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Script Apart

Script Apart

A podcast about the first-draft secrets behind great movies and TV shows. Each episode, the screenwriter behind a beloved film shares with us their initial screenplay for that movie. We then talk through what changed, what didn?t and why on its journey to the big screen. Hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek.

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Script Club: Children of Men with Carmen Maria Machado (Her Body and Other Parties)

Welcome to another Script Club episode of Script Apart, in which storytellers we admire pick a film or show they love and talk about why it's special. Today, revered Folio Prize-winning author Carmen Maria Machado (Her Body and Other Parties, In The Dream House) breaks down the dystopian delights of Alfonso Cuarón's Children Of Men, co-written with Timothy J. Sexton, David Arata, Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby.

Based on a 1992 novel by P.D James, this 2006 action thriller forecast a Britain in the mid-2020s on the verge of collapse, governed by a party waging a cruel war on asylum seekers as a distraction from its problems. The UK may not currently be staring down a fertility crisis like the one depicted in Cuarón's film, but Children Of Men was, in other ways, eerily ahead of its time in some of its predictions.

In the spoiler conversation you're about to hear, Carmen shares what she finds so impactful about the tale, and the influence it has had on stories of her own, such as 2017's chilling Inventory.  Carmen is one of Al's favourite working writers, and someone whose work has been a north star in his own fiction, so we were delighted to have her on the show, breaking down a drama that only grows more relevant with each passing year.

** COME TO OUR FOURTH BIRTHDAY LIVE SHOW! Script Apart presents Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa with Neil and Rob Gibbons at Picturehouse Central, London ? March 11th **

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek.  Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft and WeScreenplay.

To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.

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2024-03-04
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Expats with Lulu Wang

?We are what we survive.? That?s the message of Expats, the powerful new limited series from our guest this week, Lulu Wang. Lulu is a writer-director whose stories are unflinchingly intimate portraits of characters captivatingly full of contradictions. In this show, adapted from a novel by Janice Y.K. Lee, those characters are three women, different in age, class, personal circumstance and relationship to motherhood, who become linked by an unthinkable tragedy. These women?s stories combine to tell a tale of grief and privilege in a modern day Hong Kong battered by typhoon weather and simmering political dissent. And they do so movingly.

Lulu till now has been best known as the writer-director of 2019?s The Farewell, based on a radio story she wrote in 2016 for This American Life, about her own Chinese-American immigrant family. This follow-up to that breakout hit sounds like from the outset some kind of thriller: Nicole Kidman plays Margaret, an American living in Hong Kong whose youngest son disappears at a night market. Instead of a pulse-pounding pursuit, full of cops, clues and criminals like most abduction dramas, Expats instead unfolds at a meditative, mournful pace, against the backdrop of the 2014 Umbrella Movement protests in Hong Kong.

In the spoiler conversation you?re about to hear, celebrating the magnificent finale that dropped today, Lulu discusses about what happened to Margaret's child Gus, why the show refused to give an explanation for his disappearance and instead prioritised what it means to grieve; how grief doesn?t shrink, leaving us instead to grow around it.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft and WeScreenplay.

To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.

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2024-02-23
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How To Have Sex with Molly Manning Walker

Today on Script Apart, we're heading to Malia with Molly Manning Walker, writer-director of How To Have Sex. Since wowing audiences at Cannes last summer, the sun-sea-and-consent drama has proved a box office hit, been hailed as one of the strongest feature debuts by a British filmmaker in recent year and sparked long-overdue, nuanced conversations about the attitudes towards sex that young people inherit. The film  tells the tale of Tara, a sixteen-year-old played by Mia McKenna-Bruce, on a rite-of-passage summer holiday blowout with friends while she awaits school exam results. What begins as a sun-soaked adventure, full of borrowed hair straighteners, karaoke and bright-blue-coloured cocktails, soon becomes something bleaker when the girls meet a group of lads in the holiday rental apartment opposite them. Amid the thumping music and blinding lights of Malia?s club scene, a taboo-shattering expose of everything wrong with the way teenagers are encouraged to view sex unfolds ? and it's absolutely heartbreaking.

Molly wrote the film while revisiting memories of going on a number of clubbing holidays herself between sixteen and eighteen, and realising what little room there was for discussion about the pressuring sexual elements of those trips and the harrowing experiences they can result in. When she was the victim of a sexual assault at age sixteen, she remembers ?wanting to talk about it. But I?d walk into rooms and it would suck the air out of the room. How are people supposed to move on if no one?s allowed to talk about it?? How To Have Sex is a movie that does to talk about it ? and does so movingly without ever lurching into lecturing or sentimentality.

In the spoiler-filled interview you?re about to hear, Molly break down key scenes from the film, including the heart-wrenching final exchange in the airport between Tara and Skye ? what isn?t being said in that moment, and why. We talk about what she?s learned about how global the problems depicted in How To Have Sex are by the response to film beyond Britain ? and how working on this film at the same time as Scrapper, Charlotte Regan?s brilliant surrealist comedy set out on a UK council estate ? taught her about the necessity of female coming-of-age stories.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Magic Mind and WeScreenplay.

To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.

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2024-02-09
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American Fiction with Cord Jefferson

American Fiction is two films at once ? a farcical comedy take-down of white gatekeepers who only want one type of Black storytelling and a beautifully tender drama that underlines the richness possible when filmmakers of colour are allowed to operate outside of the boxes they?re often put in. Written and directed by Cord Jefferson, whose past writing credits include work on Succession, The Good Place and Damon Lindelof?s Watchmen TV adaptation, the film tells the tale of Monk, a frustrated academic played by Jeffrey Wright, who becomes an accidental literary sensation when a manuscript he writes as a joke, perpetuating Black stereotypes, becomes a best-seller. There?s sensitivity beneath the scathing satire of that premise, however: American Fiction is a movie that reels you in with its funny premise, then moves you to tears with its elegant portrait of a family as they search for meaning in grief and growing older.

In this spoiler conversation, Cord tells Al what struck him about Erasure, the 2001 novel by Percival Everett that American Fiction is an adaptation of. We get into the personal experiences that helped him relate powerfully to Percival?s story ? and what inspired the changes from page to screen, such as the omission of a storyline involving a murder by an abortion protestor. Listen out, also, for what Cord has to say about the film?s meta ending and the symbolism behind the enigmatic image that closes the film. 

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Magic Mind, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.

To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.

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2024-02-06
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The Holdovers with David Hemingson

Alienation, abandonment and dislocated shoulders: not really your usual ingredients for a tender festive heart-warmer. But then again, The Holdovers ? unequivocally one of our favourite films of the last twelve months ? isn?t your average Christmas movie. Directed by Alexander Payne and written by our guest today, the brilliant David Hemingson, it's a drama steeped in the pain of reaching the so-called ?most wonderful time of the year? and feeling nothing but loneliness.

The film tells the story of three loners thrown together by circumstance over the  Christmas break at a New England boarding school, each disillusioned with a world that doesn't seem to want them. They have their differences. One ? Paul, played by Paul Giamatti ? is a miserly middle-aged academic with an odour problem. Another ? Angus, played by newcomer Dominic Sessa ? is a brash student of his, on the brink of being sent to military school. The third and possible heartbeat of the movie, Da'Vine Joy Randolph's Mary Lamb, is their school cook ? a woman who recently lost everything. These characters find a richness in each other that's uplifting without ever feeling schmaltzy or sentimental. It's a staggeringly beautiful film.

In the spoiler conversation you're about to hear, David tells us about Uncle Earl, the real-life family member he based the character Paul on. You'll hear how his first draft involved a woman Paul used to date with porcelain fingers, after injuring her hand in a car accident. We also spend some time debating the words "not for ourselves alone are we born" ? the lesson, if there is one, of The Holdovers, and a mantra we could all doing with reminding ourselves of more in our fragmented 2024.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, MUBI, Magic Mind, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.

To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.

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2024-02-01
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All Of Us Strangers with Andrew Haigh

This week we're joined by writer-director Andrew Haigh, whose new metaphysical drama All Of Us Strangers is a bruise in movie form: all swirling blue and purple hues, symbolic of hurt and longing to heal. The film tells the tale of a quiet screenwriter named Adam, played by Andrew Scott, who lives in a lonely London tower block, divorced from the world. His only neighbour is Harry, played by Paul Mescal, who one night makes a drunken move on Adam, only to be turned down. Instead, we follow Adam as he boards a train and visits his childhood home. The unexpected reunion that follows takes the film on a dream-like turn representative of the scars he still wears as a gay man who grew up in conservative 1980s Britain. As the drama goes on, that dream quickly curdles into a nightmare.

In the spoiler conversation you're about to hear, Al speaks to Andrew about the "aloneness" rather than loneliness that powers All Of Us Strangers. We get into the construction of its devastating twists, the process of adapting the 1987 Japanese novel on which it's based, the meaning of the pop music threaded into the house and the catharsis of writing this powerhouse story ? one that audiences have found themselves unable to shake for weeks after viewing.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, MUBI, Magic Mind, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.

To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.

Support the show
2024-01-30
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Maestro with Josh Singer

The acclaimed new Leonard Bernstein biopic Maestro is about more than just the life and times of arguably America?s most famous composer. It?s about the idea of genius and what allowances those in the presence of gifted creatives sometimes permit, at great personal cost, to allow that artistry to flourish. Starring Carey Mulligan and Bradley Cooper, who also directs, the film?s another example of the supreme storytelling talents of Josh Singer ? a screenwriter renowned for telling the true-life tales of people who sent ripples through our culture for decades to come. 

In the Oscar-winning Spotlight, it was a team of Boston journalists who exposed a church cover-up. In Damien Chazelle?s First Man, it was astronaut Neil Armstrong ? the first man on the moon. When it comes to writing dramatically compelling, non-sensationalised biopics, you won?t find many better. In our latest episode, the 51-year-old breaks down his latest exploration of a public figure and the demons hidden beneath the surface of his fame. It?s a fascinating spoiler conversation about how and Bradley Cooper co-wrote the script, spanning the meaning of its ambiguous title and how he approached the movie?s devastating ending.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Magic Mind, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.

To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.

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2024-01-24
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Beau Is Afraid with Ari Aster

This week, we're joined by the great Ari Aster ?  one of the boldest and most enigmatic voices in American cinema right now. He?s a filmmaker that Al first met in May 2019. The New York-born writer-director?s debut horror, Hereditary, was a few months old at the time, and Ari was deep in the edit for Midsommar at the time. Al had been sent by Empire Magazine to write a profile that championed him as a new king of horror. Which made sense in the moment: Midsommar, his Wicker Man-esque follow-up to Hereditary, about a Swedish cult, promised more frights, more decapitations.

One problem, though. Ari rejected the idea of himself as a horror filmmaker. He kept emphasising to Al, in his quiet, charming way, that horror wasn?t where his heart was. At least, not exclusively. No, Ari longed to make a comedy. A comedy musical, if possible. What would a comedy musical by this filmmaker, best known for chilling audiences to the bone, look like? In 2023, we got our audience ? the jaw-dropping Beau Is Afraid.

Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Beau Is Afraid is indeed a comedy. Its punchline just happens to speak to the existential treadmill-to-nowhere that life can sometimes resemble. It may not have songs to qualify it as a musical, but its case is populated by icons of musical theatre, known for their stage work (Nathan Lane, Richard Kind). Following a middle aged man on an Oedipal trip through an absurdist America en route to his mother?s funeral, the movie began life as a short film in 2011. In the spoiler conversation you?re about to hear, we get into what evolved from Ari?s initial vision for Beau, as the character made his way to the big-screen. We talk about how in early drafts, the orphans of the forest weren?t a theatre group but a cult ? something Ari had to change when he realised his first two movies had dealt heavily with cults and he couldn?t go three-for-three. We also discuss the horror and hilarity of the monster in the attic and what the religious iconography of the movie represents in Beau?s journey.

It?s a riveting peek into the mind of a filmmaker out here making films unlike anyone else. We hope you enjoy.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, MUBI, Magic Mind, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.

To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.


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2024-01-19
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Poor Things with Tony McNamara

Today on the show ? a movie in which Emma Stone attempts to punch a baby, by a playwright and screenwriter whose stories never fail to pack a punch. Yes, Tony McNamara is here, talking all things Poor Things, his latest collaboration with director Yorgos Lanthimos. Having previously worked together on the ten-time Oscar-nominated historical comedy The Favourite in 2018, this awards-tipped odyssey is a Frankensteinian creation as beguiling and impossible to pin down as its protagonist, Bella Baxter. It?s part coming-of-age comedy, part sexual conquest and part travelogue through an eye-popping steampunk planet both like and unlike our own. You might also classify it as a father-daughter drama ? except here, the father is a mad scientist whose home is a cornucopia of unholy experiments, his daughter, played by Emma Stone, just one of them.

Stone is astounding as Bella, a reanimated dead woman, whose body, dragged from the Thames, has had life breathed into it once more. The horny journey of self-discovery that the character goes on from there, adapted from a 1992 novel by Alasdair Gray, comments on our culture?s (male-driven) obsession with control, explains Tony in our conversation. It?s a riveting chat with a storyteller whose other screen credits include creating the TV show The Great, loosely based on Empress Catherine the Great of Russia?s rise to power in 18th century Saint Petersburg and 2021?s Cruella. Listen out for insights on the changes made to Gray?s novel, the scene that Yorgos and Tony sadly had to cut for time, the idea of sex as a liberating force for the film?s main character and what each of the new lands Bella visits are meant to bring out of her evolving character. 

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft and WeScreenplay.

To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.

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2024-01-11
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Society Of The Snow with J.A. Bayona

On October 13, 1972, a plane carrying 45 passengers and crew ? 19 of whom were young rugby players ? took off from Carrasco International Airport in Uruguay heading to Santiago, Chile. The plane never reached its destination. Adverse weather conditions caused Flight 571 to crash into a mountain ridge, ripping the aircraft in two over the Andes mountains ? one of the most inhospitable places on earth. Those who didn?t die immediately in the wreckage ? the so-called lucky ones ? faced unimaginable horror. For 72 days, these survivors, aged between 19 and 26, endured frostbite and an avalanche. They watched as, one by one, friends and teammates perished in the plummeting temperatures each night. Starving to death in this endless white abyss, the passengers of Flight 571 were forced to do the unthinkable to survive, resorting to eating the bodies of the deceased as a means of desperately clinging to life.

You probably know all this, because the story of the Miracle in the Andes as it became known is a story that?s been told many times before, in books, films, documentaries and TV shows. What happened ? how 16 people not only survived, but forged their own rescue ? is well-known. How it actually felt to be out there in the wilderness, though ? the philosophical and spiritual conundrums the survivors faced ? has never really been truly translated to screen until now.

Society Of The Snow ? directed and co-written by our guest today, the great J.A. Bayona ? is a drama that finds transcendence in the true-life tale of Flight 571. Yes, the film abides by the facts of what went down in that frosty mountain range across those agonising 72 days ? Bayona spent hundreds of hours interviewing the survivors before penning the movie?s screenplay with his co-writers Bernat Vilaplana, Jaime Marques and Nicolás Casariego. But more importantly, inspired by a great book ? La Sociedad de la Nieve by Pablo Vierci ? it takes a lyrical approach to the story. One bordering on the metaphysical, full of dialogues between the living and the dead.

In the spoiler conversation you?re about to hear, JA tells us what it is about tales of people forced to confront the full might of nature that he finds himself drawn to as a storyteller (his previous films include tsunami drama The Impossible and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, which had similar themes nature versus man). We talk about crafting the plane crash scene on the page, the bold decision he made involving the narrator of the tale and why the film doesn?t end on a note of triumph but something more melancholy. If you haven?t seen Society Of The Snow yet, be sure to hit pause now, watch on Netflix then come back as we dive into every detail.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft and WeScreenplay.

To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.

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2024-01-04
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Toy Story 3 with Michael Arndt

In our final episode of 2023, Michael Arndt ? the acclaimed writer of films like Little Miss Sunshine and Star Wars: The Force Awakens ? drops by for a two-hour dissection of his script for Toy Story 3 ?a Pixar sequel that went to infinity and beyond when it came to thrills, laughter and emotion.  

Directed by past Script Apart guest Lee Unkrich, the 2010 film could have repeated the formula that made past the franchise?s previous films a global phenomenon, making instant icons out of Woody, Buzz and their found-family of fellow play-things. Instead, it leapt forward in time to find Andy, the toys? owner, all-grown up and about to head to college, heaping huge existential questions on fans? beloved characters. If a toy is retired to an attic, never to be played with again, what is their reason to be? What does it mean to be outgrown by people you love, who no longer love you in return?

If that sounds heavy for what is ostensibly a kids? tale, wait till we remind you that Toy Story 3 was a movie set mostly in a brutal toy internment camp that ends with our heroes about to be incinerated. That boldness is why many regard the film as being ?peak Pixar? ? and can you blame them? Toy Story 3 capped a remarkable run of hits for the animation studio that included Ratatouille in 2007, Wall-E in 2008 and Up in 2009. No wonder Michael and co felt emboldened to take risks on this third instalment of the franchise ? risks that reaped incredible storytelling rewards.

Michael was picked by Pixar ? presumably via email or a phone call, rather than a giant mechanical claw like the ones in Pizza Planet ? because few storytellers do grounded emotion and dysfunctional families like he does. At the onset of his career, across three days in May 2000, he?d written a screenplay about a family on a road trip to New Mexico that became a monster hit. Little Miss Sunshine earned the Virginia-born screenwriter a Best Original Screenplay Oscar in 2006 and catapulted him onto the radar of Pixar, whose brain trust would soon begin cooking up a story for a third movie in their Toy Story franchise.

In the conversation you?re about to hear, Michael breaks down the many early iterations of this movie, including an abandoned Toy Story 3 from before his time on the project, in which the toys travel to Taiwan after Buzz is shipped there following a global product recall on the toy. We get into the machinations of Lotso Huggin? Bear, how the story is deep down one about parenthood and of course, that traumatising moment our heroes hold hands, staring down certain death.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft and WeScreenplay.

To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.

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2023-12-21
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A Murder At The End Of The World with Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij

On today?s episode, an interview at the end of a TV show: A Murder At The End Of The World. That?s right, Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij are with us, breaking down every detail of their phenomenal techno-thriller whodunnit, which reached its breathtaking conclusion last night. As we?ve come to expect from the creators of head-spinning drama The OA ? which felt like the signalling of a bold new era of ambitious narrative television when it hit screens in 2016 ? A Murder At The End Of The World was a triumph of both ideas and emotion. Few filmmakers today combine both as seamlessly and elegantly as Brit and Zal, whose latest show offered meditations on the following: artificial intelligence, online misogyny, the desensitisation in our culture around violence towards women, extreme wealth, climate crisis, the deification of tech company CEOs? the list goes on.

The fact that A Murder At The End Of The World can so smartly probe all those topics without ever toppling in on itself like a house of cards in an Icelandic snow storm is an incredible feat. The fact that all those big intellectual ideas never overshadow the emotion of the show ? the journey we go on Emma Corin?s courageous hacker Darby Hart ? is even rarer. Darby?s story, zigzagging across three different periods of her life, is the heartbeat of this tale, about a group of high-achievers and industry leaders invited to a mysterious retreat among the frozen fjords of the Fljot Valley. The aim of this gathering? To solve the challenges facing humanity, its tech billionaire host Andy Ronson explains. A slight snag in that plan emerges, though, when one by one, guests begin to be bumped off in terrifying ways. Only Darby can solve the mystery of the killer?s identity.

In the conversation you?re about to hear, Zal and Brit discuss philosophies behind the show, the world war origins of the whodunit genre, the ethical way to approach violence against women on screen without perpetuating that violence in the real world, and of course, the revelations of the show?s final episode. As ever, this is a spoiler-filled interview, so if you haven?t watched A Murder At The End Of The World in full, please be sure to catch up before tuning in.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft and WeScreenplay.

To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.

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2023-12-19
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Leave The World Behind with Sam Esmail

New disaster movie Leave The World Behind deals with themes that its writer-director, Sam Esmail, finds impossible to leave behind himself. Eight years ago, the filmmaker introduced himself with Mr. Robot ? a techno-thriller piece of prestige TV that warned of the ways that society might grow fragmented, unreliable and open to exploitation, the more it hinged on technology. The show ran for four seasons, winning three Emmys along the way. Now, he?s back with another tale that highlights the dangers of digitalism and how quickly our technology-dependent society might be dismantled with the click of a button, or more accurately the right line of hacker code.

Leave The World Behind stars Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawke as parents who escape to a Long Island vacation home, only for a stranger and his daughter ? played by Mahershala Ali and Myha'la Herrold? to turn up unannounced in the middle of the night, bearing tales of electrical blackouts in New York City. It?s a great watch that keeps you guessing till the very end, punctuated by some incredibly unnerving imagery that will rattle around in your brain for days after. And it speaks very much to anxieties of our time. In the years since Sam created Mr. Esmail, we?ve seen Russia hack the 2016 US election and Cambridge Analytica influence Brexit. We live in a time of global superpowers seeking to disrupt society via digital means. So maybe the question isn?t why Sam would go back to the themes of Mr. Robot. Perhaps the question is: why wouldn?t he?

In the spoiler conversation you?re about to hear, which covers every important plot point and detail of this great movie, Sam discusses the huge departures made from the Rumaan Alam novel this movie adapts, the meaning of the menacing animals throughout this film, and how the TV show Friends came to be a massive motif running through Leave The World Behind ? resulting in one of the best movie punchlines of 2023.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft and WeScreenplay.

To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.

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2023-12-08
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Eileen with Ottessa Moshfegh and Luke Goebel

Something sinister simmers beneath the surface of suburbia in Eileen, a psychological thriller about pent-up desire, parental neglect and escaping the shackles of the life expected of us. It?s a story that first existed as a novel, launching the literary career of Boston-born author Ottessa Moshfegh in 2015. Since then, Ottessa?s career has skyrocketed: novels like Lapvona and the tremendous My Year of Rest and Relaxation have seen her lauded as one of her generation?s most exciting voices. Or as the fantastic Jia Tolentino once described her, ?easily the most interesting contemporary American writer on the subject of being alive, when being alive feels terrible.?

Through all that success, though, Eileen has followed her. The character, a secretary at a correctional facility for teenage boys in a small American town, lost in time, never quite left her side in all that time, and in the new film adaptation of her story ? penned with husband and screenwriting partner Luke Goebel ? it shows. The movie, directed by William Oldroyd, stars Thomasin McKenzie as Eileen and Anne Hathaway as the older woman, Rebecca, she becomes enchanted by. The closer they get, though, the closer Eileen gets to a dark truth involving one of the young inmates at the prison where she works.

On this week?s show, Ottessa and Luke take time out on a recent trip to London to break down their screenplay and take us inside the mind of the film?s Hitchcockian anti-heroine. Ottessa recounts the parts of herself she left on the page when she initially wrote the story, while Luke ? a great author in his own right, whose Fourteen Stories, None of Them Are Yours collection is a brilliant read ? unravels the meanings of key scenes as he sees them. We also crucially debate whether the festive backdrop of this film ? all snow and fairy lights, to the tune of constant carols ?  makes this a Christmas movie. This is a spoiler conversation, as ever on Script Apart, so do be sure to check out the movie, in cinemas now, before tuning in.  

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft and WeScreenplay.

To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.

Support the show
2023-11-30
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May December with Samy Burch

May December ? written by our guest this week, Samy Burch ? tells the serpentine tale of a TV actress, Elizabeth (Natalie Portman) who descends upon the home of a family founded on scandal. Two decades have passed since Gracie, portrayed by Julianne Moore, and her now-husband Joe, played by Charles Melton, hit the headlines after beginning a relationship when Gracie was in her mid-thirties and Joe was just thirteen years old. Elizabeth, researching the couple ahead of a film based on their lives, joins the couple (now married with kids) and attempts to understand what makes them each tick. In the process, she discovers that debris still remains from the tabloid storm that engulfed their lives. And we, as an audience, discover that Elizabeth herself has exploitative, machiavellian tendencies of her own.

It?s a story that Samy wrote in 2019 after landing on the idea with her partner, Alex Mechanik. ?What would make a 36-year-old woman start an affair with a seventh grader?? you may be wondering ? in which case, you?re not alone. Gracie?s former husband echoes those exact words in the film. But May December isn?t interested in answering that ? not declaratively, at least. This is a film that refuses absolutes, asking more questions than it answers. 

Does the twenty years of stability and apparent happiness that Joe and Gracie have shared together justify the wrongs of how their relationship began? Does the family life they?ve built paper over how predatory and problematic Gracie?s behaviour was, in initiating a sexual partnership with a kid whose voice must only just have broken? And what does it say about us, that as a culture, we?re so drawn to the transgressions of people like Gracie? Are we as parasitic as the prying actress who dismantles their lives, almost on a whim? These are all questions left to us to ponder after its credits roll. They?re also questions that Samy was delighted to give her take on, in my revealing conversation with the first-time screenwriter. Spoilers ahead, so be sure to watch the fantastic May December first before tuning in.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Stowe Story Labs and WeScreenplay.

To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.

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2023-11-23
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The Killer with Andrew Kevin Walker

Stick to the plan. Anticipate, don?t improvise. Trust no one. Never yield an advantage. Fight only the battle you?re paid to fight? and if you can do all that while listening to The Smiths, even better. That?s the mantra of the eponymous assassin at the heart of The Killer, directed by David Fincher and written by our guest today  ? the fantastic Andrew Kevin Walker. 

The Killer is a movie that deconstructs the hitman movie genre like Michael Fassbender?s glassy-eyed gun-for-hire deconstructing a McDonald?s sandwich on a park bench in Paris. It opens with a blaze of images that tease the explosive action typical of these films then swerves in a different direction. The result is a defiantly meditative two hours in which the violence of the movie?s revenge plot is almost incidental to the character?s meticulous ways and detached observations about the world.

It?s an absolutely riveting watch but then again, what did we expect? Unlike The Killer himself ? who misses his target early on in the film, sparking the film?s descent into chaos ? Andrew and Fincher rarely miss their mark whenever they work together. The pair first teamed up on 1995?s Se7en, which began life as a spec script that Andrew wrote after moving to New York from suburban Pennsylvania. Since then, Andrew?s taken passes at Fight Club and The Game for Fincher, on top of his solo adventures in Hollywood, penning films like Sleepy Hollow and 2022?s excellent Windfall.

In the spoiler conversation you?re about to hear, Andy answers our questions about the subtle commentary on materialist culture woven into the film. We get into the influence of the novelist Somerset Maugham on Andy?s work and break some of the film?s most intriguing moments, including its enigmatic ending ? in which a life is spared but existential questions loom.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft and WeScreenplay.

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2023-11-17
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Killers of the Flower Moon with Eric Roth

Can you find the wolves in this podcast? Our guest today, Eric Roth, is the Academy Award-winning writer behind films like Forrest Gump. He wrote The Insider for Michael Mann, Munich for Steven Spielberg, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button for David Fincher and 2018?s A Star Is Born for Bradley Cooper, and two years ago, we had the delight of his company as we broke down his script for Denis Villeneuve?s Dune on this very show. Today, we're joined by him once more to discuss what ? whisper it ? may just be his crowning accomplishment.

Few films this year have left the extraordinary imprint left behind by Killers of the Flower Moon ? a tale of love, murder and quite-literally-poisonous greed in 1920s America, directed by Martin Scorsese. Eric?s script for the film, which he co-wrote with the beloved auteur, was adapted from a non-fiction book by author David Grann, but with a very different approach to the story told in that tome. The book investigated a series of killings of members of the indigenous Osage Nation ? deaths caused, then covered up, by white men who coveted their oil-rich land. At the heart of all this was a woman: Mollie Kyle, played in the film by Lily Gladstone, who marries a first world war veteran named Ernest Burkhart, played by Leo DiCaprio.

Ernest had a corrupt uncle, William King Hale, portrayed by Robert DeNiro, who masqueraded as an upstanding member of the community. Molly was forced to watch in horror as at least 24 family members and friends were systematically killed as a result of Hale?s scheming ? unaware that her uncle-in-law was masterminding these deaths and unaware that the man she loved was helping him.

Grann?s Killers of the Flower Moon, however,  was subtitled ?the birth of the FBI? for a reason ? it focused on the white law enforcement response to the killings rather than the Osage Nation itself. As you?ll discover in this episode, Eric?s first draft of this movie adaptation followed suit ? before he and Scorsese realised they had a responsibility to navigate this tale from a different perspective. It wasn?t as simple as making Molly the lead. That story, as non-indigenous filmmakers, Scorsese has implied, wasn?t theirs to tell. Instead, they set about making a film about complicity that would centre Ernest in all his cowardice and employ Molly as the movie?s moral heart.

In the spoiler conversation you?re about to hear, we break down all of the film?s key scenes, uncover some fascinating details about its first draft and break down the meaning of the movie?s astounding finale ? a moment on film unlike anything else in Scorsese?s filmography. Eric, as ever, was a total pleasure to chat with: a storyteller so inspiringly in love with what he does, that at 78-years-old, there?s no sign of him slowing down. Writing screenplays is simply what he does.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Arc Studio Pro and WeScreenplay.

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2023-11-09
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The Royal Hotel with Kitty Green

Film history is full of troublesome hotels, isn?t it? A few of them we've even covered on this very show, from the haunted Overlook in The Shining to the labyrinthine, unsettling Airbnb in Barbarian ? the kinds of places that make you vow to never complain about a Premier Inn again. This week, revered writer-director Kitty Green releases a thriller that adds to that long list with the sublime The Royal Hotel ? an at times unbearably tense exploration of gender and toxic masculinity, set in rural Australian. On today?s episode of Script Apart, Kitty stops by for a spoiler breakdown of the movie, in which two young women in need of money check into a dilapidated pub in a remote mining town. What happens next, as the line is blurred between drunken boys-will-be-boys and truly dangerous behaviour, is impossible to tear your eyes away from, beautifully written and impeccably directed.

In the conversation you?re about to hear, Kitty tells us about her own family connections to the mining town pub culture depicted in the film, which was co-written with Oscar Redding. We unpack what?s going on in the heads of the film?s two leads, Hannah and Liv, as they encounter some of the community?s many microaggressions towards them. She also breaks down the film?s connections to her last movie, The Assistant, and what the two dramas combined express about the epidemic of male violence towards women. 

Please be sure to check out the film before listening as this episode has more spoilers than you can shake a taxidermied snake at.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Arc Studio Pro and WeScreenplay.

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2023-11-05
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Bottoms with Emma Seligman

The first rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club. But when it comes to Bottoms ? the new queer high school comedy from Emma Seligman, in which two teen lesbians start their own Fincher-esque Fight Club in an attempt to get closer to cheerleaders ? well, there's really no helping it. 

On today's episode of Script Apart, the acclaimed filmmaker breaks down an early version of the smash hit new movie that began with our heroes, PJ (Rachel Sennott) and Josie (The Bear star Ayo Edebiri) ?masturbating at a militaristic boot camp for horny girls.? In this version of the film,  a steroid epidemic that "causes people to hate women" was wreaking havoc at Rockbridge Falls High, with it up to PJ and Josie to save the day.

Listen to our spoiler conversation with Emma to discover the thematic connections between Bottoms and her groundbreaking debut Shiva Baby,  the inspiration behind fragile football star Jeff, her process of writing the script with Sennott and much, much more.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

Support for this episode comes from MUBI, ScreenCraft, Arc Studio Pro and WeScreenplay.

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2023-11-03
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem with Jeff Rowe

This week, we're delighted to be reunited with the talented Jeff Rowe, who first appeared on the show in 2021, breaking down his and Mike Rianda?s hilarious The Mitchells vs the Machines. On today?s episode, the animation auteur returns to talk all things Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The heroes in a half shell returned earlier this year in Mutant Mayhem, which Jeff directed from a script he co-wrote with Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. The film packed laughter,  action and emotion unlike any Turtles film before it ? a result of the trio approaching the story as a coming-of-age tale, inspired by films like Ladybird and Stand By Me.

The story behind how Turtles was written is almost as radical as the movie itself. Jeff, Seth and Evan worked hard on one version of the film only to realise fairly far into production that the story was ?fundamentally broken.? So, they got together and across a whirlwind, high-pressure 48 hours, wrote an entirely new story for this Turtles reboot.

In the conversation you?re about to hear, Jeff and I discuss that discarded version of the film in which the iconic villain Shredder was a ?Vince Vaughn type? wreaking havoc on New York. There?s thorough analysis of all the key scenes in the film, and Jeff opens about his difficult family life growing up and how it fed into the story he wanted to tell here, about the beauty of found families.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Stowe Story Labs and WeScreenplay.

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2023-10-27
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Storyteller Sessions: Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl, Sharp Objects)

This episode is part of our Storyteller Sessions event ? a weekend of career-spanning conversations with game-changing storytellers, raising money for the Entertainment Community Fund. If you enjoy this episode or any of the episodes still to come across this weekend, please do consider donating via the link below:

Donate to our fundraiser here!

Gillian Flynn is an author, screenwriter and showrunner who delights in writing what she calls ?bad women? ? fascinatingly flawed female characters who she grants the freedom to kill, lie, harm and harass in a way that sometimes ruffles feathers. Take her 2012 novel Gone Girl, for example, which she later adapted into a smash hit movie with David Fincher. That murder-mystery tale of a marriage steeped in deceit captivated the world and sparked near-endless conversation about the poison and/or empowerment of its main character, Amy Dunne.

That novel and movie ? released within two years of each other ? didn't just make Flynn a literary darling. It also catapulted her to the summit of film and TV. In 2018, she co-wrote the brilliant Widows with Steve McQueen, and adapted her first novel, Sharp Objects, into a gloriously slow-burning limited series starring Amy Adams. Since then, she?s won cult acclaim for her streaming adaptation of Utopia, the British Channel 4 series.

In the conversation you?re about to hear, we ask Gillian how she pens her captivating characters and the social importance of allowing women to run riot on-screen and in her novels, the way that male anti-heroes are frequently permitted to do. She reflects on the accusations of misogyny that her work attracted from some female writers in the aftermath of Gone Girl?s release and reveals an alternative ending to that story that would have taken the tale of Nick and Amy Dunne in an entirely different direction.

Again, this conversation is in aid of the Entertainment Community Fund, who do extraordinary work lifting up storytellers of all descriptions and have been a vital support for entertainment industry workers affected by this summer?s strike action. If you enjoy this episode, please do consider clicking the link in the show notes and donating any amount you can to this great cause.

It was a huge privilege to share this conversation with Lilly who we can?t thank enough for her openness and insights. Again, this conversation is in aid of the Entertainment Community Fund, who do extraordinary work lifting up storytellers of all descriptions and have been a vital support for entertainment industry workers affected by this summer?s strikes. If you enjoy this episode, please do consider donating via the link below:

Donate to our fundraiser here!

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2023-10-22
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Storyteller Sessions: Lilly Wachowski (The Matrix, Cloud Atlas)

This episode is part of our Storyteller Sessions event ? a weekend of career-spanning conversations with game-changing storytellers, raising money for the Entertainment Community Fund. If you enjoy this episode or any of the episodes still to come across this weekend, please do consider donating via the link below:

Donate to our fundraiser here!

On today?s episode ? a conversation about writing with the incredible Lilly Wachowski. Or at least, we were meant to speak about writing. The plan was to talk about Lilly's creative practice. About the queer-coded stories of collective resistance and love in the face of dystopia that she?s told across a glittering three-decade career. One of those stories in particular ? The Matrix trilogy, co-written and directed with her sister Lana Wachowski ? was the looking glass through which Al stepped into a new way of seeing both cinema and the world when he was eleven-years-old, so you can imagine his excitement to discuss her relationship with the page.

That is not what went down. Yes, there's plenty in our conversation about how Lilly approaches writing. About why she prioritises telling stories not about individualist heroes, but about communities coming together to defy power. About how writing film and TV right now a release valve for the filmmaker, helping her channel her ?trans rage? at a system that tramples over marginalised groups. You?ll also hear her discuss why she believes great stories can offer an escape path for audiences out of that system. 

But that?s not all we talked about. Across a hugely moving two-hours, Lilly explains how, when she looks back on her and Lana?s early movies today, she sees clearly the ?scratchings on the wall as they were clawing their way out the closet.? She speaks beautifully about her experience transitioning and about how she found her way back to herself after a period of burnout and about the amazing women around her growing up that she credits with shaping her.  

Listen out for candid discussion about the ?impossible bar? that The Matrix set for her and Lana, and Lilly?s thoughts on A.I in 2023, as someone who co-created one of our culture?s defining works about that technology. You'll also hear about the joy of her experience on Work In Progress,  and why the next chapter of her career is going to be all about ?throwing my trans body against the mono culture that Hollywood is gravitating towards.? 

It was a huge privilege to share this conversation with Lilly who we can?t thank enough for her openness and insights. Again, this conversation is in aid of the Entertainment Community Fund, who do extraordinary work lifting up storytellers of all descriptions and have been a vital support for entertainment industry workers affected by this summer?s strikes. If you enjoy this episode, please do consider donating via the link below.

Donate to our fundraiser here!

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2023-10-21
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Storyteller Sessions: Adam McKay (Anchorman, Don't Look Up)

Welcome to the Script Apart Storyteller Sessions ? three days of career-spanning conversations with truly game-changing storytellers, talking about their relationship with the page. 100% of proceeds are going to the Entertainment Community Fund, a brilliant charity doing hugely important work ? so if you enjoy this episode or any of the episodes across this weekend, please do consider hitting the link below and donating to that wonderful cause:

Donate to our fundraiser here!

Today, we?re kicking off with what is basically the Catalina Wine Mixer of podcast interviews. Our guest today is a filmmaker responsible for some of the great comedies of our time, and someone whose storytelling has undergone a fascinating transformation as the world has slipped into climate emergency, economic emergency and political disrepair. Somehow, in a time with dwindling things to laugh about, this writer-director has found a way to engage with those crises in ludicrously entertaining ways. He's the filmmaker behind Anchorman, Step Brothers, Talladega Nights, The Other Guys, The Big Short, Vice and Don?t Look Up ? it's Adam McKay!

Adam got his break on Saturday Night Live, becoming the show?s head writer in 1996. His collaborations on SNL with another emerging comic, Will Ferrell, immediately caught the eye and simply could not be contained to the small screen for long. By the early ?00s, the pair had turned their anarchic chemistry into a wave of outrageously quotable comedies that fast found themselves woven into our shared pop culture landscape. ?It escalated quickly,? as Ron Burgundy might say.

Then came a change of pace. In 2015, after his father lost his home as part of a devastating economic downturn, Adam released The Big Short ? a white collar crime comedy about the 2007 financial crash. It won him and his co-writer Charles Randolph the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar at that year?s Academy Awards, and signalled a sea change not just in the content of Adam?s movies going forward, but also in the cinematic language he was using to tell his stories. His films since then ? and to a lesser degree, titles he?s worked on as a producer, such as the smash hit Succession ?  have doubled down on that new storytelling style, full of frantic edits and experimental flourishes.

Adam?s monumental success has come in the face of a couple of challenging moments medically across his life. In 2000, he was diagnosed with a condition known as essential tremor, and in 2017, he suffered a heart attack on the set of Vice. In the conversation you?re about to hear, we discuss how that heart attack sharpened his resolve to make 2021?s bracing Don?t Look Up. We get into why Step Brothers is a film that ?tells you all you need to know about America? ? a nation in which ?consumer culture has turned us into children,? Adam insists. You?ll hear why he decided to abandon the three-act structure of his old films in part as a response to the rise of Donald Trump and what he?s learned about to fix the world from his recent string of movies grappling with its many problems.

The Entertainment Community Fund do extraordinary work lifting up storytellers of all descriptions, and have been a vital support for entertainment industry workers affected by this summer?s strike action. So if you enjoy this episode, please do consider donating below.

Donate to our fundraiser here!

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2023-10-20
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Elemental with Kat Likkel and John Hoberg

This week on Script Apart, the writers behind Pixar?s latest heartwarming spectacle take us down to Element City where the tree people are green and the Vivisteria Flowers are pretty. Yes, today we?re joined by Kat Likkel and John Hoberg, the husband-and-wife duo whose script for Elemental ? co-written with Brenda Hsueh and director Pete Sohn ? has been enchanting audiences all summer.

The film a hugely affecting tale whose premise, on first glance, looked to have a certain shared DNA with past Pixar hits. One popular internet theory suggests that the studio?s best-known films all ask variations of the same question: ?What if X abstract concept ? toys, cars, monsters, rats ? had feelings?? Elemental, though, is more than a movie about elements with emotions. It?s a family drama about parental expectation. It?s an immigrant tale, about the struggle to assimilate into a new society while keeping your own culture alive. It?s a romantic comedy ? When Harry Met Sally with fire and water. And it?s also a disaster movie that takes side-swipes at how structural racism leads to minority communities being put in harm?s way.

In this week?s episode, Kat and John join us to discuss an early draft of the movie, in which Elemental was shaping up to be Pixar?s answer to Chinatown. The finished film follows fire element Ember as she fights to save her father?s shop from closure, with the help of Wade, a water element working as a city inspector. Along the way, they uncover a leak in the city's canals emanating from a problem with a nearby dam, neglected by authorities. In the spoiler conversation you?re about to hear, however, John and Kat explain how Wade?s mother was initially intended to be the film?s shock antagonist, orchestrating an evil cover-up. We talk about how Ember was originally written with much more of a Disney princess vibe before being retooled as an older, more streetwise character. And we uncover the meaning and power of ?the bow? ? a motif in the movie that ends up becoming one of Elemental?s final, most emotionally devastating shots. Get fired up ? this is a fun and fascinating deep dive into one of the year?s best animations.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

Support for this episode comes from MUBI, ScreenCraft, Arc Studio Pro and WeScreenplay.

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2023-09-12
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I Love My Dad with James Morosini

Think of your worst experience with online dating ? the most excruciating Hinge disaster or Tinder catastrophe. However bad you might think that ordeal was, it?s nothing on the tale told in the extraordinary recent indie I Love My Dad. Part cringe comedy, part family drama and part horror movie for the MySpace generation, the film followed a screw-up father who?s desperate to reconnect with the child he pushed away. Blocked on social media, this father ? Chuck, played by Patton Oswalt ? resorts to posing online as a beautiful young waitress whose friend request his estranged son will surely accept. The scheme is soon complicated, however, when the teenager begins to fall for this stranger in his DMs, growing determined to meet her in person.

That premise ? a teenager cat-fished by his own father ? might sound like the logline for a zany, high-concept Hollywood romp, but what?s so special about I Love My Dad is how grounded it is in the loneliness of being a certain age and desperate for connection. The lure of the internet, the versions of ourselves we present online and the sometimes unhealthy fantasies that permits ? these questions are all explored in the film by the film?s outrageously talented writer, director and star, James Morosini, who it was a delight to chat with for this week?s episode.

In the spoiler conversation you?re about to hear, James explains how I Love My Dad has such an air of emotional truth to it because, well, ?this actually happened? to quote the film itself. There are ways in which James? story deviates from the one in the film but yes ? his father really did cat-fish him in real-life, in events that inspired his screenplay. We discuss Age, Sex, Location ? the title of James? first draft of the film ? and why an early ending in which Chuck has a heart attack and Franklin gets together with the real-life Becca had to go. It?s a fascinating conversation about the inherent performance of social media ? how we?re all cat-fishing one another to less explicit degrees ? and why running towards our most embarrassing moments and most vulnerable parts of ourselves, rather than running away, makes for great storytelling.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

Support for this episode comes from MUBI, ScreenCraft, Arc Studio Pro and WeScreenplay.

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2023-09-08
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Knocked Up with Judd Apatow

Judd Apatow needs little in the way of introduction. He?s a filmmaker synonymous with an entire era of American comedy ? that mid-?00s explosion of zeitgeist-grabbing movies about incapable men, grappling with the realisation that it?s about time they grew up. There?s The 40-Year-Old Virgin, which Apatow wrote and directed. There?s also the cult classic music biopic satire Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, which he co-wrote with Jake Kasdan. The Cable Guy, Anchorman, Talladega Nights, Superbad, Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Step Brothers, meanwhile, are just some of the projects he?s served on as a producer.

A remarkable run of movies since the beginning of the 2010s have seen his comic signature evolve into something more tender. Films like Funny People, This Is 40 and The King of Staten Island are all funny, sure ? but there?s an introspection to his work nowadays that has been fascinating to behold. 

On this week?s episode, Judd revisits one of his best-loved movies: 2007?s Knocked Up. But it?s not his first draft we delve into. Instead, as a window into his creative process, we uncover emails that the filmmaker sent to himself in the run-up to writing the movie, full of lengthy streams of consciousness about what the comedy could be ? and why a stoner played by Seth Rogen having a baby with a high-flying media personality played with poise by Katherine Heigl would be hilarious.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

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2023-08-31
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Joy Ride with Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao

Our guests this week are Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao ? writers of Joy Ride, 2023?s rowdiest comedy. The film tells the incredibly explicit tale of four friends on a wild journey of self-discovery following a business trip gone awry. Each character has a different relationship with their Asian heritage, which they?re forced to confront in hilarious and moving ways as a series of chaotic events sees them travel across the continent. Cherry and Teresa, who met in the writers? room on Family Guy, didn?t fill their script with hilarity and depravity, though there?s plenty of that. Their script packed an emotional punch too, reminding audiences that ?home? is maybe best defined as the place in which we love and are loved in return.

In the spoiler conversation you?re about to hear, Teresa and Cherry tell us all about the parts of themselves they brought to the page in Joy Ride. We discuss the genesis of its wildest jokes, how they wrote the movie?s hilarious K-pop scene and the ?Asian good girl? trope they wanted to take a flamethrower to across the course of this story.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, MUBI and WeScreenplay.

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2023-08-10
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Erin Brockovich with Susannah Grant

She brought a small town to its feet and a huge company to its knees ? that?s right, this week we?re talking all things Erin Brockovich with the film?s screenwriter, Susannah Grant.

Susannah is a talent who, over an impressive three decade career, has gone from writing on the ?90s teen TV drama Party of Five and conquering animation with Pocahontas to penning dramas like 28 Days, romcoms like In Her Shoes and science-fiction with The 5th Wave. She?s also a force to be reckoned with behind the camera: having made her directorial debut in 2006 with the comedy drama Catch and Release, Susannah wrote and directed episodes of the recent searing Netflix series Unbelievable, which took a scalpel to the problem of rape culture in America.

Erin Brockovich, though, remains one of her best-loved works. Her witty script for the Julia Roberts-starring, Steven Soderbergh-directed legal drama earned her an Oscar nomination on release in 2000, and it?s both a testament to her writing and an indictment about our society?s lack of progress that the film still feels so relevant today. The film told the true-life tale of a single mother who fought and won a landmark legal case against the Pacific Gas & Electric Company over contaminated water supplied to residents in the town of Hinkley, California. In order to secure justice for the hundreds of people made sick by PG&E?s malfeasance, the real-life Erin had to navigate misogyny, classism and the demands of parenthood. Susannah?s script captured all of that with poignancy and punch.

In the spoiler conversation you?re about to hear, Susannah tells us all about grabbing burgers with the real-life Erin Brockovich, the importance of David vs Goliath stories like this, the balance of fact versus fiction in the film ? and the one line that had to change at Erin?s request.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, MUBI, Magic Mind and WeScreenplay.

Go to magicmind.com/scriptapart to get up to 50% off your subscription for the next 10 days with the code: SCRIPT20.

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2023-08-04
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Mission: Impossible ? Dead Reckoning Part One with Christopher McQuarrie

The world is changing and truth is vanishing in our very special episode today, accomplishing a mission we?ve been hoping to make happen since the very inception of the show. Yes, this week?s guest is a true maestro of modern blockbuster filmmaking ? a writer-director who won a Best Screenplay Oscar before his 30th birthday for the timeless neo-noir, The Usual Suspects. Since then, he?s leaned into action cinema of most breathtaking spectacle, without ever losing sight of the stripped-down dramatic principles that made The Usual Suspects such a gripping introduction to his work. 

He?s one half of a director-star symbiosis arguably up there with Ford and Wayne, Scorsese and DeNiro, Scorsese and DiCaprio and Spielberg and Hanks. And this summer, he and his close collaborator, Tom Cruise are back with a terrifyingly relevant spy thriller sequel that needs to be seen to be believed. Yes, this week on Script Apart ? it?s the phenomenal Christopher McQuarrie.

Mission: Impossible ? Dead Reckoning Part One lights the fuse on a number of fascinating questions. Questions like: how do you take a series that?s already threatened the world with nuclear bombs and all sorts of other threats, and raise the stakes even further, seven films into this franchise? Christopher?s answer was to take the anxiety around artificial intelligence that?s been such a fixture of our recent news cycle and fashion those fears into a espionage adventure pulsing with paranoia. What?s all the more impressive about this is how long-delayed Dead Reckoning Part One was by the Covid-19 pandemic ? meaning McQ predicted this. In the conversation you?re about to hear, the filmmaker is really articulate about the real-life threat, its overlap with his movie and how he anticipated it,  far in advance. 

You?ll also hear how Christopher constructed the story and crucially, the emotional arc of this latest Mission movie ? the journey Ethan Hunt, played by Cruise, needed to go on this time around, to make all the film?s stunts and spectacle mean something to those in the audience. Get ready to discover the rationale behind that shocking death, and how the film?s astonishing climax ? a train sequence that acts as a literal cliffhanger ? came together on the page and the rationale behind that shocking death at the end of the film?s second act.

One thing you won?t hear much about, unlike in most episodes of Script Apart, is the film?s first draft. And there?s good reason for that ? there wasn?t one. What you?re about to hear is a tale about how writing a Mission: Impossible movie isn?t all too different from what it must feel like for Ethan, surviving one of these films. There?s a lot of improvising out of tight spots ? the screenwriting equivalent of Tom riding a speeding motorbike off a Norwegian cliff top into a base jump and landing on a moving train.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, MUBI, Magic Mind and WeScreenplay.

Go to magicmind.com/scriptapart to get up to 50% off your subscription for the next 10 days with the code: SCRIPT20.

To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.

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2023-07-28
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Return To Seoul with Davy Chou

Pack your bags, everyone. Today on Script Apart, we?re making an emotional Return To Seoul guided by Davy Chou ? the writer-director behind one of 2023?s most alluring slow-burn dramas. Davy is a Franco-Cambodian writer-director whose own dual cultural heritages helped inform Return To Seoul, a film that poignantly probes questions of identity and displacement. It follows first-time actor Park Ji-min as Freddie ? a young woman wandering through the home country of her biological parents in search of answers and in search of herself. Part inspired by the real-life experiences of artist Laure Badufle, with whom Davy co-wrote the screenplay, it?s a delicate, raw character study that will both move you immeasurably and made you want to visit Seoul right this very second.

There really is so much beautiful nuance to this story. In real life, we human beings are messy and contradictory. Return To Seoul basks in that complexity, forging characters out of it who are flawed, who let themselves down, who push people away when they ought to let others in. Around Freddie are a supporting cast of characters who are all similarly entangled in their own messy wants, desires, hopes and regrets. In the spoiler conversation you?re about to hear, Davy shares with me how he crafted these characters and this story. We talk about the clever ways the film accents the cultural disparities between Freddie and the parents who once abandoned her. We get into what the film seeks to say about transnational identity. And we break down the meaning of the film?s enigmatic ending ? so be sure to check out the film, available on MUBI now, before listening in.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

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2023-07-20
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The Sopranos with David Chase

?Lately, I?m getting the feeling I came in at the end. That the best is over.? 24 years ago, a man stepped into a therapist?s office and with those few words, transformed television forever. That man was, of course, Tony Soprano ? a great big brooding bull of a mob boss, whose violence as the head of a New Jersey crime family hid a subtle sweeter side to his personality. 

The Sopranos balanced scenes of his brutality with glimpses at his capacity for more humane behaviour, and it was these duelling elements that powered the show, created by our very special guest today, the one and only David Chase. Tony was a doting father with a twinkle in his eye. The kind of guy who would wade into a swimming pool in his dressing gown to play with a family of ducks, when he wasn?t wading through a sea of cocaine and criminals at the Bada Bing. He was complicated, and with that complexity, the series took a hit out on basically everything TV execs thought they knew about the kind of protagonist that viewers would root for on the small screen. Walter White, Don Draper, Bill Hader?s Barry ? Tony Soprano walked so other morally dubious men could run rampant through our TV landscape for decades to come.

In the conversation you?re about to hear, which was recorded before the writers strike, David tells us about his memories of devising The Sopranos? iconic characters. We talk about what David and members of his writing team ? a staff that includes past Script Apart guest Terry Winter ? took from the 1990s political ether and poured into the show?s storylines. And crucially, we also discuss how the question that drives The Sopranos isn?t which family will come out on top in any of the show?s vicious mob disputes. It isn?t whether Tony will be caught by the cops or if he?ll make it out alive, either. It?s whether it?s possible for a man with so much blood on his hands to better himself. The turf war for Tony Soprano's soul. 

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

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2023-06-23
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Jurassic Park with David Koepp

Life found a way ? Script Apart is back! Season four begins with an episode 65 million years in the making, about a movie lauded as one of the greatest blockbusters of all time. Yes, today on the show, we're venturing into Jurassic Park, with the film?s brilliant screenwriter, David Koepp, as our guide.

The film follows palaeontologists Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and Ellie Sadler (Laura Dern) as they're invited alongside mathematician Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) to an island populated by living, breathing dinosaurs. These creatures have been cloned from DNA found in mosquitos by eccentric billionaire John Hammond, who insists this soon-to-open tourist attraction is perfectly safe. Famous last words. Our heroes soon find themselves pursued by prehistoric threats.

At least, that?s how the finished film goes down. Did you know in the first draft of the screenplay, there was no Ian Malcolm at all? In the conversation you?re about to hear, David explains how the film originally had a different ending ? in which Alan Grant starts blasting raptors with a shotgun ? and different characters. We get into why Jurassic Park is essentially the ancient Greek myth Prometheus (with added pterodactyls), how David and Steven Spielberg modelled John Hammond on Walt Disney, and why the story is a fable about capitalism. After all, it?s not the dinosaurs that doom the island to carnage ? it?s the greed of human characters, trying to make a buck.

David is a storyteller who we're always overjoyed to chat with (you may remember listening to our conversation with the writer/director on Script Apart roughly a year ago, discussing another great movie of his, the original Tom Cruise Mission: Impossible). Elsewhere in his filmography are collaborations with David Fincher (Panic Room), Sam Raimi (2002?s Spider-Man), Steven Sodeberg (Kimi) and Brian de Palma (Carlito?s Way). His other collaborations with Spielberg include The Lost World, War of the Worlds and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. His latest novel Aurora is out this week on paperback, and a fantastic page-turner ? be sure to pick up a copy.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

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2023-06-08
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Doctor Sleep with Mike Flanagan

This week on Script Apart, the return of Mike Flanagan! The response to our last episode speaking to the horror auteur, one of this generation?s true titans of the genre, was so emphatic, we couldn?t wait to invite Mike back on the show to get lost in the Overlook-esque hedge maze of 2019's Doctor Sleep, his near-miraculous sequel to The Shining, Doctor Sleep. We use the word ?miraculous? because it really is astonishing what the Ewan McGregor-starring chiller managed to achieve, marrying the legacies of two notoriously different visions of The Shining. 

Stephen King wrote The Shining in 1977. When Stanley Kubrick made drastic changes to King's source text in his adaptation of the story three years later, it led to contempt between these two masters of their craft. Fans have been divided ever since over which version is the more powerful ? King?s novel, which had a different ending and a sunnier message about the capacity for love to triumph over evil, or Kubrick?s ruthless cinematic journey into male madness; the bloody end game of toxic masculinity, as embodied by Jack Nicholson?s Jack Torrence. When Mike was presented with the chance to adapt King?s 2013 literary sequel to The Shining, which continued the canon his story, ignoring Kubrick?s changes, the Haunting of Hill House filmmaker decided to attempt the impossible. His Doctor Sleep was to knit together the visual language of Kubrick?s Shining with the storytelling that King favoured,  honouring both iterations. 

The story of how he pulled it off, and the seismic personal changes it sparked in Mike?s own life, is a tale as fascinating as the film itself. Which is saying something. Doctor Sleep is a fevered festival of telekinetic children, travelling vampiric bohemians and the courage it takes to beat addiction. And though the film didn?t perform well at the box office, it?s since found a passionate community of devoted fans who rightly consider it a masterpiece. Listen out at the end for some mind-blowing information on the sequels and spin-offs that its disappointing commercial performance sadly stopped from going ahead ? and a note of optimism that we may see some of Doctor Sleep?s characters again, featuring in Mike?s upcoming adaptation of King?s incredible The Dark Tower.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

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2023-03-15
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Babylon with Damien Chazelle

Unlike Margot Robbie in the hedonistic tour-de-force Babylon, we at Script Apart have never fought a rattlesnake. We have, however, now had the pleasure of chatting with one of our favourite filmmakers working today, Damien Chazelle. The Whiplash writer-director?s latest epic is a fevered telling of how 1920s Hollywood reacted as the industry transitioned from silent film to sound, shining a spotlight on the drug-addled dreamers chewed up and spat out by Tinseltown as it underwent that seismic change. It?s a story that puts the ?sin? in Singing In The Rain, following an ensemble cast of characters as they experience both the divinity and destruction of the American moviemaking machine, with Margot Robbie astonishing as the doomed Nellie LaRoy ? a character loosely based on real-life actress Clara Bow.

If all that sounds drastically unlike Damien?s previous work, well, that?s intentional ? the La La Land filmmaker wanted to make a movie at the other end of the storytelling spectrum to that acclaimed 2016 musical when approaching Babylon. ?If La La Land was a love letter to Hollywood, then Babylon is written with a poison pen,? he told Al when they last spoke before the film?s release. Catching up now for a spoiler breakdown of the movie and its incredible screenplay, the pair discuss how early iterations of the film centered on Brad Pitt?s character Jack Conrad, the eye-opening real-life stories of 1920s Hollywood debauchery that Damien pulled from, and where next for the filmmaker now that he?s conquered his boldest, most ambitious project to date.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

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2023-03-07
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Something In The Dirt with Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead

Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead are a duo who don?t wait for permission and refuse to let small budgets reign in their storytelling ambitions. Since announcing themselves as a fierce new force in independent filmmaking a decade ago with the meta-horror Resolution, the pair have released a further four films, each one a staggeringly original triumph of imagination over budgetary restraints. Spring was a low-cost Lovecraftian tale set on a gorgeous stretch of Italian coast that corkscrewed between romance and brutal body-horror. The Endless was a time-loop sci-fi head-scratcher involving a UFO cult that proved similarly spell-binding made on a similar shoestring. By 2019?s Synchronic, about a designer drug that allows users to step through time, they had A-list actors like Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan queuing up to work with them, and superhero studios keen to collaborate (they?ve since helmed episodes of Marvel?s Moon Knight and Loki). Together, they're storytellers capable of building epic worlds without requiring epic resources.

While Benson and Moorhead have enjoyed their recent excursions into the MCU, unsettling paranormal puzzles made on a dime are where they say their hearts truly lie. Which is why, when the pandemic struck and the world was thrown into lockdown, they began planning a supernatural mystery they could shoot in Benson?s apartment, star in themselves (the duo often act in their own movies) and craft almost entirely themselves. Something In The Dirt ? their most compelling film to date ? tells the tale of neighbours John and Levi, drawn into an unlikely friendship by unexplainable phenomenons in their apartment block. They decide to document this activity in search of fame and fortune ? but can each party trust the other, as revelations about their secretive lives follow them down a rabbit hole into the unknown?

We met with Benson and Moorhead in person last summer, before Something In The Dirt?s release, while they were filming Loki season two. They told us about their writing habits and helped us decode one of the most jigsaw-like cult dramas in decades ? a must-watch for fans of David Robert Mitchell?s Under The Silver Lake and films like it. This is a spoiler conversation so be sure to catch the film before tuning in ? it?s available on Hulu for our listeners in America, and video on demand if you?re tuning in from the UK.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

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2023-03-01
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Midnight Mass with Mike Flanagan

Mike Flanagan is one of the defining horror storytellers of the last decade. He?s a trusted custodian of tales by some of the greatest horror authors of all time, with Stephen King, Shirley Jackson and Edgar Allan Poe just some of the names he?s adapted into acclaimed shows and movies. His credits as a writer, director and showrunner include The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor and The Shining sequel Doctor Sleep. No work is more personal to the filmmaker, however, than 2021?s astonishing vampire drama Midnight Mass. 

In the conversation you?re about to hear, Mike delves into his show?s creation, going back in time over a decade to a version of Midnight Mass he intended to write as a novel. The story of its evolution into one of the most moving meditations on religion in memory (not to mention one of Netflix?s most acclaimed ever series) is the story of a series of huge life changes for the 44-year-old, as his relationship to alcohol, faith, family and other facets of his life began to alter.

The show starred Zach Gilford as Riley, a recovering addict returning to his small isolated hometown of Crockett Island after serving four years in prison for killing someone in a drunk-driving incident. There he reunites with an old flame, named Erin Greene, played by Kate Siegel, Mike?s partner and frequent collaborator. Erin is pregnant, but that pregnancy takes an unexpected turn following the arrival of an enigmatic young priest on the island, who unleashes upon members of the local church-going community a series of seemingly impossible miracles. What follows is an unholy, blood-soaked baptism, as the line between what?s miraculous and what?s monstrous becomes dangerously blurred.

Discover why Mike?s love for Midnight Mass is so great, he still has the angel-slash-vampire?s prosthetic wings in his garage. Find out all about abandoned plans for a second season of the show, in which Riley was to be revived as the show?s antagonist. And learn why there?s a musicality to monologues that makes them a joy to write (with some tips on how to write your own).

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

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2023-02-21
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Tár with Todd Field

This week we?re joined by acclaimed writer-director Todd Field, whose new drama Tar recently picked up a number of BAFTA and Oscar nominations, and understandably so. It?s an up-close portrait of a prodigious but problematic classical pianist named Lydia Tar, played by Cate Blanchett, whose achievements as the first female conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic are blighted by a history of sexual misconduct now threatening to unravel her life and mental health. Lydia?s abuses of power in this tense, sensory drama have seen the film become a lightning rod for conversations about so-called ?cancel culture.? But as you?ll discover in this episode, Tar began life long before that term had been coined.

There are deeply human questions of power, corrosion and culpability within this story that dovetail in interesting ways with our current climate ? but are bigger than that buzzword and the volatile conversation around it. In the conversation you're about to hear, Todd breaks down key themes, scenes and characters in fascinating detail. Is Lydia really being haunted? What was the early incarnation like that before the project was rooted in the high stakes world of classical music, when the character was set to be the head of a media conglomerate? And when the film ends with a reference to a video game named Monster Hunter, how accurate is it to interpret that this has been a narrative about a cancel culture fall from grace ? the titular monster, finally hunted?

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

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2023-02-10
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The Whale with Samuel D. Hunter

Today on the show, we?re joined by Samuel D. Hunter ? playwright-turned-screenwriter of moving new drama, The Whale. Directed by Darren Aronofsky, the film tells the tale of Charlie (Brendan Fraser) ? a reclusive former teacher who developed destructive eating habits following a devastating past tragedy. With seemingly days to live, Charlie desperately attempts to reconnect with a daughter who resents him, and is sinking into a cynicism that Charlie finds heartbreaking.

It?s a film that, you may have heard, has stoked a wide range of reactions, which Sam and I get into in detail. We talk about its provoking title, which he explains was designed to prod at people?s prejudices before taking on a completely different context in the story. We discuss the challenges and opportunities presented to Sam when it came to adapting his stage play into a screenplay ? and what the scarcity of media telling the tales of plus-size protagonists does for the fabric of our society.

This is a spoiler-filled conversation so please be sure to watch The Whale before listening in.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

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2023-02-07
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Groundhog Day with Danny Rubin

It?s thirty years to the day since a grouchy weatherman named Phil Connors found himself reliving the same day over and over again in Groundhog Day ? a comedy that?s timeless in more ways than one. On today?s episode, we're joined by the film?s writer, Danny Rubin, as we delve into his initial screenplay for the iconic time-loop farce, which became one of the most beloved comedies of its generation.

Danny wrote the film as a spec script in the early ?90s. It soon landed in the hands of Harold Ramis of Ghostbusters and Caddyshack fame, and the pair began to develop the screenplay together. From there, Groundhog Day went through a number of changes as the pair decided to lean into the comedic potential of the premise ? and lean away from some of the more "indie" and experimental elements of Danny?s original vision for the movie. Their hard work paid off ? Groundhog Day was met with rave reviews on release and won a BAFTA for Best Original Screenplay. It became one of 1993's highest grossing movies and its influence has only grown from there: today, the story lives on not just in the form of the acclaimed stage musical that Danny wrote ? there?s also the small matter of films and TV shows like Edge of Tomorrow, Palm Springs and Russian Doll, all of which took Groundhog Day's time-loop concept and ran with it in new directions.

In the conversation you?re about to hear, Danny tells us how surreal it's been witnessing ?Groundhog Day? become ingrained as an idiom in the English language. We hear about the vampire fiction that served as the movie?s surprising inspiration and talk about why weatherman?was the perfect profession for Phil and his detached, icy personality. Listen out also for details on Danny's original ending for the movie ? a twist that found the character Rita beginning her own time loop on February 3rd.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

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2023-02-01
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The Fabelmans with Tony Kushner

Tony Kushner is the Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of Angels in America and the long-time writing partner of a certain Steven Spielberg. His latest collaboration with the director, co-written with the Close Encounters filmmaker, sees Steven pulling the curtain back on his fascinating childhood, delving back to a time in which his blossoming love for filmmaking began to entwine with seismic changes in his family life. It was no surprise to see the drama collect a Best Picture nod at this week's Academy Award nominations ? it's a peerless portrayal of a family shattering in real time that acknowledges both the joy of storytelling and the havoc it can wreak to us and those around us.

Tony co-wrote the film with Steven having worked closely with him since 2005 ? their previous collaborations include Munich, Lincoln and West Side Story. This project was different, though, with Tony required to act almost as a therapist to his friend as part of the writing process. For fifteen years, he?d been trying to convince Steven to tell the story of his adolescence. As you?ll hear in this episode, it was only after a blazing row between them on the set of West Side Story that Steven, as an olive branch to Tony, agreed to finally begin work on it. When it came to writing, Tony had to coax intimate details from Steven in a series of Zoom conversations, pressing his friend to delve deep into his recollection of those years ? even the painful parts. In fact, especially the painful parts.

In the spoiler-filled conversation you?re about to hear, we unpack his and Steven?s screenplay for the film in its entirety, discussing why The Fabelmans is more than a love letter to cinema as it?s been billed in some places (to Sammy, filmmaking is as much a curse as a gift, unravelling his family). We also touch on his own past experience of writing from a place of autobiography with his musical Caroline or Change, and talk about the film?s intriguing sequence with Sammy?s school bully. Oh and if you think Al was going to chat to Tony and not ask him about the brilliant end sequence involving David Lynch as John Ford, you have another thing coming ? that?s one of our favourite final scenes of any film in recent memory, so of course we dig into that.
 
Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

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2023-01-27
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Avatar: The Way of Water with Amanda Silver and Rick Jaffa

Buckle up, listeners ? we?re heading to Pandora. Avatar: The Way of Water is the long-awaited sequel to one of the biggest movies of all time, and our guests today are two of its talented co-writers. You might know Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver as the screenwriters behind the brilliant Planet of the Apes reboot trilogy and 2015?s Jurassic World. If you?re familiar with those movies, you?ll know exactly why legendary director James Cameron chose the pair as collaborators for this sequel to his 2009 sci-fi fantasia ? both of those franchises snuck sideswipes at man?s exploitation of the natural world into their exciting set-pieces and blockbuster action.

The Way of Water is a much more complex movie than the first Avatar, with a lot more moving parts, some of which are seeds for movies to come (this is the first in a number of sequels that Amanda and Rick have also worked on, in production now). The film picks up with our heroes from the first movie, Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), fighting another battle fourteen years after the Battle of the Hallelujah Mountains ? parenthood. The pair have had a family and now have an even more pronounced reason to protect their land from the colonisers from Earth, seeking to make Pandora man?s new home, having wrecked their own.

Rick and Amanda ? who have been married since 1989 and collaborating since 1992?s The Hand That Rocks The Cradle ? told us all about how the Way of Water?s screenplay came together. We get into exactly how they, Cameron and fellow co-writer Josh Friedman brought back the villainous Colonel Quaritch, the Mowgli-esque origins of new character Spider, and the environmental truths about our own climate change-stricken world that the film takes aim at. There?s also a thorough breakdown of that death in the film?s final act, and Al at various points attempts to speak Na?vi. Badly, naturally.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

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2023-01-18
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Aftersun with Charlotte Wells

Today, we have with us the extraordinary Charlotte Wells ? writer-director of one of the most affecting feature debuts in recent memory. Aftersun is a meditative drama about a father and daughter on a resort holiday in Turkey, told through the eyes and camcorder footage of 11-year-old Sophie, played by Frankie Corio. She shares a sweet relationship with her father Callum, played by Paul Mescal. Across their holiday, however, she?s able to steal glimpses of him wrestling with problems beyond her comprehension, ? problems he attempts to hide from the world. It?s a story about memory, parenthood and the heartbreak of growing up and realising that your parents are people, too, with their own burdens to carry. Inevitably, it?s being described as an awards season frontrunner, and one of the best movies of 2022.

In the conversation you?re about to hear, Charlotte tells me how the film began as an exploration of her relationship with her own dad, who she sadly lost aged sixteen. There?s a certain overlap between her life and the events of the movie that we unpack in this chat, as well as some big differences between her early drafts of Aftersun versus the final film. Initially, the film was set to feature an adult version of Sophie wandering through scenes following her childhood self, like a sun-soaked Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. There was also a romantic relationship at the holiday resort for Callum that got jettisoned, and much more melodrama, a more pronounced plot.

We talk why she stripped away those elements to drill deeper into the father-daughter tensions at the heart of the film, what it is about the pressures and repetitions of a family holiday that make for such an interesting backdrop to the film, and what exactly is happening in the film?s astonishing emotional climax: a dance sequence set to Queen?s Under Pressure, whose lyrics take on a poignant new meaning in the context of Callum and Sophie?s relationship. It?s a spoiler conversation, so be sure to watch the film on Mubi before tuning in.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

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2023-01-13
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White Noise with Noah Baumbach

Is White Noise a disaster movie, a family drama, a drugged-out conspiracy thriller or a satirical comedy? The truth is it?s all of the above, and for its writer-director Noah Baumbach, something else altogether ? a dystopian delight that represents the biggest left turn of his career so far. Since bursting into the spotlight two decades ago, the New Yorker ? famous for movies like Squid and the Whale, Margot at the Wedding and Marriage Story ? has become renowned for creating intimate snapshots of American family life. Whether working on his own or collaborating with the likes of his partner Greta Gerwig or Wes Anderson, his movies are typically small in scale but big in emotional depth, delving deep into the interpersonal lives of characters you can?t help but fall in love with. 

At least, that?s what used to define a Baumbach movie. White Noise is the sound of an auteur stepping boldly out of his comfort zone. It?s an apocalyptic  adaptation of a novel that till now was thought to be unfilmable (Don DeLilo?s revered post-modern classic was full of dense prose, lyrical absurdity and satirical sharp-shooting at American hysteria; not the easiest thing to translate to screen). A lot of the film takes place in a supermarket that?s both a community hub and a cathedral to American consumerism. And a large chunk of the movie involves grand CGI depictions of a toxic cloud engulfing a community who descend into panic and lawlessness. All things far removed from the grounded domesticity of Noah?s normal storytelling.

In the conversation you?re about to hear, Noah talks about why the time was right for such a departure. We discuss the film?s Covid-19 and Trump-era commentary, and his love for hiding in the opening scene of movies an encapsulation of the thematic content to come. You?ll also find out why he made one major change to the novel involving the character Babette, and why White Noise isn?t a cautionary tale ? we as a society are already living in the disorientated, misinformation-filled world of this story, he explains. The future is now ? both for America, and for Noah Baumbach.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

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2023-01-03
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Script Club: The Shining with Lee Unkrich (Toy Story 3, Coco)

Today on Script Apart ? something new! For a while, we've wondered how to cover great screenplays by writers who are not able to come on the show or are sadly no longer with us. Which led us to the idea of Script Club ? a book club, but for screenplays. We'll be inviting great storytellers onto the show in the coming months to discuss scripts they adore by screenwriters who are not able to come on the show themselves. Kicking off this intermittent series of bonus episodes is an icon of modern animation ? Lee Unkrich, director of films like Toy Story 3 and Coco.

Lee was an integral creative force at Pixar for over 25 years before stepping down in 2019 following the incredible success of Coco two years earlier. That film told the tale of a 12-year-old boy named Miguel who is accidentally transported to the Land of the Dead. Lee's favourite movie, a film that he's poured a decade of his life into quite literally writing the book on, is similarly inhabited by ghosts and apparitions from the great beyond, in a very different way. Since he was a teenager, Lee has been obsessed with The Shining ? Stanley Kubrick's seminal horror, co-written with novelist Diane Johnson. It's an obsession that recently culminated in a genuinely epic three volume book for publishing house Taschen, full of brand new interviews with all sorts of creatives who worked on the movie, as well as unseen photos from the film's creation.

During his research, Lee ? who was granted unheralded access to the Kubrick archives ? read draft after draft of the film, gaining an astonishing insight into Kubrick's writing process. On the episode, recorded in early December in London's Picturehouse Central, he recounts some of the biggest changes across those different iterations of the Shining screenplay ? including a subplot involving a scrapbook that would drastically change the feel of the film, and a more blood-soaked ending that saw practically every character meeting a grisly end. Yes, even poor little Danny.

Lee also weighs in on the film's unique place in our film culture as this subject of constant speculation and theorising about its hidden meanings, sharing some of his own interpretations of the script, and breaks down key scenes and characters. This was a fun experiment to record. If you like it, and want to see us record more in this bonus format, let us know! We'd love to hear your feedback.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

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2022-12-16
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The Wolf of Wall Street and Tulsa King with Terence Winter

Terence Winter didn?t just write The Wolf of Wall Street ? he almost was The Wolf of Wall Street. The 62-year-old creator of Boardwalk Empire ? also renowned for penning some of some of the most beloved ever episodes of The Sopranos ? was a stone?s throw away from the film?s subject, Jordan Belfort, on the day of the infamous ?Black Monday? stock market crash of 1987. They moved in some of the same circles, and Terence ? by his own admission ? had a certain ?conman, bullshit artist? streak to his behaviour as a young man. He sometimes wonders what might have happened had they met in real-life; the degree to which he might have been seduced into a life of selling penny stocks in the hedonistic world of high finance.

Instead, Terence moved to Hollywood in 1991, intent on writing screenplays. What happened next would help define the future of television. The Brooklyn-raised writer, after a brief stint writing for sitcoms, became a man synonymous with American criminality and the humans beings behind the most monstrous behaviour imaginable. He wrote 22 episodes of The Sopranos, including the famous Pine Barrens episode. After that, he stepped out on his own with the Prohibition-era drama Boardwalk Empire, which ran for five brilliant seasons.

This month, Terence added a new show to his list of accomplishments: Tulsa King, co-created with Yellowstone?s Taylor Sheridan. Starring Sly Stallone as a mobster rebuilding his life and criminal empire following a lengthy stay in prison, it hits some familiar beats for fans of Terence?s work, while also gravitating into exciting new territory. In the conversation you?re about to hear, Terence breaks down his script for The Wolf of Wall Street and gives a spoiler-free guide to how he crafted Tulsa King ? delving deep into his unique storytelling philosophies and writing habits.
 
Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Arc Studio Pro and WeScreenplay.

To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.

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2022-12-06
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Barbarian with Zach Cregger

Don?t go down to the basement. Rule number one of surviving a horror movie, right? One of the many miracles of Barbarian ? the debut feature from writer-director Zach Cregger that became one of the year?s biggest hits ? was how it took one of the most tried and tested tropes of the genre and managed to weave something so surprising and unpredictable out it. The film ? much like the basement-dwelling creature at the heart of the movie ? roared out of the shadows following a low budget production in Bulgaria to become a box office-topping behemoth admired by everyone from Stephen King and Jordan Peele. Driving its success was good old fashioned word-of-mouth, as moviegoers implored their friends to rush to the cinema to experience a story that needs to be seen to be believed; whose twists it?s near-impossible to be braced for.

It might not surprise you to learn that such an unusual film was written in an unusual way. As you?ll discover in this episode, the movie began as one scene. A woman, Tess, checks into an Airbnb, only to discover there?s someone else already inside. There, she must decode a situation fraught with potential danger. Is the man she?s marooned in the apartment with a friend or a threat? Cregger wrote the scene unsure where it was leading until eventually, his subconscious took over. The rest of the movie, as you?ll hear, spilled out of him intuitively as he asked himself: what?s the most surprising thing that could happen now?

If you haven?t seen the film, pause this episode until you?ve experienced Barbarian for yourself. If you?re up to speed, listen on for fascinating revelations about how Cregger?s own experience of an alcoholic father quietly informed the script, why it was important to leave no ambiguity around the true nature of Justin Long?s character AJ and what the film expresses about toxic masculinity, as well as his original ending for the movie.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Arc Studio Pro and WeScreenplay.

To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.

Support the show

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2022-11-23
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Ocean's Eleven with Ted Griffin

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right? Well, not this week on Script Apart. Today we're joined by the wonderful Ted Griffin, the screenwriter behind a heist extravaganza that, for fans of dazzling set pieces, A-lister chemistry and Brad Pitt inexplicably eating snacks in every scene, was truly like hitting the jackpot. 

Ocean?s Eleven ? based loosely on the 1960 Rat Pack vehicle of the same name ? starred George Clooney,  Julia Roberts, Matt Damon and just about every other adored actor of that era, all operating with charisma and star wattage dialled up to the max. It told the story of Danny Ocean ? a fresh-outta-prison conman, played by Clooney, who?s plotting a robbery like no other. His plan is to raid the vaults of the three biggest casinos in Vegas. $150m is on the line, as well as something far more important to Danny ? the affections of Tess, his ex-wife, played by Roberts. 

The film was directed by the great Steven Sodebergh, who ? alongside Ted ? pulled off the kind of lucrative score Danny Ocean would be proud of. The movie grossed $450m worldwide, launching a franchise and wowing critics to this day. In the conversation you?re about to hear, Ted tells me how he approached its charming, clockwork-intricate screenplay. We talk about capturing the seedy, neon-splashed soul of Vegas on the page. He reveals why it was important to find an emotional heartbeat of the film, that meant it wasn?t just money motivating Danny. And you?ll also hear some wild stories from a rollercoaster six weeks on set, as the biggest stars on the planet at that time descended on Vegas en masse to bring this story to life.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Arc Studio Pro and WeScreenplay.

To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.

Support the show
2022-11-09
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Donnie Darko with Richard Kelly

?28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, 12 seconds. That is when the world will end.? In October 2001, a six-foot demonic rabbit named Frank materialised in front of a teenage Jake Gyllenhaal to issue that grave warning, setting in motion the plot of one of one of the great Halloween movies of all time. Donnie Darko was a time-twisting sci-fi curio about an emotionally troubled teen who after narrowly escaping a bizarre accident involving a falling jet plane engine, begins to experience strange visions. The result was an emotional, unknowable gem still inviting scrutiny and analysis today.

The film initially struggled to find an audience in the aftermath of 9/11, then gradually became a legit cult obsession. 21 years later, fans across the world continue to attempt to unravel its mysteries. But the thing about Donnie Darko is the more you attempt to unravel it, the more it ends up unravelling you ? that?s the level of emotion and existential that writer-director Richard Kelly was operating at when he wrote the film, aged just 24.

In the conversation you?re about to hear, we break down in detail the mysteries and meanings of all the most intriguing motifs and moments in Donnie Darko. Discover the origins of the unsettling rabbit Frank, who shares an unlikely connection with Obi-Wan Kenobi. Hear how Y2K concerns and election time anxiety influenced the film?s atmosphere. And find out why the true evil in Donnie Darko is the puritanical streak that ran rampant in suburban America in the film?s 1980s setting and still sadly exists today. 

You should probably also listen out for some intriguing details at the end about a bigger, even more ambitious sequel that Richard has been in contact with Jake Gyllenhaal about developing. Donnie?s story may not be over yet?

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Arc Studio Pro and WeScreenplay.

To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.

Support the show
2022-10-28
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Freaks & Geeks and Spy with Paul Feig

Our guest today is a storyteller who knows great comedy. As a director, Paul Feig has manned beloved movies like Bridesmaids, Ghostbuster and The Heat, not to mention memorable episodes of smash hit TV shows like Arrested Development and The Office. When it comes to writing, he more often than not passes the baton to brilliant collaborators, like Annie Mumolo, Kristen Wiig and Katie Dippold, concentrating on bringing their scripts to life from the director?s chair. On the occasions that he does write his own screenplays, however, it?s always an absolute laugh riot, full of warmth, affection, inclusivity and infectious positivity. 

In the late ?90s, Paul created Freaks and Geeks ? a deeply influential sitcom following the exploits of a band of high school misfits. The actors portraying those misfits would go on to dominate American comedy for decades to come: James Franco, Seth Rogen and Jason Segel all got their breaks in the show, which ran for just one season in 1999.

Its legacy has lived on, though, as has Paul?s reputation as a storyteller who aspires to bring people together in the movies and shows he creates. In this revealing conversation, he breaks down for us not only that show?s pilot, including the scene that he believes got the show cancelled, but also elements of his hilarious 2016 espionage comedy Spy, starring Melissa McCarthy,  for a sense of how writing comedy for TV  back in the '90s differs from writing comedy for the big screen today. It?s a fascinating conversation ? we hope you enjoy.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Arc Studio Pro and WeScreenplay.

To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.

Support the show
2022-08-30
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Hacks with Jen Statsky

We owe one of the most moving comedy-dramas in recent TV history to a monster truck rally. Jen Statsky was en route to Portland, Oregon to film a comedy sketch at the Monster Jam rally back in 2015 when she got chatting with her road trip accomplices, fellow comedy writers Lucia Aniello and Paul W. Downs. They spoke about the history of pushed-aside women in the entertainment industry ? female comedians like Singin' In The Rain star Debbie Reynolds, whose careers were derailed by misogynistic practices in Hollywood. On that day, Hacks was born ? a HBO series up for a number of awards at this year's Emmys and deservedly so.

The show ? starring Jean Smart as a comedian in the twilight of her career and Hannah Einbinder as the young comic sent to write new material for her ? is as funny as you'd expect from Jen, whose previous TV writing credits include The Good Place, Parks and Recreation and Broad City. But it's also tremendously emotive. She and fellow series creators Lucia and Paul have crafted a show that's both heartwarming and heartbreaking in its depiction of an unlikely female friendship that makes each party look at the world a little differently. 

In this episode, Jen talks about the thousands of titles explored for the show before they landed on Hacks, the evolutions in the streaming market that have allowed for shows like this and Barry to so ambitiously blend comedy with drama, and how some of the show's most memorable moments to date were written. This is a spoiler conversation so you might want to catch up on the series in its entirety before tuning in.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Arc Studio Pro and WeScreenplay.

To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.

Support the show
2022-08-19
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