series, "Your Show of Shows," which was followed by its cousin, "Caesar's Hour," a combined group which included Neil Simon, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Carl Reiner and Sid Caesar, for starters.

Gelbart soon became well-known in a different venue for writing with Burt Shevelove the book for the Broadway musical, "A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum."  The show was successfully revived on Broadway in the mid-1970s, and it recently returned to the New York stage in April, 1996, where 34 years after its original opening it is once again a hit -- for the third time.  Gelbart also wrote the book for the Tony Award-winning best musical, "City of Angels," and the play, "Sly Fox."

However, it is for his work in television that Gelbart is probably best known, developing the series "M*A*S*H."  He also created the acclaimed, though short-lived series, "United States."  Additionally, Gelbart wrote the award-winning HBO movie, "Barbarians at Gate."

Gelbart received an Academy Award nomination for his screenplay of "Oh, God!"  He has also written such feature films as "Tootsie" and "Blame It On Rio," among many others.

In his spare time...well, Larry Gelbart doesn't tend to have a whole lot of spare time...

RJE:  Were there any movies, TV shows or books that first got you interested in writing?

LG:  When I was a very young kid growing up in Chicago, my second greatest pleasure - my greatest joy was coming from seeing a movie - was to reenact the ones I had seen for my friends.  I was captivated by the stories, the stars, the handsome people, the funny people.  I don't think I wanted to write for movies - I think I wanted to be a movie.  I just wanted to live in all those glamorous or even terrible places and fight duels and kiss women and be surrounded by excitement and laughter and music and escape.  I haven't changed.  I still enact movies for friends (and employers) only they are ones that don't exist yet.

Not a lot of books in my house when I was a kid.  Didn't care all that much about them in school.  Except for history books.  But I lived inside my radio, populated as it was by people just as exciting as the ones I would visit at the movies.


RJE: When you write, how do you generally work?

LG: Incessantly.  Slowly, at first, fiddling with outlines, piling up research when necessary.  When I finally attack the work, I will be at my desk early - sometimes 4 a.m. and go until dinner.  I don't go out to lunch, take as few calls as possible, and try to stay away from playing Solitaire.


RJE: Do you have any specific kind of music playing or prefer silence?

LG: No music.  Silence preferred.  Although for the four that I wrote for "M*A*S*H" my office was right next to the Fox Sound Editing Department, and I wrote daily against a background of car chases, screeching brakes, sirens and gun shots.  Ah, well, war shows are hell.


RJE: Are you a good procrastinator?

LG: One of the best.  Fifty-two years of experience.


RJE: What sort of characters interest you?

LG: Any kind, really.  Preferably people I've never written before, so I can get to know them - and find parts of me that they might house.


RJE: What sort of stories?

LG: Any kind that lets me deal my anger, my helplessness, my vulnerabilities.


RJE: How do you work through parts of the script where you hit a roadblock in the story?

LG: Write another part of the story.  Come back to where you were stuck with the benefit of unblocking process that went on without you ever knowing it.


RJE: Do you have any specific tricks to help, or just tough it out?

LG: Tough it out.  Stop working.  Pull out some crabgrass.  As I said, some part of you keeps right on working.


RJE: What is your best or most memorable experience as a writer?

LG: Working on my latest screenplay, "Weapons of Mass Distraction."  A complex piece, several story tiers, very novelistic.  And using no outline whatsoever.  The first time I've ever let a story reveal itself to me in the writing.


RJE: How did you get involved with M*A*S*H?

LG: Gene Reynolds, an old friend, was a staff producer at Fox.  When the TV head, William Self, sold CBS on paying for the writing of a TV pilot script based on the feature, it was Gene's idea to hire me for the project.


RJE:  "Barbarians at the Gate" is an incredibly detailed, complex story that takes place in what is generally considered the dry world of finance.  Moreover, it was not only based on a book, but on real people, as well.  What were the particular challenges in solving the problems of adapting it?



LG:  "Barbarians at the Gate" offered many challenges.  The first one was just reading it.  So many characters, so many tiers to the story.  My second job was to read it again.  This time, with a pen in hand to eliminate, to weed, to lose people and events, to get to the essentials.  Actually, I think I dropped almost all of the first 200 pages of the
book, except for material that gave me some specific insights into F. Ross Johnson, the central figure in the story.  Then, I cut out a whole layer of characters by removing the banking community, so vital to the sale of RJR Nabisco, but so complicated and so thick with additional characters.

I have had some experience with dealing with dense storylines, populated by a great many players.  What was very different about BAG was that for the first time ever I was dealing with nonfictional characters - real, and still live, people.  There was great concern at Columbia Studios (which commissioned the script) and at HBO (which finally produced it) that I did not expose them to any legal problems in the way anyone was depicted.  (I had been able to negotiate my own personal immunity.)  By using actual dialogue and situations from the book (which had prompted no litigation from the principals) and by using extensive research prepared for me - a wonderful job done by a woman named Bobette Buster - I managed to keep out of any legal problems by making any new material consistent with the published and public record of the Johnsons, the Kravitzes, et al.

It all seems so easy to relate right now.  The actual job took almost three years.  A publication asked recently for a look at my drafts - from the first to the sixth or seventh or maybe even the seventeenth, I don't remember.  When stacked one atop the other they measured a foot and half high.  From now on, I'm going to try to keep my scripts under twelve inches.


RJE: Was there any particular writer who acted as a sort of mentor to you?

LG: His name was Bill Manhoff and he was the head writer of "Duffy's Tavern," a radio show, where I apprenticed as a teenager.  He had the skill, the patience and the generosity to teach me lessons that have served me a lifetime.

When I worked under Bill Manhoff's tutelage on "Duffy's Tavern," I had just turned 17.  Other than having the knack of being able to be funny on demand - on being able to provide jokes that fit a specified situation - I was not familiar with the vocabulary of the trade, the articulation to describe what kind of punchlines those situations might require.  If that sounds vague, perhaps it still is to me after all these years.  I guess what I learned most from Bill was just punching away until what seemed the right line finally dawned on me or anyone else in the room.  That deadlines weren't frightening - that writing comedy for a living you couldn't afford to think it terms of writing blocks or not completing the work on schedule.  There was no question but that the work would get done.  Simply because it had to be.


RJE:  Why do you write?

LG: To find out what I think.  To discover what I really feel.

Several years ago, when I was part of the group that created the Writers Guild of America website, and served on its first Editorial Board, I created three columns.  One of them, perhaps my favorite, was called Email Interviews.  The intent was to bring attention to screenwriters and TV writers, most of who labored in deeply undeserved anonymity.  Do an interview, include a photo to give that anonymous screen name a face, and include a page of the writer's work, to show that someone actually came up with those words of their favorite movies and TV shows, and an actor didn't just make them up.

What I particularly loved about the column and made it a personal favorite was that I got a great deal of praise for it while doing very little.

You see, the trick for the column was based on the premise that the Internet is a hungry beast and needs a great deal of content to be fed, but I didn’t remotely have the time to do the work required.  And no one else on the committee was volunteering.  So, I figured out with a way to generate a lot of content while doing a minimum of work.  O wouldst that life were like that…

What I did was come up with a bunch of questions about the writing process and email them to the writers who agreed to be interviewed.  When an interview went well, people would send me hosannas  about how great my interview was – when all I'd one was email pre-written questions, and the interviewee did all the work!  Pretty smart, eh?  (Me and Tom Sawyer, we're just like this...)

Now, in fairness, there was more work involved.  For one, it was really hard tracking down the writers and getting them to agree to the interview.  The Writers Suspicious Gene would kick in (“Why does someone want to interview me??  What’s the scam here?)  And the really, really, really hard part was  getting the writer to send in a photo of themselves and a page from one of their scripts.  That was a numbing process, often taking months, and for which I think I deserved the praise, though for the wrong reason.  Also, for some writers, when I thought there was something particularly noteworthy to ask, I’d add questions, or do a follow-up.  So, there actually was work.  Just not precisely what most people thought.

Anyway, I figured it might be nice to post some of my favorite of the Email Interviews from time to time, using the original introductions, updated where necessary.  (No script pages, alas, I don't have access to those.)  And foolishly, I’m going to start with what’s probably the best.  Don’t expect them all to be at this high level as a standard.  This is just as freaking good as it gets.

And it’s from a brilliant writer, who was as thoughtful and warm and outgoing as any famous writer I’ve met, though I only met him a couple of times.  Everything I subsequently read about him said the same thing.  And the time he took answering the Email Interview questions was testament to proving that.  And he passed away much, much, much, much too early. 

It’s Anthony Minghella.  He was busy finishing up making a movie at the time, and apologized for taking so so.  That he did the Email Interview under such conditions was impressive enough.  That he put this much thought into it goes further.  And then, he came back with wanting to do a follow-up answer -- he hadn't had time initially to answer my question about The English Patient and wanted to give it proper consideration.  It was all worth the wait.

E-MAIL INTERVIEW
WITH
ANTHONY MINGHELLA

EDITED BY ROBERT J. ELISBERG

Anthony Minghella wrote and directed the film, The English Patient, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Director, and for which he was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay.  In addition, he wrote and directed Truly, Madly, Deeply and the upcoming The Talented Mr. Ripley.  His many plays include Made in Bangkok (which won the London Theatre Critics award for Best New Play), A Little Like Drowning, and Two Planks and a Passion. 

For television, Minghella wrote the trilogy What If It's Raining, was a regular contributor to the series, Inspector Morse, and wrote all nine episodes of The Storyteller for Jim Henson.  His award-winning radio plays include Hang Up" (winner of the Prix Italia) and Cigarettes and Chocolate.

Minghella is currently adapting Charles Frazier's bestselling novel, Cold Mountain, which he will also direct.

>>>  Were there any movies, TV shows or books that first got you interested in writing?

AM:  I became interested in writing by a circuitous route.  As a teenager I was obsessed with music and with writing and performing songs.  Throughout my university course I continued to write music and lyrics, often for plays being produced in the university's Drama department, which was my undergraduate centre.  In my final year I threaded a group of songs together into a kind of musical with some dialogue embroidering and contextualising each number.  A local playwright, Alan Plater, saw the resulting event and called me and asked me in his capacity of chairman of the theatre company based in the city, whether I'd like to write them a play.  Up until that moment I'd never imagined being a dramatist.  But I wrote the play and stumbled into a career.

Most of my life has worked that way.  Of course, like all film-makers I've been mesmerised by cinema since I was a child.  My parents, Italian immigrants, owned a small cafe in a seaside town on the Isle of Wight, a little island off the southern coast of England.  It was adjacent to the local cinema, and the projectionist rented a couple of rooms in the back of our building.  So I was introduced to the movies, a la cinema paradiso, in the thrilling arena of the projection booth as well as through the normal access of Saturday morning pictures and then, later, as a teenager attempting, hopelessly, pointlessly, to explore two desires at once, by dating in the back row.

I remember the emergence of wonderful American cinema in the late sixties and early seventies, of taking my father on our one and only family cinema trip to see "The Godfather." I remember watching "The Blue Angel," with Marlene Dietrich, and bursting into tears.  I remember discovering Fellini and I Vitelloni.  I drove sixty miles on consecutive nights to see a Francesco Rosi movie, "Illustrious Corpses."  I wanted to be Robert de Niro.  I  discovered Woody Allen and Eric Rohmer, Kurosawa and then Kieslowski.  And because I spent ten years at University, studying and teaching, I had the luxury of being able to read and read and read.

>>>  When you write, how do you generally work?  Do you have any specific kind of music playing or prefer silence?

AM:  I work fitfully, in hope rather than in expectation, invent methods which last a week, and fill notebooks with tiny, illegible writing which often defies my own attempts to decipher it.  I find any excuse not to write, despair of writing, measure my achievements like a schoolboy and give myself undeserved rewards for completing a page, daren't leave my room when I'm working in case I finally have a fully-formed thought, and preside over the process convinced that in a drawer somewhere exists the finished piece of work, and that I'm permitted, to the delight of some cruel spirit, to have fleeting access to the drawers, sometimes for thirty seconds, sometimes for an hour, but then it slams shut and will never advertise its next opening.  I know that the minute I leave the room to annoy my family, to catch the end of a football game, to lie down, the drawer springs open and waits until it hears me take the stairs... 

I always listen to music, my passion and vice is music, I will be denied access to heaven because of the number of CDs I own, and I have gluttony for all types and colours of music.  I might listen to Hungarian folk songs, Portishead, Ella Fitzgerald and Van Morrison in the same work session.  And I always listen to Bach.  My work has been a shameless advertisement for Bach, from my plays, through my first film, "Truly Madly Deeply," through "The English Patient" and  most recently, in "The Talented Mr Ripley," which has The St. Matthew Passion in the first scene.

>>>  What sort of stories and characters interest you?

AM:  I'm interested in stories which insist on a dog fails-to-eat-dog kind of world.  I hate misanthropy, want to believe that there's a possibility that we might all be redeemed, that hope deferred makes the soul sick, that our humanity is fragile, funny, common, crazy, full of the longing for love, the failure of love.  I want to tell stories which require something of an audience, by way of thought, argument, emotion, because I'm more often in an audience than I am a maker of films, and that's the kind of movie I want to see.

>>>  How do you work through parts of a script where you hit a roadblock in the story?

AM:  I've been writing for over twenty years, all my adult life, and so I suppose that I've made peace with myself and my hopeless, undisciplined technique. I've stopped unravelling everytime I'm unable to write.  I wait.  The drawer opens.  Waiting is part of writing.  When I write the word 'waiting' by hand it even looks like 'writing.'  I also make notes.  I rarely understand them afterwards, but it's better than a blank page.  I also love to read poetry.  So I might read poetry for an hour when I'm stuck.  Just remembering how careful you have to be with words, how much we're obliged to be poets as screenwriters, is energising.  Raymond Carver is good for writer's block.  Or C.K.Williams.  Or Ann Carson.  Or Michael Ondaatje.

>>>  With the original novel of "The English Patient" being such a difficult, sprawling work, what were the particular challenges in adapting it?

AM:  (This answer is taken in part from my introduction to the published screenplay)

Michael Ondaatje's mesmeric novel, "The English Patient," has the deceptive appearance of being completely cinematic.  Brilliant images are scattered across its pages in a mosaic of fractured narratives, as if somebody had already seen a film and was in a hurry trying to remember it.  In the course of a single page, the reader can be asked to consider events in Cairo, or Tuscany, or England's west country during different periods, with different narrators; to meditate on the natures of winds, the mischief of an elbow, the intricacies of a bomb mechanism, the significance of a cave painting.  The wise screen adapter approaches such pages with extreme caution.  The fool rushes in. 

The next morning I telephoned Saul Zaentz in Berkeley, the only producer I could think of crazy enough to countenance such a project, and suggested he read the book.  He has made a brilliant career out of folly, and is one of the few movie-makers who loves to read.   I have never seen Saul without a book within his reach.  He called me back a week later to tell me not only did he love "The English Patient" but that Michael was coming in from Toronto to give a reading from it that weekend at a bookstore near Saul's home.  I encouraged him to see this as an omen.

When I began work on the screenplay a number of things were quickly evident - I was completely ignorant about Egypt, had never been to a desert, couldn't use a compass, couldn't read a map, remembered nothing from my schoolboy history lessons about the Second World War, and embarrassingly little about Italy, my parents' country. 

I promptly borrowed a cottage in Durweston, Dorset, and loaded up my car with books.  I began adult life as an academic and nothing gives me more pleasure than the opportunity to tell myself that reading is a serious activity.  I waded through eccentric books on military history, letters and diaries of soldiers in North Africa and Southern Italy, pamphlets from The Royal Geographic Society written before the war.  I found out about the devastation visited on my father's village near Monte Cassino, discovered we had a namesake who was a partisan leader in Tuscany, learned about the incredible international crucible that was Cairo in the 1930s.

The one book I didn't take with me was "The English Patient."  I had been so mesmerised by the writing, so steeped in its richness, that I decided the only possible course available was to try and write my way back to the concerns of the novel, telling myself its story.   I emerged from my purdah with a first draft of over two hundred pages (twice the length of a conventional screenplay) which included, even after my own rough edit and much to the bewilderment of my collaborators, episodes involving goat mutilation, scores of new characters, and a scene about the destruction of a wisteria tree in Dorset which I swore privately would be the most memorable in the film.   Needless to say none of these inventions survived to the first day of principal photography. 

Over successive drafts - each of which were subject to the ruthless, generous, exasperating, egoless, pedantic and rigorous scrutiny of Michael and Saul - some kind of blueprint for a film began to emerge.  We met in California, Toronto, London and, best of all, in Saul's home in Tuscany where I am ashamed to admit there were memorable discussions held in the cool, aquamarine pool, our chins bobbing on the surface of the water, punctuated by bouts of what we called water-polo but which was essentially a form of licensed violence to work off our various pent-up hostilities and at which Michael proved to be a master. 

I loved Michael's book, he became the film's champion on the hard road that followed.  At the very least, film adaptations become a pungent advertisement for their source material, like hearing a friend recount their excitement at having read a great new book.  For that is what the role of the adapter seems to me to be - the enthusiastic messenger bringing news from somewhere else, remembering the best bits, exaggerating the beauty, relishing the mystery, probing the moral imperative of what he or she has read, its meaning and argument, watching for gasps or tears, orchestrating them and, ideally, prompting the captive audience to  make the pilgrimage to the source, while asserting the value of the film in its own right.  The adapter must attempt to be the perfect reader.  But, as Italo Calvino said of storytelling - the tale is not beautiful if nothing is added to it.  It seemed to me that the process of adaptating "The English Patient" required me to join the dots and make a figurative work from a pointillist and abstract one.  Any number of versions were possible and I'm certain that the stories I chose to elaborate say as much about my own interests and reading as they do about the book.  And that is just as true of my film of "The Talented Mr Ripley" and the fortthcoming "Cold Mountain."

>>>  What is your best experience as a writer?

AM:  My best experience as a writer was probably working with Michael Ondaatje.  He let me dismantle his novel, reimagine it, and still had dinner with me and gave me good notes.  But the best thing about writing has been the writer's life, the sense of being expressed, the ownership of the day, the entirely specious sense of freedom we have, however slave we are to some boss or other.  I wouldn't trade it for any other life.

>>>  Was there any particular writer who acted as a sort of mentor to you?

AM:  I talked about the British playwright, television and film writer, Alan Plater.  He gave me the first prod of encouragement.  Samuel Beckett, whom I never met, was a true mentor, because he wrote with such truth and wit and compassion and severity.

>>>  Why do you write?

AM:  I want to be glib and say I write because I am.  It's almost true.  Certainly I never feel more myself than when I'm writing, I never enjoy any day more than a good writing day.