Interview: Lindsay Devlin (“Devil’s Due”) — Part 1

January has turned out to be a reliable month for Hollywood with regard to one genre in particular: Horror. This year was no different when Twentieth Century Fox released Devil’s Due, a movie that thus far has brought in over four times its production budget in box office revenues.

The movie’s success is one reason I was excited to interview its screenwriter Lindsay Devlin. Another reason is her extensive background working in Hollywood on the story development side of things.

Lindsay and I had a terrific conversation, and I’m pleased to share her many insights into the craft of screenwriting and the movie business, along with her creative process with the film Devil’s Due.

Today in Part 1: Lindsay takes us through the process whereby she got into the entertainment business and her years at one of the top agencies in Hollywood:

Scott Myers: Were you a movie fan growing up?

Lindsay Devlin: Very much so. My first memory of a film was probably E.T. I remember being so heartbroken and moved by it as a child, and couldn’t believe that you could have that kind of emotional experience with a movie. It kind of traumatized me, in a way. But after that, I couldn’t get enough.

At the same time, I was always writing stories. I’d have my little brother or neighborhood kids perform them. I felt I was taking what I experienced in movies, and trying to re‑enact them through my own writing and little performances at home. So yeah, I was a very theatrical kid, for sure.

Scott: Do you remember any other movies that might have influenced you or made an impression on you when you were younger?

Lindsay: It was the heyday of the ’80s and Amblin, so it was a lot of the Indiana Jones and adventure fantasy. I also really fell in love with musicals. At the time, it was probably Annie that kicked that off. I thought I was Annie for about a year, much to my poor parents’ chagrin, because I sang it everyday. My mom and I would watch a lot of the classic musicals together too.

I, very early on, realized…I mean, I loved all movies, but I really was drawn to movies that had an other-worldly quality — whether that was magic, or ghosts, or science fiction… something extraordinary in the world.

One of the first movies I saw in that vein that really captivated me, and I actually think is a huge influence, strangely to this day, is a Disney movie called Watcher in the Woods. I was truly obsessed with that movie. It was so haunting and eerie. It was stunning because you never saw an entity, you didn’t see a ghost, you didn’t see an alien, you didn’t see anything, but the atmosphere was just pervasive and wonderful. It planted a seed in my brain. Between that and starting to read all the Nancy Drew mysteries and Goosebumps and Stephen King. I, really, was drawn to the supernatural and the unknown.

Scott: You went to University of Michigan, is that right?

Lindsay: Yes, I did.

Scott: As opposed to science fiction, originally, as I understand it, you were more oriented towards science, pre‑med.

Lindsay: Yes. I wanted to be a pediatrician.

Scott: How did you steer your way to eventually going toward film?

Lindsay: I needed an elective. My first film class was a Woody Allen/ Ingmar Berman class. We watched the movies side by side, to see how Allen was influenced by Bergman. It was the first time I had ever studied a movie that way. I couldn’t believe how intellectually stimulating it was.

A lot of people think of movies as escapist frivolity. But we all talked for hours about themes, and character portraits and camera angles. I couldn’t get enough. I was hooked. I took another film class after that: Hitchcock, Preminger, and Lang, which was amazing as well, to study the masters of thriller. The more I got into it, the more I realized film was what excited me. And it was more true to who I was at the core, going back to childhood.

Thankfully, my parents were supportive when I told them I was going to pursue a career in film, which especially in Michigan, felt like I told them I was going to the moon ‑‑ not really a career path per se, in the Midwest.

It was kind of a leap of faith, but you have to follow what stimulates you, what excites you, what makes you passionate. That certainly was it, so I ended up changing from pre‑med to a dual Major in English Literature and Film Studies.

Scott: That’s like a Joseph Campbell line: The Hero’s Journey; the point of it is, “Follow your bliss.” So, you did. You followed it all the way out to LA. As I understand it, you did the whole intern assistant thing. Then there was a fairly lengthy stint at CAA. Maybe you could walk us through how that all played out?

Lindsay: After my summer internship in Los Angeles at two production companies and on a set of a film, I had this naive thought that after I graduated, I would just come back to LA and every door would open for me because I had slaved away for a summer. I would get whatever executive job I wanted. {laughs} I was quickly informed that’s now how it worked, and I would probably need to start at one of the big talent agencies as an assistant.

Everybody encouraged me to sit down and interview at the big ones ‑‑ ICM, CAA, William Morris. My first interview was at CAA. At the time, the only assistant desk they had open was for a TV agent, and it was TV packaging. I literally remember thinking: I did not just graduate from the University of Michigan with 4.0 GPA to put TVs in boxes! Then, of course, I learned what TV packaging was. I worked for a year for that agent, learned a lot, and was ready to leave to hopefully work for a feature producer. My heart was still in movies.

Then they surprisingly promoted me internally, to run this group called the Creative Group. It’s an internal story-generating factory, where you cull through all the remakes, and books, and articles, and basically pitch them to your clients. It was fascinating, and really was my training ground to become both a producer and then a writer. It was invaluable.

I really loved my time there. I met so many incredible people who are now working in all facets of the business. I look back very fondly at it as like a grad school stint at CAA.

Scott: Let’s dig into that a little bit. What are some things you learned from being part of that creative group at CAA you’ve been able to bring with you to the other side of the table as a writer.

Lindsay: I would say a lot of things. I mean, just in terms of how to identify good material. I would literally have stacks of 90 magazines, and old books, and remake ideas.

My job was to find the kernel of an idea. Now, when people send me material, I feel I have a shorthand to identify commercial ideas, or just what the thematic core of a story is pretty easily, because I had to do that on such a massive scale for so long. I would say that’s probably the main thing I took away.

I also got really comfortable with the politics of the business — who all the players were, and how production companies worked, and the hierarchy of Hollywood. I was on the inside, so I feel very comfortable now in meetings, and in talking to my agents, and stuff like that. As a writer, sometimes that’s behind the curtain, and you don’t understand that world, so I’m really grateful that I have that knowledge.

Scott: At some point, you decided to switch, and pursue screenwriting. How and when did that happen?

Lindsay: After CAA, I actually left and worked at two different production companies as creative executive and director of development. First, at director Wolfgang Petersen’s company, and then at producer Jordan Kerner’s company. It wasn’t an immediate thing where I just jumped right to screenwriting, because I still was very interested in producing and working with talent. Working with a director like Wolfgang was just amazing, because I also got to learn how a director thinks, and how a project gets broken down from the inside out at a production company. I spent a few years doing that.

After working at those companies, I spent a few more years working on my own as a producer, and setting up projects. That’s when I began to realize I needed to write, because what I was doing was finding material, or coming up with original ideas, and then basically sending those to writers. Several of my friends kept saying, “Why are you doing this? You should be writing all these things.”

I had always wanted to write, but it’s one of those things…I was chicken shit about it. I don’t know if I was just nervous, or I’d been on this other path so long.

I did a brief stint as a consultant at a company, and then I was let go because they lost their financing. I found myself unemployed, and it was the push I needed. I just realized, this is the time. If I’m ever going to write, this is what I need to do and when I need to do it.

I enrolled in a UCLA extension screenwriting class. I felt that I needed some kind of structure, or something to get me started. I needed those deadlines every week to bring in those pages. Sometimes that’s the hardest hurdle, is just getting stuff on a page. That’s actually when I finished my first spec screenplay. That was just shy of five years ago now.

Tomorrow in Part 2, Lindsay digs into some of the key story dynamics at work in Devil’s Due and shares some thoughts about how the two lead characters, Samantha and Zach, came into being.

Lindsay is repped by UTA and Mosaic.

Twitter: @DevlinLindsay.

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