Writing Action and Emotional Release

David, thank you so much for joining the podcast. I'm delighted to be here. What an honor. I have so much I want to talk to you about.'s start. You're an amazing director, obviously, an amazing writer, and I want to dive into the art of screenwriting. And I think I started this podcast as to hope and help audiences understand all the decisions that people make in film to get these stories to the screen. And screenwriting is obviously such an important part of that and a pivotal part of it. But your journey as a film lover Growing up, I mean, this is a movie disclosure day that people are going to experience in theaters and they're going to have a pivotal theatrical experience that they're going to remember forever. As a kid growing up, what was that one for you that made you understand how important the theatrical experience is? One of my first memories ever is seeing Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid at the Picks Theater in Waucashae, Wisconsin I would have been five. so it's around the time when your first memory occurs.. And of course the moment I remember is they jump off the cliff and say shit on the way down. and you it's pretty remarkable they say shit. But so many so many of my childhood memories revolve around movies K kindind of always my thing. So in terms of formative stuff, the things that really stuck with me and I can picture myself there to this day were one was watching notorious with my mother on TV. She said you have to stay up late tonight because this movie's on. You know, it started at like ten or something I had school and she was like, doesn't matteray appointment TV and this appointment TV. Yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah. So I can picture myself there. I was probably nine years old And I remember when I was thirteen No twelve I was not allowed to see jaws because it was too scary and we lived on a lake and they thought never be the same. So I rode my bike into Pewaukee, Wisconsin and I told him I was doing something else and went to the Lake Theater with my friend and saw Jaws and I never swam in the lake the same way again. Even though I know it's a lake, there's no sharks there. Yeah. I became really aware of a director and a writer Because before then they' experiences that are washing over. You don't imagine people made them. probablyably Altered states Certainly Star Wars, but even more so the Empire strikes back. And then Raiders of the Lost Arark, which I would have been eighteen. And I remember thinking in Raiders of the Lost Arark for the first time If somebody wrote this and I can picture them writing it. And then that's when I started to think poss do that So It's fascinating to think about the end of Raererss Lost Arc. It's a government secret being put away from the public. Yeah. It's kind of an interesting idea to think about. That's interesting about the pivotal screenplays because screenwriting is so interesting. Do you remember a line of dialogue that struck you as kind of in this same question of pivotal experiences How powerful a line can be. What is a quote that meant a lot to you from a dialogue perspective? Well, two things come to mind immediately as you say that. Watching the Godfather also on television because I was young and so when it came around before it did, I remember I'm going to make him an offer. he can't refuse Because it was such quiet menace. and it was said so charmingly by a father figure. And what's wrong with that? It must be a wonderful offer if it's an offer. you can't refuse that. But of course it you it's nothing but menace. Nan I remember thinking, oh, really that's really scary. When you say something that seems friendly and it's scary. And the other wasn't a line, but it was in Raiders And it was it was an action. and of course it's the moment when you know the guy with the cimitar has an enormous introduction.. They're supposed to have a big bull whipon scimitar fight, and of course Iy pulls his gun out and shoots him. And which is a great story, by the way. Yeah the behind that. It happened because he was sick. but it's boy' movie making, problem solving, its finest, happppy accident. But what struck me about it was That was I think why I thought, oh, this is writing. Someone built me up to expect X and then they delivered Y I didn't know the term at the time, but that's a reversal of my expectation in a major way. And that is really funny and enormously satisfying because I didn't expect it. And so I think more than any line of dialogue, that A style of storytelling, creating an expectation and then reversing it really had an impact on. Forgive me if I'm wrong I'm projecting on this, but I remember seeing Sam Ay Spider Man and you kind of have a buildup of a line read it real quick, I missed the part where that's my problem. that comes back around from another part of the script And I just always thought that was an interesting way. Is that kind of where that comes from in terms of like building out a line? Well, we're constantly setting up things and then calling them back. It's satisfying. They're satisfying in comedy, a good callback, and they're satisfying thematically. Yeah. Repetition is one of the strongest tools in our box. Ideally the repetition the repetition can reinforce something or ideally the repetition adds a new layer of meaning to what you were saying. It's absolutely incredible. I wanted to to discuss It's the same in music Repetition And we're back to the theme. or you knows there's motifs. Yeah, exactly. To speak about that a little bit more if you don't mind in terms of like building up lines that do kind of come back and story points that come back, like you're building things and you're trusting in us as the audience to collaborate with your screenplay. You're not spoonfeeding us We are part of the experience. We collaborate. Can you speak about your writing process and understanding that the audience is smart? L you're one of the best screenwriters in the world because you trust your audience. And every time I watch one of your films, I don't feel like I'm being spoken down to. So I was wondering if you could speak to your relationship and your mind of the audience while you're writing Anyim Well, my relationship with the audience is my relationship with myself as an audience member because I can't It's too hard to project into what other people might want, and then you end up chasing the parade instead of leading it. I always picture myself in the AMC theater on sixty eighth in Broadway at one o'clock in the afternoon with a burrito. favorite way to see any movie ever. What kind of burrito? I need to know the specifics of this? Well, it depends. I'm glad you ask. Y. I'd really like a beef burrito, but you can't do that too often. So know occasionally the veggie burrito from Ilmatote is Okay. I I'm a little bit different too because I like the beef, but then I'm like, I probably should have chicken and stay away from the red meat a little bit. probablyrobably. But the burrit So that's your movie theater food in a way. Well It's the best way to have wine. burritos are a little messy though. they can be. That's why it's great if there's not that many people around you. And you certainly can't eat pretzels. I tried that once and then I realized, oh, I see why you don't eat pretzels at a movie really I learned that in quiet place Krzinski's movie when they I'm sitting they're like chomping on my not shows and like everybody can hear me chewing right now. L it's kind like it kind of made me feel like I was like everyone was looking at me or something like that.. You have Well, so I have my relationship is with myself and watching a movie. And I know that as an audience member, something is infinitely more powerful if A there's A plus B, and then I am left to conclude C. And it goes back to obviously the The Kulushev the Russian you know experiments with film where he shot an actor's face. and he said, just make that face for a while And he kept it exactly the same. And then he intercut it with various things, like a bowl of soup. Everybody thought, Ohh he's hungry. A baby, they thought, Oh he loves the baby. A dead person. Oh, he's so sad. So we're creating something in the viewer's mind That is the C part of the equation which is the strongest part. And if you do that I as an audience member, I am really grateful. I am now involved in your film not just here as a an absorber of sensation I am participating in your movie and that's better. I remember I had a screenwriting professor in college, Richard Walter at UCLA who used to tell a story about Billy Wilder Wilder was working with a writer And said I need a scene that shows that this marriage, these people are like fifty years old, they have been together a long time, that it' the marriage has gone stale So that's what we need to see here before we go to the blah blble So the writer comes in with four or five pages of dialogue an argument that starts in their apartment. They go down the hall, they get in the elevator They argue all the way down in the elevator, then they go out in the lobby, they are still arguing and then they go off down the street And Wilder said, I hate it. Here's why. I have to shoot an apartment, a hallway, an elevator, a lobby and a street No thanks. And it's five pages of them just arguing with each other. I hate them S Do this instead They're waiting for the elevator Right Mh you know, they're going out for the night The elevator opens, they get on. The guy's wearing a hat because it's the for so he's wearing a hat He keeps his hat on in the elevator, which is rude. Everybody would have known it then. we don't remember that Then the elevator stops halfway down, and an attractive young woman gets on And the guy takes off his hat. And his wife looks at him. Oh wow. whole scene U smart. Yeah. I was left to conclude o, I know what's up here. You have an amazing career in terms of adaptations, but also original screenplays. But is there a bigger difference that maybe I'm missing in terms of like the process you take? I find originals a bit easier. Interesting because they were conceived in my brain, so there I have some sort of personal connection or experience with it. And they were conceived as movies So they're inherently expressed as movies. Interesting, which are You know, movies convey what a character says or what a character does. Or what a character sees? That's about it Those are and that's not a great many tools An adaptation is coming from another form most often a book So but if you look at what what kind of medium is a novel It's about What's it about? It's about what a character feels. It's about what they think None of which you can put in a movie the way you do in a novel. So it's inherently internal. Even books that are written as thrillers or chases or whatever, they're still largely about what the character is thinking and doing, certainly some more than others, but their books are massively internal. moovies are completely external. I remember Bill William Goldman saying about Marathon manan. He'd written the book and then he went to adapt the script And he found his he didn't realize how massively internal his book was h, in terms of, you know meaning in a character's m until he started adapting it, and you realized the only purely external scene in the movie was cell in the diamond district where he's walking around try trying to get his diamonds appraised and is spotted by a woman who's a survivor of the camps That scene was movie ready. everythingthing else he felt had to be completely reimagined. I mean, it's just a fascinating process. and then For you as a screenwriter, I have to imagine all the different directors, I mean, I think about Dipalma, that opening of snake eyes is one of my favorite winners of all time Is that written as a woner? It wasn't originally. What? I mean, this if people haven't seen Snake Eyes, the one the opening of that, it was mind blowing. So like what was that on the page versus what D Palma did? The events We were almost exactly the same. And I think then that was likeike Classic collaboration. Brian read it and said Gee, this is unified, nearly unified in time and place. U I could probably do this as a wner But I can't because're obviously you're cutting from there to over there, to over there, to over there. He said, Can you rewrite it so that I can do it as a wner? I said, I don't think so. He said, give it a shot. What was that rewriting? Did you do it? Yeah, I did. I rewrote it into the version that exists in the film. It was fine. Okay, I'll move this guy over here and maybe he runs into that guy there and maybe, you know there was just a lot of craft, but that's the That's why it's fun to work with a director and why if I direct I've really enjoyed having my friend John Campps work with me sometimes. Sometimes it's just me writing and directing and it gets quite lonely. Triggeract is incredible. Oh, thanks But what's great about working with the director is there's a dynamism. I never would have said that because I only would have thought it I would have only thought about that sequence the way I originally conceived it. But a director comes in and a good director doesn't just record what you wrote, they interpret it And so they may say something like Make that first fifteen pages of water. You know, I was looking at all the filmmakers that you've written for. I mean Fincher on Panic Room, Sam Ramy, all of these filmmakers have completely different voices, but you are a singular voice as a screenwiter. So as you were just saying just now, they interpret your material in the way that they do I'm interested to know like the difference in your viewing experience, just like on a personal level, when you see these different filmmakers interpreting your words. and like is there a difference between the way Spielberg interprets it in your head versus the way Fincher interpreted it or the way Sam, I know they're different general, but what do you notice what are you noticing as the screenwriter that they're doing differently Oh. What's interesting is first of all, the interpretation process starts as you're writing it. if you know who the director is. Do you generally know Like if you knew Finch was going to do panic Rom? No. Oh, no, I didn't know and then I rewrote it with him. but was that was written before he came on. sameame with Spider Man. Um The movies I've done recently, I did three movies with Stehven Soderberg and pretty much everything well, everything I've done with Spielberg, I've known the director from et. from the first moment. Okay. So the process of them interpreting your script begins the moment you know who they are because you are You're not self censoring But you can't You can't op if they have a distinctive personality, which all these guys do, even if they're chameleons You know who they are and what they're going to respond to and what they're going to do well and what they're going to like And you start thinking along those lines. So I start writing it Not even consciously, but as a Steven Soderberg movie or as a Steven Spielberg movie. In their like the way you would think they would do it. The stuff I think they that they will respond to interesterest. For Soderberg Goves talk about audience participation He likes things to be subtle, borderline oblique occasionally, which he finds respects the audience's intelligence and has them lean into it, which it does. So whereas I might write something more overtly if I was writing it for myself, a little more I'm a lo cjer if I'm writing for Soderberg because And again, I'm not thinking that. it just happens that way. Interesting because you know who you're working with So fascinating. This might be a strange question, but I would want to know this. The characters in this film Disclosure day, every one of them feels fully realized. There's I could watch a movie just based on all their lives. And I read something in the press rease, which fascinated me is that you wrote kind of drafts that were from the perspective of their characters as if they went through the whole story themselves, which I find really interesting. First and last names of characters are interesting to me. And I'm always wondering how you come up with that because it gives us a lived in experience of who that person is. we get a name, we can kind of maybe figure out who their family might be and where does that name come from In this film, you have characters with first and last names. and obviously it's not like a new thing, but it is interesting when I look at the names or I hear the names. Talk about first and last names. Like you could just write John, Kevin Bob, David, but you like where do those come from I change them a lot until you settle on the one that really feels right. Steven he wrote the treatment for this movie and Emily Blunt's character was named Margaret And that is my mother's name And my mother who since passed away. And Eve Hstson's character was named Jane That is myother'siddle name And I thought, well, I'm obviously keeping Margaret and Jane. Wha. How do I close the loop here? My mother's last name was her maiden name was Fairfield I can't put her real whole name in the movie, so I changed it to Fairchild which People always used to get her name wrong and call her Fair childild. So Margaret Fairchild Just it seemed like Kismet, like this is supposed to happen this way U Daniel Kellner H had a different name in the treatment. Daniel was a you know it was a biblical character who seemed to suit he I can't remember what did Daniel do? We all know he went in the lineesan and he was very kind. but anyway, Daniel seemed to suit what he was doing and who he was, But Kellner, you know, you go through a lot of last names. Kellner is someone who makes announcements, you know, the so that's or rings a bell and that seemed to have a nice, know, metaphorical or literal application to what he was trying to do in the movie. Are there other names in the films that you've written over the years that stick out to you that have personal connections like that? Sure. Yeah, you mentioned Matthew K, All right. No, I'm sorry, you mentioned the trigger effect the first movie I directed The lead character in that Kyle McLaughlan's character has a certain similarities with me and certain things that I've done and things that I was worried about at the time. I was a new father in my mid thirties and I was worried about all sorts of things like babies and how do we take care of these things and what if society falls apart? , you know, like how am I am I suitably masculine, you know, like all those things you worry about as a young man. So I named him Matthew because the short version of Matthew is Matt and he's Dormat. and you know like he's worried about that about being Dormat, which he is for the first half of the movie. Kay, my last name starts with Kay. So going from Franz Kafka's tradition of just giving people a Joseph K would be his last name. and I read a lot of Kafka back then.. So that's why he's named K. That's so amazing. I think about a lot of famous movie lines in history hold on into your butts, obviously, like a line that which I stole from Bob Zemechis. What? Yeah, thanks, Bob Wait wait, when you stole? Well, we were working on Death Becomes her that movie at the time when I was writing Jurassic Park. And it was in post and we'd done reshoots because the ending didn't quite work the way we wanted. so we'd shot a new ending And we were sitting down in the a screening room to watch the Dailies, and it was really going to be the last chance because you know, the movie was going to come out So If these daies weren't good We couldn't use the new ending. So there was a sense of anxiety. And as the lights went down, Bob said, hold on to your butts. And I went back to my office that afternoon and wrote it into the Jurassic Park script because I liked it so much. When you see an actor then deliver the line, like Sam Jackson, what does the I ask this to musicians sometimes. when they go out and play live shows, I would imagine the audience gives something back to them that they didn't know that they were even intending for it because of the way our lived lives take in art. When you see people like characters deliver lines like that, I'm curious about your emotional response to it and what does it elevate the line? Does it give you a different sense of what the line meant? And are there lines you've written that were said in a movie that were almost intentionally different than what you'd originally written it for? Oh, they're different all the time Yeah. And sometimes they work better and sometimes to my mind They don't work as they could. What's one that worked better? I'll tell you who's pretty good at reading lines is Al Pacino, surprisingly. D decent actor, Al Pacino. not bad. Yeah yeah. In Carlito's Way, which a movie from the nineties that I wrote and based on these great Edwin Toreres's novels But Pino Poma. That was our first movie together. Pacino spins the line in a way that is unexpected and better than you imagine because it feels real and lived in. I used to be that I was young at that time And I used to be quite particular about the actors saying exactly the words I wrote and I'd get snippy if they changed them. And he at one point took me as side and said, you know, you got to lighten up a lot of good stuff comes out at the last minute. And he's right and a lot of good stuff did. And there's probably one of the lines that's most quoted from that movie is when he yells, here comes the pain That's him. It just came out. And we liked it so much, Brian and I put it in Snake Eyes as well. So I like to think that even when the great line comes out because the actor thought of it at the last second or came in that day thinking about it and said it It's still you're still part of that process. You created the climate in which that came out. So I no longer find that diminishes me. It enriches all of us. Yeah, it's remarkable to think like the happy accents that come out, but it's coming from the inspiration of the script they've read and they're comfortable in the material. so that they know the character well We're collaborating. That's collaboration. That's how it's supposed to work. I create this, you add that. I go, wow, that's great. and then maybe I think of something else too. What was the first time you saw an actor inhabit a character that you created and wrote and saw them become that person that you had put put on the page? Well, in an interesting bookend, Colin Furth in Apartment Zero. Oh wow. It was the first movie Rogue at co wrote with director Martin Donovan for his idea. But we'd created this character, Adrian Leduke, who was a very particular person And u You know, an oddball. And Colin came in and played him. I think Colin was maybe twenty six. I was twenty four. It was my first movie maybe his third. he really became that guy. the way he moved, the way he dressed, the way he spoke And it just I'd come up acting a lot. I acted in high school and college, and I'd been around a lot of actors and I'd written plays and you know, but Certainly, he was the best actor I'd ever seen in person. And to this day, I marvel at their ability to become somebody else. And you realize when you hang around actors a little and talk to them, it's years of observing and filing away stuff and thinking I might use that someday that might apply to so and so. But then it's also slipping so thoroughly into the skin that stuff just comes out stuff you didn't plan. I remember in apartment zero His mother has dementia, it's very upsetting to him as a character And she's starts shouting in a room in a hospital and he goes to the door And u he pushes to get out of the room because he's desperate to get out of there and it won't open and he starts pounding on it and then he realizes, o no I have to open it. I have to pull it. And he pulls it and that was not scripted. that was just coming out of exactly being in the right headspace. It's so interesting to me. One of the things I find really interesting is how you write action. This movie is relentless. L it just opens and you are in it. And like the way Kaminsky and Spielberg shot this, I mean, you feel like you want to put a seatbelt on when you get into the car with Josh as he into the car. like I'm strapping in before that insane oneoner that takes place as he crashes into the house The train sequence is one of the most incredible sequences I've seen in film in a long time. I can't wait to see that at home Yeah because I want to watch it with the sound off. because it's so peccably directed. Yes. that is that is Action filmaking at a level that's hard for me to conceive of And when you're watching it with the sound, you're in the totality of it. I just want to see the shots. That's kind of what I wanted to ask, because to me, that scene is brilliant because it's tension and release. So without ging too much away, after that scene takes place, we get into a car, the train car with Emily and Josh I was breathing with her to slow her down and Can you speak about the writing of the action and then the emotional beat of release that you give us and Spielberg, obviously, How does that look on the page Well, Those yes two twoo subjects there.. The first one, how the action looks on the page. I'm glad you asked that, Kevin Um becausecause I spend a great deal of time on that and I think all screenwriters should. Yeah Our primary responsibility is to create in the reader's mind the experience of watching a movie If a movie is meant to start moving faster They better be turning the pages faster So thin it out Don't over describe be specific about what happens in your action Re spend the time on the thing. donon't phone in a chase and figure the directoral figure it out. You have to figure it out completely first in ways that obey physical reality and can cut well and everything is solved Then the director will get it and have a whole bunch of notes and you'll have to change it and that's too bad. But you'll stay late that night. It's still a good job. It's also a very personal scene for Spielberg after all these years to have that train scene play in his movies. Yeah I didn' back off, but I wanted to reference that. But in the writing of the script, the way those words appear on the page and the way you're getting the reader's eye to flow is vital You can't can't overlook how important the action writing is So to get the second part of your question tension and release. The release of the action sequence is when the road curves away And you know, they escape the bad guy. Yeah, right And I'm not giving too away to say that they escaped the bad guy. Otherwise they'd be dead. So That is the traditional release and that is how it was in early drafts of the script Stehven said because he's so relentlessly attuned to emotional reality. And he always thinks about, what's this like for the character emotionally said We need a scene after it. They've just been through The most harrowing thing that's ever happened to them in their entire lives. That's a moment of great emotional vulnerability Let's write about that. So there's a second release just as harrowing. There's a second scene just as harrowing, I think is the chase. I agree. That leads to the true emotional release. Yeah. And that's just because you He's