You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting
podcasts, just go to IFH podcast network dot com. Welcome to the Bulletroof
screen Rinning Podcast, Episode number three hundred. Life is full of challenges.
How you handle these challenges It's what builds character. Never be afraid to be
who you are. Aaron Brockovich broadcasting from a dark, windowless room in Hollywood
when we really should be working on that next draft. It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting
Podcast, showing you the craft and business of screenwriting while teaching you how to
make your screenplay bulletproof. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome,
Welcome to another episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast. I am your humble host
Alex Ferrari. Now, today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof Script Coverage. Now.
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Today on the show, we have Academy Award nominee Susannah Grant, and
Susannah wrote the Oscar winning film Aaron Brockovich, as well as Twenty eight Days
with Sandra Bullock, in Her Shoes with Cameron Diaz, Catch and Release with
Jennifer Garden, Her Charlotte's Webb, The Soloist with Robert Downey and Jamie Fox,
and so so, so much more. Susanna and I have a deep
sit down conversation about her process, her journey as a screenwriter, and advice
that she gives to up and coming screenwriters trying to break into the business today.
So, without any further ado, let's dive in. I'd like to
welcome to the show. Susannah Grant, how you doing, Susanna, I'm
great, Alex, how are you. I'm doing very good. Thank you
so much for coming on the show. I've been a fan of your work
from twenty eight days too in her Shoes. I love romantic comedies of course,
Aaron Brockovich, and even Pocahonnas too, when I was good and well
in the nineties. I have I'm sure you do. I'm sure you do.
But even but you were coming in on Pocahonnas. You were coming in
at that wave of the nineties, late eighties, early and end the Little
Mermaid, Lion King a Ladd and it was just printing money. Yeah,
they were. They were doing really beautiful work and bringing back the movie musical
which was fantastic, and so I was really happy to be a part of
it. And you know, it's not how, it's not how we would
make a story about Native Americans today, which shows you that we've Yeah,
there have been some advances, um there, but I learned a ton,
I learned a ton. I have not gone back into animation because animation is
not covered by the Guild. So, um, oh it isn't. I
don't know, it's not. It's actually covered by a different union oddly,
which has to do with the history of animation. But um, no writing
for writing for us. So you know, I look at Linda Wolverton,
who wrote these huge Disney movies, and the amount of money she has not
received for her work that she would have been a Union project anyway, that's
another story. But I have not worked in animation since largely because of that.
But um, but it's a really rigorous place to start because the tradition
of animation is that the story artists tell the story storyboard artists. That was
how it was done early in the day at Disney, and Howard Ashman and
Alan Menkin brought in writers and that was the beginning of this sort of renaissance
that they that they brought in. So we were writers. I had two
partners on that, Karl Binder and Philip Zevnik, and but there were also
story artists who considered themselves writers. So you would there was a lot of
tension in it, which was uh, you know, good and bad,
but there was Um, it was incredibly rigorous. You know, there's no
scene in that movie that was written any fewer than thirty thirty five times.
It was just over and over and over for your first gig. It's really
good. It's a it's like a boot camp, you know. How does
I mean seriously? Because I was going to ask you about Polkahans, But
since we started there while and we just keep going because I have friends who
are animators. I've been inside the Disney studios. I see how they work,
and he told me all about the process and the directors and how they
work with the storyboard artist. But it must be frustrating as a writer to
have storyboard art basically storyboard artist dictating story as a writer, and it must
have been just been this really interesting thing to deal with as a as a
young writer as well. Yeah. Well, and I haven't been there in
the sort of post Pixar universe, and you know, I don't know how
they're doing it now. And at the time, you know, the animation
tradition is very profound and sacred to people. So you don't want to dishonor
that I was. I was still in film school, you know when I
got that job. So did you get the job? You know? I
my first year of film school, I won the Nickel Fellowship, which is
a fellowship that the Academy gives, and that just gives your work more visibility,
and then you start meeting folks. And I did, and I had
I was in school. I was still in school. I had a second
year of film school. So I would get offered jobs that just smelled like
really bad jobs that would go nowhere. And I had the luxury of being
able to say no because I was in film. I was in school,
you know, so it had to be appealing enough to pull me away from
getting my masters, which I want to get. And then eventually, you
know, after I said no to a few things from Disney Animation, I
learned quickly that saying no doesn't mean they'll never ask you again. It just
means they'll offer you something better. So eventually they came to me, I
mean it came to me with some ideas like we don't even know what this
is. It's just a word, you know, wales, whales, And
I thought, no, I don't that that movie is never ever getting me.
By the way, all the things they pitched me before this, I
think there were about five of them. None have gotten made. So really,
I actually had a wonderful teacher in film school named Jerry Cass, and
I would sort of float it by him, and he'd go, now,
don't do it, don't do it. Um. And then they called one
day and said this one has a release date, and I thought, mat,
all right, all right, jock out of film school early for something,
the whole polka. Yeah, that's who the whole polkahonest thing. I
think it works. Yeah, I think we have a release date. It's
gonna go. Yeah. Yeah. So you know, I was new,
and I was green, and I was humble, and I had two other
writers who were great pals and great writers, and uh, you know,
anytime it gets rough, for god's sake, you're doing a Disney animated movie,
and you're you know, I was. I was never unaware of how
fortunate I was, so even on the difficult days, I was happy to
be there. Yeah, it's it's it's a magical place. I've been in
and many times of Disney animation, and it is. It's a beautiful,
wonderful And I've heard stories. I remember Tangled was in development for ten years.
Everything on it I saw that, I saw the art was a completely
different from what we saw a year before release. Stripped it all start again,
and they did that with every single movie since. No White still hard.
Yeah, they are not precious. And the great thing is when you're
working on one of them. You know, when we were working on Pocahontas,
Lion King was in its finishing stages, so we had the advantage of
being adjacent to that work, which was tremendous. And then Hunchback was behind
us, so we were aware of that as well, and so, um,
you know you're had a part of this continuum. Um, it was
a magical time. It was that that those that five to ten year window
of Disney animation was pretty remarkable. It's hard for people to understand because it
was pretty much dead in the water. Yes, it was until Little Mermaid
showed up, and then we're like, oh, okay, until Alan Menckin
and Howard Ashman came in and said Katzenberg and Katzenberg came in and started doing
some stuff. And there was some professional meeting. Was a meeting with Jeffrey
I think it was at seven thirty in the morning on Mother's Day Sunday.
Of course, of course there was some rigor to that, to say the
least. So so your first writing gig was out of school, was straight
into Disney Studios, working with it So after you've done with that whole process,
you then started working on television. You went into Party five, which
you and I really hadn't had a planned to work in television, you know.
I my sort of house of worship growing up, as it was,
was a movie movie theater. We'll be right back after a word from our
sponsor, and now back to the show. So that felt like the sort
of form of American storytelling I was dying to be a part of and contribute
to. And that was a conversation I wanted to be a part of.
But I got this pilot shown to me that was made by Chris Kaiser and
Amy Littmann called Party of Five, and it was beautiful and it felt like
my sensibility and they were the best people in the world, and I didn't,
you know, And so I went and did that for a bit.
Yeah, you did that for a few years. So let me ask you
what were some of the biggest lessons working in that writer's room. And really
kind of because it's one thing is being a feature writer and another one is
being a TV writer. It's it's a grind. It's a daily grind with
television as opposed to features. In writing, which is take your time.
You can think. It's also a daily grind. It is no, no,
it is no. I was lonely or daily grind, right, But
a lot of times if you're doing a spec or something, you could you
could be on that spec for five years. This is like there's a deadline
and you've gotta go, you gotta do there is Yeah, it's funny.
When I look back at it, I really think of the lessons I learned
less being about craft and UM being more about how do you how do you
choose to live this writer's life. That was a remarkably wonderful group of people
who were kind to each other and supportive of each other and funny and you
could you could share your idiocy with them and they would only love you more,
you know. And this is exactly the kind of environment you want for
a beautiful, collaborative UM workplace. And it's sort of set in my head
that as a bar and I've really actually been quite fortunate and that I've had
very few professional collaborations that have not felt like that. I mean, I've
had them, you know, and you sort of work through them as quickly
as possible. But but that was the biggest lesson there that for me,
not for everyone. There are people who thrive in chaos and conflict and their
best work comes out of it. For me, that is the environment that
brings out my best work. So that was one lesson and the other was
you just keep working on it till it's good enough. You know, you
just keep working on it till it's good enough. And I would put the
scenes up on my wall that because you sort of outlined it together, and
I would have a bar for myself. I wouldn't put a red check mark
on it saying it was done until I had surprised myself in the scene and
turned it into something that I hadn't anticipated, or found something within it that
I haven't anticipated would be there from the outline, you know. So it
just I found, I guess, a bar that made the work feel alive
and interesting as opposed to flat and dead. You know the scene where X
happens, Well, if it's a scene or X happens, how can you
make that alive? How can you surprise yourself? How can you surprise your
viewer? How can you find an element of it that you didn't know was
going to be there? Going in? You know which is the most exciting
stuff to watch where humanity sort of peeks out unexpectedly. So you mentioned that,
you know you've obviously had some not so harmonious collaborations. I think in
the business in general, we all have that. We all have to deal
with that at one point or another. Do you have any advice on how
to walk that path a bit? And depending on collaborators and who you're working
with, because we're talking about there's the difference between a PA collaborating with a
director and a writer collaborating with a director or an executive producer on the show
things like that, how do you deal at that higher level when you're with
collaborators, Boy, it really all depends on who that collaborator is and what
their particular approach to work and a work environment is. UM. I've had
ones where I've I've worked with a director where it felt like, how to
say this delicately, ego was a big, big, big presence in the
room at the no and UM, and then just by sort of sitting there,
it felt like there were three people in the room at the beginning,
me, the director, and the ego. But if you just sit there
calmly and say, and just don't don't don't dance with it, you know,
don't don't dance with it, don't engage it, don't fight it.
Just it. If if the creative vision matches gradually, sometimes that will just
ease its way out of the room, you know. But sometimes it won't.
Sometimes it's just like sometimes you are working with a chaos monster and you
will never see eye to eye. You know. There are a couple of
projects where I look back on it and I realized I was holding onto my
job so hard that I lost grip of the of the film, you know.
And you know, there's one movie I look back on and I think,
oh, I should have walked. Not for me, but maybe maybe
if I had walked the director this is an original too, Like I would
never walk off an original, but maybe if I had walked. I mean,
the director is always going to win, right, Maybe if I had
walked, they would have found something that wasn't what I wanted it to be,
but was better than what it ended up being, which was sort of
a mishmash, you know, of try a mishmash between that director's idea of
what it should be in mine, you know, and something like that happens.
How blamed are you as a writer to the good and bad of the
good and bad of the sort of director worship? Is that not so much?
I mean, it was a good spec, it was a good it
was a good original script, and it wouldn't have gone into production if it
hadn't been. And but it's just one of those things. If you guys
you don't share a vision, sometimes it won't come out the way you want
it to. And a lot of times I've noticed is that ego when the
ego isn't that I love that term. By the way, that their egos
the third first thing in the room. It's because of either fear or insecurity.
And once they feel that, like, oh, this person is not
going to hurt me, that we're on the same page, it does kind
of recess a little bit. Yeah. I had the really wonderful good fortune
of working with Curtis Hampson. He was just most wonderful man and wonderful film
and he had a I think I learned a lot from him because he would
point out something in the script didn't quite work, quite makes sense, and
I would say, yeah it does, Yeah it does. I'd fight and
hold on and then he'd say, always lean in really kindly and say no,
no, no, Susannah, this is a good thing. This means
we get to go find a better thing together. It's great. And he
would see every problem and he would always say, no, no, no,
this is a good thing. And you make a whole movie with someone
who thinks that way, and it starts to inform your own thinking and you
start to see problems as good things. And and I think that does feel
less threatening sometimes to partners if if you walk in saying, I know that
things can always get better. Let's keep making it better till we run out
of time, you know. And that's that's kind of the TV mentality as
well as a TV writer, because that's right, Yeah, not as much
the screen, not as much the features writers. From my experience and from
what I have who I've talked to, it's not as much it should be,
but as well as much sometimes. I mean, feature writers are so
rarely given the opportunity to have that too in their work, so and often
have the experience of it not getting better or not getting closer to what they
had wanted it to be at the outset, but further from it. So
you know, working with Curtis was it was a blessing because that's not the
norm, I think, And he was incredibly lovely and generous. He was
wonderful. He's a wonderful, wonderful filmmaker. Now, you know, you
did write a little film called Aaron brock something or other the other a little
while ago. And how did that project Aaron Brockovich come to to life?
Because you are credited the only writer on that, So I'm assuming this is
an original or were you high it wasn't original? Yeah, it was,
but it was I had I had just written ever After and it was very
at which I love. And I'm not the only writer on that. The
director came in and he did some rewriting with his partner, so they're pre
credited writers on that. But but I had just done that and it was
I love it. But it was very sort of precious and delicately. I
mean, it's she's meaty too, which is good. But I just wanted
to I just had in my head that the next thing I wanted to write
was I had this phrase kick ass broad in my head and I don't know
why. I was like, I don't know, I just sa kick ass
broad and I went to have a general meeting at Jersey Pictures and Gail Lyon
was there and told me this story. And they had met Aaron through a
chiropractor, because you know, that car accident that starts the movie actually walked
Aaron's back out and she then would go to a chiropractor. Well, Michael
Schamberg, who was like the president or something of Jersey at the time,
his wife went to the same chiropractor. So that's how they heard Aaron's Of
course, we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now
back to the show. Although they had optioned it, and I was,
you know, I don't know that. I mean, maybe Pocahontas had come
out, but it certainly there was nothing that would suggest that I was the
right person for the film except for that I knew that I was. And
and they, I think they said at the time, we'll actually we're out.
We're out to Cali Cory, all right, all right. So in
two weeks I called up and said, Hey, just wondering if you'd heard
from Callie, and they'd say, yes, yes, now we're out to
Scott Frank And I'd sit for two weeks and then I'd call back, and
it was I think my polite persistence wore them down. I just kept calling
and saying, did that other superstar writer pass yet? And eventually enough of
them passed, and I had checked in often enough that they said, all
right, well, we'll let you meet her. And then Aaron and I
got on like a house on fire, so so and it just and just
took off from there. Um, there's and there's the dialogue in that movie
is so beautiful. I love I still remember that scene of like numbers.
I'll tell you some numbers that whole I was just sitting there in awe because
I was like, that's such a wonderful come back to a guy obviously hitting
on her and this it was so so beautiful and Julia Roberts was their performances
and the scene and just wonderful, and you know, but everybody directed it
perfectly, And you know that's one of those. Yeah. I had two
films in production at the same time, and one of them I was on
the set many of the days, um, and the other one, and
I was also pregnant, so I wasn't there that much, honestly, And
and and then Aaron Brockett was shooting at the same time, and I was
never on that set, and Aaron Brockovich looks exactly like the movie I had
in my head, and the one where I was on the set every day
looks nothing like the movie that I had in my head. So, you
know, does being on the set make a difference? I don't know.
You know, I don't know that scan sometimes but if it's not the right
team, So why do you get they got? It was Stephen got what
you were doing and that you guys were both mind melded. Apparently that got
that vision. He saw what I saw, And I don't know how much
of it was suggested on the page and how much of it just was the
luck of um, you know, two people who who happened to see something
the same way, though they didn't really talk about it that much, you
know. So what was it like working with Stephen Because that was a heck
of a year for him, if I remember correctly, He also Traffic Try
So did that other little movie called Traffic the same year. It was like,
well, it's unheard of what he was, what was going on in
his career at the time, and he's a legendary filmmaker and he's he's a
fantastical film how I didn't work that closely with him, so really it was
just not at all. Really that's fascinating. I mean you met with him
obviously a bit. Yeah, right, I did. Yeah, you met
with him, but he just read the script. It is like, I'm
good, let's go. Yeah. Basically, I mean nothing, nothing's that
simple, but yeah, fair enough, fair enough. Um. So then
the Oscars come around and you get a nomination. I did, And what
is what's that like at that point in your career You're only like, what
five six years in at this point? I don't know was I don't know,
I guess I guess it was interesting. At the at the premiere,
UM, I saw Amy Pascal, who was always has always been extraordinarily lovely
and right, and you know, we've had a nice um, done a
lot of nice work together. But I saw her. This was early on
and I knew her. And after the premiere I was filing out of it,
and she pulled me over and she said, this never happens, and
I thought, well, maybe it does, and maybe it will again,
Like she was just smelling me, this is remarkable. Appreciate it um,
uh, you know it's it's it's it's wonderful, it's it's great and strange
and and and you think this is, you know, something I've dreamed about
and then also doesn't matter at all, you know. Yeah, Um,
were you that clear Were you that clear headed at that time in your life?
Because I know as we as we all get older, we look back
and like, ah, you know, but when you're younger coming up like
the Oscar, the Oscar, the Oscar, you know, yeah, it's
probably about my family of origin, but those were not our values like growing
up, they just they just weren't not better, not worse, they were
just other. So, um, I did you know? I brought my
brother and sister to it, and I thought they thought it was a kick,
you know, So it's fun. It was a kid, it was.
So it isn't like I don't want to denigrate the Academy at all.
It's it's a lovely thing they do, and it's it's nice and it's also
incredibly surreal. We were sitting at the ceremony, my husband and I and
um, and he said, boy, if you dropped down from outer space
into this theater, you would think that this is our god, what an
amazing what an amazing observation. It's a bit of that, but it's lovely,
and the academy is great, and the you know, to have the
fellowship of you know, all these remarkable people who've told the stories that ordered
your brain growing up and into adulthood is just an incredible luxury. To be
part of that community and to be fair and to be fair to your husband.
He's not wrong at all. He's not wrong at all. And in
Hollywood, that is other than the dollar. The Oscar is a quite close
second. If I'm not gonna stake. So you go through the ceremony,
you go through all of this, you know, all the hooplah then because
I've had many Oscar winners and Oscar nominees on the show before, and I
love asking what happened after? How did the town treat you afterwards? When
you got you know, all this because the spotlights on you and it's there's
a window, there's a window of time where you're the it girl, the
it guy. What was that light? What was that kind of journey for
you? Honestly, it just uh um, I'm a bit of a hustler
and I don't ever like, honestly, any I don't like thinking about awards.
I don't have any. I mean, I'm I'm thrilled to have received
some awards in my time, but I don't have any of them any place
I can see them because I just don't. I don't know that that would
do anything good for my head. So what I am aware of is at
it up your price, like, it's great. Your agent asked for more
money, and I think writers should get more money always, So if you
can do that, if you can bump up your price, great, I
didn't just keep rocking and rolling because you know, I'm I'm being more diminishing
of it. I guess what I mean is it probably did stuff, but
I'm so afraid of resting on laurels. And it never ever ever makes the
writing easier. In fact, I think it might make it harder if you
can attention to it. So, um, you know, it doesn't make
any difference if you were out, you know, at the Vanity Fair party
till to the night before you're gonna sit down in a computer and it's not
going to be one iota easier, not one iota. So in terms of
my work, no difference. Yeah, it almost see the work itself.
It almost seems because again speaking to so many who have done gone through what
you've gone through, it seems almost like a burden in a certain way,
because now so it wasn't a burden, you know, yeah it was exactly,
but but the the um, the the the burden of like if you
get it, if it gets in your head of life, oh my god,
what's next? All I have to do this or I have to do
that, it does kind of tweak with you a little bit. But one
thing I've really fascinated by talking to so many, you know, accomplished screenwriters
like yourself and filmmakers, they're still in a roses in their work. They
still don't think in many ways that they're like, it's still tough. I
still don't think I'm good enough. I still think someone's going to walk into
the room at any second and go, what are you doing here? You're
not supposed to be in here? Security, get her out? Is that
kind of the vibe do you still feel in many ways? Well, the
second part not anymore, you know, the second part. I mean,
I've been doing this a long time, and I've got friends and we all
we all security is not taking you out, No, but absolutely it's still
challenging and you're still facing a wall every day. But that's u A the
fun of it. It doesn't feel like fun, but eight is what makes
it interesting. And B I don't think the work is for me is much
good without that. I think if it's sort of like what I was saying
earlier about what I discovered about writing scenes in Party of five, if I
feel like I can do something and yeah, I'll just whip this one off.
It's not going to be good. We'll be right back after a word
from our sponsor and now back to the show, it won't. And I
always have to feel as if there's something I'm trying to figure out, and
I like a little bit of panic associated with my with my work. Very
early on I knew herb Sergeant, who's Alvin Sargeant's brother, and I was
talking to him very very early on in my career and he said, oh,
yeah, every time Alvin takes a job, he calls me up and
says, I can't do it. I got to give the money back.
Now, I think Alvin Sargeant has written some of the most beautiful movies I've
ever seen, and he was a lovely man, and I thought, okay,
Alvin's sargeant. It's tying himself in knots and saying he has to give
the money back. Maybe that is not a glitch in the system, in
my system. Maybe that doesn't mean I don't belong here. If Alvin Sargent
has proceeded with that and done the work he's done, maybe it is in
fact an integral part of good work. So that was an early gift you
when you're writing, do you have the experience of sometimes being in that flow
where when you're done writing, you look at it and go, I don't
know who just wrote that, but that's fantastic. I don't look at my
work right when I write it that carefully. What I tend to do is
look at it the next morning, look at the prior day's work, and
usually I go over the prior a few days work before I start writing.
And it is kind of exciting when you look at something and you don't really
recognize it. It's pretty great. It does, and it's kind of like
what we all strive for is to have that that flow moment that you just
said, are there, and it just kind of goes do you, what
is your schedule like when you write? Do you actually have a time,
do you like, you know, like Eric Roth has, like this time
and understand I do. I've got a pretty set day, you know,
I've spent It's I'm actually just getting back into it now because I'm finishing post
on a movie I directed, But it is. I have a ridiculously early
wake up, but actually many writers I know have this week. I get
up at four thirty and make a cup of coffee. I work for well,
it used to be when when my kids were at home, I would
work for three hours, and then that was long enough to get into some
sort of roof so that I could, you know, go do the breakfast
thing, get folks off to school, okay, and come back and still
feel as if I was invested in work. Anything less than that, it
would be hard to get back into it. So I needed about three hours
to feel like, oh, I got to get back to work, you
know, And then I usually write till about midday ish, you know,
twelve one something like that, and then m and then you know, business
stuff emails fucking round. What happens in the afternoon, fair enough? So
let me let me ask you a very simple question, what what is it
about writing that you love? What keeps you? Because this is you know,
it's tough. Very early on in life, like as a kid,
I got this idea that this whole life thing was a massive rip off,
that you only got to live one of them, like there's there are infinite
numbers of This was before the notion of multi versus entered our consciousness. And
who knows, maybe that changes everything, but but I thought, it's just
a rip off. I only get to be me, and I don't get
to be that cowboy, and I don't get to be that, you know,
that sanitation worker, and I don't get to be that Like how is
that seems so unfair? Air? It just seemed like someone had presented a
massive boot, massive buffet and said you can have one shrimp and that's it,
you know, and so um, just imagining other existences started really really
early. And for a while I thought, uh, for a little while,
I thought I might be and I might go at it via acting um
and I did that for a little bit after school, but it just disposition
only the life didn't work for me, and and and I got I got
bored doing it, you know, I do a show two nights in a
row, and by the third night, I think I just did this,
Why am I doing it? So you're look really, I didn't have the
right mentality of you're looking abroad every night. Life on Broadways not for you.
It's basically no like anything more than a two night run. And I
was out very short career. Yeah, but then I was I was,
you know, fairly lost in life and didn't know what I was going to
do. Because I didn't I also thought I might be a journalist, which
is also another way to sort of gather up experience, and then that didn't
seem like the thing either, and then I just like, I moved to
San Francisco, which is what you do when you have no idea what you're
doing, because no one else there knew what they were doing either, and
I was really lonely. So I tried writing a script and I thought,
oh, oh this I could do. This, I could do for a
long time, like just keep creating a world over and over of my imagination.
Yeah, that's beautiful, that's really beautiful. It seems like you had
a thirst for life and this is the way you kind of suck the bone
marrow, the marrow out of the boat of life in many ways. Yeah,
yeah, I mean, I do think it's important to say they were
fairly torturous years finding that, you know. And I talk to a lot
of young people who sort of, you know, just just are hungry,
understandably hungry to figure out how to get to a place. And you really
have to go through some gnarly stuff to find out who you really want to
be. And and maybe they always want to say, listen to yourself,
maybe this will be what you want to be, but maybe something else will
come out of the blue, and be open to it. Keep your ears
open, because if I had just had like my nose to the grindstone with
acting, would have a very unhappy life, you know. So so you
know, the uncertainty and the fear and the panic and sleepless nights and all
that, I think they're important to pay attention to, and they can lead
you someplace good, you know, if you listen, If you listen,
that's the very key point there. Now you got a chance to to direct
the film, your first film, which is Catch and Release, which I
loved, by the way I saw that it's a fun, little wonderful little
wonderful little film. What was your biggest lesson directing, because I know you
directed a bit on television, but it's a bit different. Yeah, it's
a bit different. Well, really, it's my lesson from that film was
less about directing, although there are a bunch of those, and more about
being clear on the movie you're making. And Amy Pascal, that was a
Sony movie, and she and I have talked about it since then, But
that movie should have been a five million dollars soun dance movie. But she
gave me I think it was thirty million dollars to make the movie, and
and I kept thinking, I don't feel like a thirty million dollars movie.
But she's right in the check, so I'm not going to argue. And
then as we got close to shooting, it became clear, and I guess
we just hadn't spoken to each other clearly enough beforehand that she had expectations of
a kind of romantic comedy that I didn't think we're inherent in the script,
And so all during production we were trying to sort of pull it into something
that would hold on to what I loved and deliver on what she felt she
had bought and like I said, she and I have talked about it plenty
since then, and it has a lot of lovely little moments in it,
but I think we spent too much money on it, you know, And
so it has an ending that is sort of a classic romantic comedy ending,
which wasn't where we started, just trying to deliver on a sort of studio
product that it probably shouldn't have tried to be. So that's that's the lesson
there is, just be really clear upfront with what movie you're making with the
people who are giving you the money, because because eventually they're gonna want what
they bought exactly. And mean you driving to the set every day like rewriting
the ending way too much. But I had some great, great partners on
that I had. I was working with the cinematographer named John Linley, whom
I've worked with many times since then, and he made a bunch of movies
and every now and then I would just sidle over and say so and just
ask him a question. He always had a great answer. So when you're
reading the script when you're shooting a film, do you how can you tell
which scenes are not going to make it? In the final cut, and
he said to me, well, if it says flashback, And so since
then I've thought I put a very high bar on any flashback I used because
somebody who had made twenty movies before me, he said, he shot a
bunch of flashbacks that didn't make it in cuts. Why is that, you
know, just a lot of wisdom like that. We'll be right back after
a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show. Night shoots,
Yeah, night shoots, rainy night shoots. Try to get those out
of the script reproduction. Funny you should say that I have pictures of us
at night in just looking like drowned rats because we were in Vancouver. We'res
a ring constantly. But I really love all the performances in that. Oh.
I don't think everyone does a beautiful job. And I think I learned
also that I don't think um, I don't think I had fun doing it
for about the first half of the shoot. I think I was so intent
on being ready and prepared and professional and you know, successful at the job
that I that I forgot to have fun for a bit. And actually having
fun for me is a really important part of that job. It makes you
relaxed. It makes other people relaxed. It is a fun job. It's
an incredibly fun job, so it should be fun um and and you know,
relaxing. There's always a feeling I have at the beginning of any scene
of oh God, I hope it works, you know, before your shoot
the first yeah out of it, and and the play when it doesn't quite
and the play of finding finding that again that unexpected thing within it, and
it is really enjoyable, really enjoyable, really fun. So as directors,
you know, there's always that one day on set that you feel the entire
world's going to crash it down around you. Now, that should be every
day if you're doing your job right, but there's that one day that you
just like, I don't know if we're going to make it today. I
don't know if I'm gonna make my day. I don't know if I'm gonna
get this shot. You know, what was that day for you? And
how did you overcome it? On catching Lease? Yeah, you know.
I I'm going to preface this by saying that one of my I've heard it's
very good in terms of longevity, but one of my qualities is that I
do not remember bad stuff that well, oh oh god, no, I
can remember. There was this scene we were shooting that was supposed to be
the last scene, and you know, like I said, I just kept
trying to deliver an ending that would fit with the movie, and and we
ended up reshooting it because I knew it wasn't that good, and the actors
knew it wasn't that good. It wasn't what it should be, and none
of us were saying it out loud. We were just trying to deliver on
it and it was this like this big it just it was. It was.
It's that when you're the only thing that's uncomfortable is when you're doing something
you're trying to tell yourself it's working and it doesn't. So I stopped stopped
doing that. Then, yeah, that was that was a bad day,
did you But we got it? So yeah, when you go through When
you're going through that, though, it does take a certain level of confidence
within yourself in the skill set. You have to either say stop, this
is not working, we need to just stop it from here. But this
was your first big this is my first thing. I didn't know to do
that. I should I would do that beat now, absolutely, absolutely like
we're wasting film or wasting time. Let's just stop and figure out if this
is worth our while. Yeah, and on the set with an amazing casset
you have or where anytime you've directed, have you had to deal with opposing
opinions of what the story should be and having to fight, whether it be
crew members, whether it be studios, whether it be actors. How do
you overcome that as a director? Sometimes you do and sometimes you don't.
Right, you win, some of you other something and you know, look,
you have to accept that it's a collaborative, artful right, and you're
hiring people not just for their face and body, but for their inner life.
And and like I said with the when I was those two films before,
you never really know until you get into the sandbox with someone, if
they if you have the same idea of what you're building, you know,
um so, And sometimes it turns into something else that is different than what
you had in mind, but is but is really remarkable too. You know,
there was one performance and I won't name it, but the first couple
of days I was thinking, um, this is this feels really different than
what I had in mind. But she seems really committed to it. It
ended up being a fantastic performance. She won awards for it. It was
it was so you know, you have to leave yourself open to the idea
that your partner has a great idea, and it might be it might challenge
your idea and sometimes sometimes it makes it better, and you just have to
be alert to when it's not doing that. You know. Yes, I
think one of the themes of this conversation is listen to yourself, Listen to
the gut, Listen to you instincts for both both those sides, whether it's
something like I think this is going to go awry and crash into a wall,
or I feel there's something here. I don't know what it is.
Let me just step back a little bit and let's see what happens. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, I mean it's all you have, right, Everything
came from your gut. It's just and I I think that the conscious mind,
when it comes to creativity, is probably the least important element. You
know, I try to write. The reason I write when I write at
that hour is that I think I'm still kind of asleep. You know,
there's part of your sleeping brain that's still engaged, and I get my coffee
all set the night before, so I don't have to do much. I
can go pretty quickly from sleep to work because I think you're unconscious and you're
subconscious, are more alive at that time after before you've you know, made
lists and phone calls and cooked eggs and whatever else you're doing. This boring.
That's a very interesting thing though, because you're right, you're kind of
like in that in between sleep and awake stage. Your brain hasn't really turned
on yet, so it's not the noise of the crap that we have to
deal with. The voices in our head and all that stuff is a little
bit quieter, so you can kind of just tap into whatever that ether is
to get the ideas in the in the flow. Correct. Yeah, And
you also can convince yourself at four thirty in the morning that you're the only
person awake on the planet. You know, it feels like it's just you
and the moon, and you know, great, fantastic now. You also
you also you also worked on a little film called Charlie Its Web, which
is such a beautiful film. I mean, it's such a beautiful story.
How did you approach adapting literally one of the biggest classic children's classic books.
Ever, how do you approach that? Well, it's interesting because in the
beginning I spent a lot of time in Maine on the actual lake or eb
White wrote, so I'm very reverential of his work, and that work in
particular, and I thought, okay, straight up, faithful, loyal.
And I got about halfway through the script and I read it and it was
just dead. It was just flat and dead and lifeless. And I thought,
Okay, that's not gonna work. So I infused it with just with
just more life, and I thought, the book will exist as long as
human exists. This book will never go out to print. Everyone will read
it, love it. This has to different medium, it has to have
different um dimension to it. So I did that, and then I remember
what happened. It could have been that I went off to make catch and
release. At some point I ended up having to leave and carry. Kirkpatrick
came in, who's a wonderful writer and a very funny writer, and he
sort of, um, he brought a whole other, you know, element
to it as well. So um, so that's that's the thing. You
just can't feel like you are just typing the book I think it won't have
the life it needs. It's the same thing when you're writing a story about
a real person, you know you have to I the first time I did
it was with Aaron Brockovich, and I knew her and I really liked her
and really admired her, and I would start writing and I would think,
well, I'm not I'm not sure what she would do here. Maybe I
should ask Aaron. I'm not sure what she should do. And then I
thought, God, I feel like i'm writing with handcuffs on. So I
decided in my head there are two errands. There's the Aaron whom I really
enjoy and admire, and then there's the Aaron I'm writing, and they're totally
different. And I'm just going to trust that I know her well enough,
and I am not. I'm interested in just representing her truthfully. But that's
but it's but this one's mine, and I ended up with a much more
faithful representation of her than I would have had I not given myself that license.
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and now back
to the show. Yeah, and that's that is a mistake. I think
a lot of people who adapt do is the whether the real life person or
a real life story or a book, because I mean, I remember watching
The Godfather. Behind the scenes, I'm watching what Francis did with the book
and he just I mean, what he pulled out, what he wanted.
Yeah, yeah, he was he was constructing a blueprint and it was wonderful
to see his process. It was amazing. Yeah, but you really have
to be master and commander when you're writing something. You have to be it
has to be your world. You're in charge, nobody over you, it's
your And obviously then it goes into production and then you're making a film and
then other voices. But when you are writing that script, you have to
feel it's you're in charge and you're the ultimate authority on it. Now,
if you had a chance to go back and talk to that young film student
free pocahonas, what advice would you give her? Well, none, because
it worked out really well. So obviously if I had known more than maybe
I wouldn't have. Um, I don't know, you know, I used
to worry. I used to worry a lot about I mean, I would
you know, I would turn into script on Friday and I would be apoplectic
until Monday, and so I think, Um, I don't. I don't
do that anymore. Obviously, I want people to like my work always,
but I don't turn myself into you know, knots over it. Um And
I may trying to tell myself he's up a little, but I don't know.
Maybe that level of anxiety is what pushed me to make my work better
than it would have been otherwise. So I yeah, I wouldn't. I
wouldn't say anything different. I mean, you can't. I have no quibble
with how my life is going these days. And if every miserable step along
the way is what I needed to get here, I've take them. All.
You know, is it isn't that a great life lesson because a lot
of people want to avoid all the bad stuff. I'm but the bad stuff
will makes you grow. If the bad stuff is what makes you, gets
you to that place and also gives you character to be a better writer.
Yeah, and then when that's what you share, that's what people respond to.
You know. The whole point of these stories is for people to feel
seen, you know, people, for people just to make the world a
little less lonely. You know, people watch something and say, oh,
yeah, I feel that too. Maybe I'm not the only one who feels
that. Maybe I'm not the only one going to And you're not going to
You're not going to do that without living hard into the different difficulties of life,
you know, m the whole question. I'm gonna ask you a few
questions, ask all of my guests. What advice would you give a filmmaker
or screenwriter starting in the business today. I struggle with this one a bit
because the on ramps are different now than they were when I was starting.
You can make your own films so cheaply now, and so I would.
I would tell people to do that as much as possible, But the quality
of your work remains the same. Art on yourself. I don't mean punishing
of yourself on a personal level, but be demanding of your work. Set
your bar high. I do this thing at the end of every script,
when I think it's ready. I read it as if I were an actor
and I had a lot of options, and and I try to figure out,
if I have a lot of options, am I going to do this
one before all those other great options? And that is a That's a way
I hold my work to what I think is a higher standard. So I
would find those ways you can, and you can push yourself to make your
work as good as it can be, because nothing's worse than putting work out
there that isn't ready, that you could have made better, and then you're
just disappointed in yourself and you're not getting yourself where you want to be.
Do your best work. Do your best work. I mean rough and very
school marmie, But that's what my advice is. Now, what is the
lesson that took you the longest to learn, whether in the film industry or
in life. Oh golly, oh golly, I wish I'd paid attention to
these before we spoke. Um, I'm gonna have to come back to that
one. Well, hold, we'll hold it, We'll hold it, hold
it all right? Um? What is what did you learn from your biggest
failure That I can survive failure. That's a good lesson to learn. There
are worse things than failure. Honestly, it can be rough if you are
achieved and oriented and failure reverse. It can be painful, but that failure
is not death. Failure is often something you can learn a lot from.
It is the process is part of the process. You have to film it,
and if you win all the time, you learn nothing, and they're
great, there are there is gold in failure. It's painful, and it's
the other thing is that our work is public, so so failure is public,
and so you feel embarrassed and you know whatever, But there is real
gold in failure looking at something and say okay, well, then next time
I won't do that. And what are three screenplays that every screenwriter should read?
Okay? Well, first of all, every screenwriting logistical problem is solved
somewhere within the script of Tutsi. So yes, it's just what learn Tutsi.
When you hit a wall, think what did they do in Tutsi?
And you'll find some way that one of those I think it was six writers
figured out a logistical challenge. So Tutsie is a good one witness because it's
spectacular and it shows you how little dialogue you actually need um to make a
moment moment meaningful. Um gosh, it's hard. It's hard not to say
Godfather Part two? Right, got one and two? You could put them
put together? That's yes, and put one and two are considered the same
for me. Yeah, I mean you can't wal, I mean that's I
mean all, But then there are there are ones that I just adore.
You know, all the President's Men. Every scene forces you into the next
scene. There's no point you can't drop into All the President's Men and not
stay till the end. It is the most propulsive movie. And to look
at that and think how did they do that? Fantastic. And then there's
I'm good, I'm giving you more than three Please go for Running on Empty
by Naomi Phoner. Yeah, just the most beautiful movie. And it's a
great opening. You meet River Phoenix and he's playing little league baseball. And
this is a guy who is not attached to anything because his family for those
people, his family is on the run, and he can't really play baseball
because he's never been part of it, but he's playing anyway. And someone
says to him. I'm not going to quote it accurately, but one of
the first lines he says. Someone says to him, why do you even
play? And he says, baseball is my life. And it's the most
wonderful first line for a character because in that moment with this guy who has
not been allowed to put down roots anywhere, in that moment, baseball is
his life, and it's it's it's shallow and he's It's such a great first
character introduction. So that's another one too. I could go on all day,
but well I'm in Chinatown. Network Shaw Shank, I mean, you
can just keep going. Network is the movie that got me into movies.
I should have said that one? Is that? How about Nashville Altman?
I mean, I mean the play. I love the player. I just
love watching the player. They don't do those pitches. They don't, of
course, they don't do those pitch sessions anymore like they do than the player.
Do they I think they do, but they don't buy pitches as much
as they used to. No, they don't. They don't. Well,
it depends on who you are. I mean think they probably not like that
anymore. Yeah, those those and let me ask you the days of like
the nineties of Shane Black days and the Joe Esterhouse days where they were just
dropping two mil, three mil, four mil, five mil on on spec
scripts, those days are pretty much they are gone. I think spec script
can still do really well still. Yeah, there's still there's a million,
two million, but they're rarer. Before it was just like water. Yeah,
I feel like I had this theory in the first couple decades of doing
this that there was it was what I called the pile of stupid money,
and it moved. And when I first started, the pile of stupid money
was all in specs, in film specs, right, and it was just
like I don't know where the money was coming from, but it was massive
amounts for And then the pile of stupid money moved into TV overall deals and
they was just the crazy overall I mean, I'm sure that for a while
there that it was some yeah, actress had actors, actors, actors had
network deals like overall looked deals. I don't know. I think I think
those piles of stupid money might be disappearing in the corporate conglomeration of our business.
I mean I looked a little harder at their spreadsheets than I was when
I had. I had somebody who worked who was the president of Richard Donner's
company back in the eighties. Can you imagine we'll be right back after a
word from our sponsor and now back to the show, And he's like,
I was there ten years, and I go, what was it like working
with Dick on some of these projects, and he's like, this is how
it would go. He would read the script he got Lethal Weapon, he
read it, he said, I want to make this movie. He'd call
up the president of Warners. He goes, I got a script, I
want to make it, and the president of Warners goes poll and no discussion
of money. Whatever Dick wanted Dick got. It's like and never like,
oh, you only can make it for thirty and but he was very responsible.
He was a hit maker. Yea, and he and he had delivered
consistently, right, and he's Richard Donner for got six So that was and
I'm like, legals, Yeah, that's when filmmakers run ran the studios.
Yeah, yeah, they don't mountain as much. You read the Mike Nichols
Oh My biography, and every time they got to the discussion of the catering
table. It's a very detailed and beautiful biography. But I would think,
man, you could not, like, I can't imagine getting that catering budgetness.
Was it that extravagant? Oh? He had the most spectacular catering really,
lobster and sushi every day? Yeah, absolutely nothing but the best um
and and last question three of your favorite films. Oh well, I said
them. Um uh, Rocky right up there. I adore Rocky. And
there's a bad scene in Rocky. There isn't a bad scene in Ordinary People.
That movie is just perfect and brilliant. Um, I'm going for I'm
going for the unexpected ones like look, I love all that. I love
all the movies everyone loves. Um, but but My Little Secret Treasures,
I think, truly, madly, deeply is an incredible I love that film
of a film. Alan Rick, Oh God, bless his heart. Yeah
yeah he was, Yeah, he was a l Yeah yeah he was in
that movie, wasn't he. Yeah yeah, of course, yeah, yeah,
yeah, such a great film. Um, you know I mentioned Running
on Empty and Witness and um uh the way we were is it's just so
beautifully written. There's a screenplay. There's an unconventional screenplay the first time.
Yeah, I don't know how long it is. Maybe it's the first twenty
minutes or flashback incredible, great, maybe it's more. I mean, if
you want to talk about you know, and I'm gonna I'm gonna pat you
in the back here for a second. I mean the introduction to Aaron and
Aaron Brockovich it's it's I mean, I've had people who are teachers of screenwriting
who teach that scene as a beautiful, almost perfect in introduction to a character
because you learn so much about her in a short period of time. It
is condensed, it is wonderful, it is comedic, you feel for,
you connect with because if that scene doesn't work, get done. Yeah,
yeah, Julian Robberts, guess what that scenes? Well, there's the right
exactly. But you know there's also um I like when movies do are that's
thank you for saying that, But there's also In Silkwood, one of the
first things, you know, one of the hardest, one of the gnarly
things to do, is name all your characters, right, like everybody knows
who everyone is, you know, without saying hey Bill. And early on
in Silkwood, they pull up to the the um Kermagie entrance and they're all
car pooling, and they lean out the window and say their name so they
can get into work. It's fantastic. It's just you set it up.
It's done, it's perfect. Yes, yes, And then here's a really
good one. Okay, Dog Day Afternoon, Oh so good. Frank Pearson
came to A five when I was there and he showed that movie. He
talked about it, and he talked about the very beginning and you know,
he comes in and he takes the gun out of the flower box and it
gets all messed up, and it's very early on, and he was talking
about that scene and he said, the important thing to do was tell the
audience you can laugh in this movie. And I had to tell them right
up front. And it does that, it says because if you hadn't had
that, if you got well into what happens in that bank and then expected
people to laugh, they wouldn't have done it. So that's a good that's
a good little lesson there too. Yeah, because that's a slightly intense film.
Yeah. Yeah, but you feel free to laugh when you can because
he said right up front, go ahead. You know, Susanna, I
can keep talking to me for hours. I appreciate you coming on the show
so much. Thank you so much for being on the show, for the
amazing work you've done throughout your career and continuing to be an inspiration to so
many screenwriters out there. My dear, so thank you, thank you,
Alex. It's very nice to talk to you. You have a great day.
I want to thank Susanna so much for coming on the show and dropping
her knowledge bombs on all of us. Thank you so much, Susanna.
If you want to get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
head over to the show notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv for its clash three
hundred and I want to take a small moment to thank everybody who's been listening
for these last three hundred episodes. It is a milestone and I really really
appreciate all the support. We plan to continue to bring you amazing conversations.
We actually have a few in the pipeline, so get ready for a few
more really really awesome conversations coming up soon. But I just want to say
humbly and wholeheartedly thank you so much for allowing me to continue to do this
kind of work and bring these amazing conversations to the screenwriting audience and filmmaking audience.
Thank you again so much, guys, as always, keep on writing
no matter what. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to the
Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv.