Interview: Rajiv Joseph and Scott Rothman (“Draft Day”) — Part 5
Rajiv Joseph and Scott Rothman wrote the script Draft Day which landed at the top of the 2012 Black List. Subsequently Lionsgate produced the movie starring Kevin Costner, Jennifer Garner and Dennis Leary, and directed by Ivan Reitman.
In March, 2013, I interviewed Rajiv and Scott while they were in Cleveland during the film’s production, and I’m happy to share that wide-ranging conversation this week as Draft Day opens in theaters nationwide this Friday, April 11.
Today in Part 5, Rajiv and Scott share their thoughts on some aspects of the screenwriting craft:
Scott M: I’d like to ask some craft questions, if you don’t mind. Here’s the first one. How do you come up with story ideas?
Rajiv: Like I said, with my friend, she said this thing that popped for me, and it popped for Scott. Scott and I sit around, we love breaking stories together. We love hearing a story in the news, or talking with somebody else, or just coming up with stuff. We love to sit around and just talk about stories, and how we would write them. The ones that continued to interest us after about 10 minutes of talking start to find their way into our notebooks.
Scott R: Just on the most simplistic level, if we hear something, or you quickly have an idea, if it pops for both of us…If I have an idea and its 3:00 in the morning, I’m going to text Rajiv at 3:00 in the morning and see what he thinks. If it has legs, and it’s something that we continue to talk about as we’re going out and maybe sharing a few adult beverages with each other, then we know that it’s definitely something that is going to intrigue us and interest enough to actually sit down and write the story, which to me is the hardest part.
Scott M: That leads into my next question. In terms of breaking the story, and prep writing, you think you spend a year with that with Draft Day. Is your process to end up with a very thorough outline?
Rajiv: Yes.
Scott R: It is. Draft Day was a little weird because we were all set to go on Draft Day, then Rajiv’s play hit, and Robin Williams got attached, and they went to Broadway. It turned out to be a great thing for us. We put Draft Day on hold for eight or nine months, while the Broadway community opened their arms wide for the hottest new playwright in town. We were able to break story and talk about it in a very informal way, to the point where we really knew this. By the time it got time to write, it came out very, very quickly. To answer your question, yeah, we both believe in a very thorough outline, of really cracking the story. I think that’s where you make your money. That’s where the thing either dies on the vine or becomes something special. If you can break it there…you’re going to have surprises when you go to write the draft, but to me if you don’t have the underlying structure of the thing, you’re just running around in circles.
Scott M: Rajiv, following up on that, is that the same approach that you’re using when you’re writing plays?
Rajiv: No, almost never. Sometimes I know where I’m going with a play, sometimes I don’t. I think that plays are just much different than movies and there’s both more freedom in writing plays, but also a starker danger in writing something really boring. [laughs] The great thing about working with Scott is that he’s a true blue screenwriter. I have a real hard time with screenplays without his writing.
Scott M: Let’s talk about character development here. It’s interesting, Rajiv’s got the play writing background and Scott, you’re more of a screenwriter. I’d be curious to see how you go about developing your characters. In Draft Day, how did you populate that story universe for the characters? How did you develop them? Are there any specific tools that you used, or techniques?
Rajiv: Again, for me it’s Scott. It’s a lot about the cross‑talking. It’s a lot of bullshitting with each other, and trying to make each other laugh, and trying to think of cool ideas and characters that mean something. With Draft Day, what we had a lot of was, “It would be cool if that one moment in the movie just happened,” or like, “One moment in the movie this guy said this,” or, “If the one moment in the movie…” We weren’t even planning out when, or where, or how, or why. You have to think of cool moments that if you left the movie, “How about that moment when this happened…?” That’s what you often do with movies. Some of them found their way into our script and some of them didn’t. It had to do with the pacing of it and all that. I always feel like the fundamental rule for me is that you have to write what you find really funny, and really interesting to yourself, and to your friends. If you’re not writing that stuff, chances are it’s just going to be boring.
Scott R: I remember I read an interview with Steven Gaghan, the writer of Traffic and a bunch of other stuff. He was saying when he first started out, I can remember he was being mentored by a veteran screenwriter. I can’t remember who it was. Steven Gaghan kept saying, “I thought of this really cool idea, but there’s no way, it’s too crazy, and it’ll never make the movie. The guy taught him that’s exactly the thing, that everything else is bullshit. It’s only those things that you find cool and crazy that you need to figure out a way to make those moments the thing in your script. That’s the stuff that’s going to get through development and really connect with people. That really stuck with me, and I couldn’t agree more with Rajiv, that really is our process. “Wouldn’t it be cool if…” and we both respect each others’ taste on what those cool moments would be.
Scott M: How about dialogue? How do you go about finding your character’s voices?
Scott R: I just write all the dialogue, and Rajiv punctuates it.
Rajiv: I’m good on punctuation, and formatting.
[laughter]
Rajiv: That’s something we go back and forth on. Generally, when we’re writing something, Scott will write pages one through 15, and I’ll write 16 through 30, then we’ll switch. The rule is we can change whatever we want, both in story and in dialogue. That generally works for us. Sometimes we get into mini fights about, “Why’d you take that line out? I liked that line!” I’ll tell Scott, “It was just bad.” [laughter]
Scott R: The best way that works is that we keep going back and forth, constantly rewriting each other. To the point where I honestly, I’m sure other people say this all the time, but I honestly don’t know what parts of Draft Day I wrote and which parts Rajiv wrote. It really does, by the end of the process, become this one voice.
Scott M: Here’s a question that comes up, theme. How would you define theme?
Rajiv: I feel that every story has to have an idea that transcends the action and the characters. We had a number of things for Draft Day, that this is a story about blank. This is a story about instinct versus logic, this is a story about character versus talent, this is a story about fathers and sons. This is the kind of thing that helps me and Scott think about, “Why are we writing this to begin with?” We can both write funny, cute dialogue until we’re blue in the face and it’s not going to mean anything. Always, no matter how silly a movie might be, I think there has to be some deeper idea that’s its soul. I find myself thinking about that a lot, especially when I find I’m discouraged by a piece of writing.
Scott R: I got to say, just as a counterpoint, theme is something that I’ve never thought about that much. I would have it in the back of my mind, or I’d develop a theme as I went. It was never a guiding principle that I had spent any time going back to. I never wanted to appear didactic, or I was screaming in the reader’s ear what the message was or what the point was. It’s something that I really learned from Rajiv, and writing with him. He takes theme very seriously, as he’s just pointed out. I’m sure I don’t obsess over it, to the point he does it naturally, but it’s definitely something now I’ve learned to pay more attention to. I do think my writing has gotten that much better because of it.
Tomorrow in Part 6, Rajiv and Scott reflect on the ups and downs of writing, and provide some advice for aspiring writers.
For Part 1 of the interview, go here.
Part 2, here.
Part 3, here.
Part 4, here.
Rajiv is repped by Gersh and Kaplan / Perrone.
Scott is repped by CAA and Kaplan / Perrone.
Twitter: @scottmrothman, @RajivAJoseph, @DraftDayMovie.
Comment Archive