Interview (Written): Steven E. de Souza

An August 24, 2015 Creative Screenwriting interview with prolific screenwriter Steven E. de Souza. His movie credits include 48 Hrs. (1982), Commando (1985), The Running Man (1987), Die Hard (1988), Die Hard 2 (1990), Judge Dredd (1995), and Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (2003).

Do all your screenplays have a single theme?

I don’t know if that is necessarily true. A student at AFI once did his thesis on me. He said I do ‘misdirected expectations’ which means I deliberately lead the audience to think something was going to happen and then do it differently or do something else. When I thought about it, I said, ‘Yes, I do do that.’ I would also say I have anti-authoritarian heroes and never really did the vigilante-take-the-law-into-your-own-hands kind of thing.

In your opinion, what does a screenplay need in order to be an action thriller?

I would argue that the genre of an action movie is a completely false creature. There is no such thing as an action movie. All movies have action. ‘Action movie’ is a term that was invented in the ’80s. I think Commando may have been the first one in 1985. They noticed for the first time that a handful of American movies were making more money overseas than in America. This had never happened before. Commando made 60% of its money overseas and 40% in the US. Action speaks louder than words. You don’t need to read the subtitles to know it was a bad idea to kidnap Arnold Schwarzenegger’s little girl. I disagree with the idea that there is such thing as an action movie, but we are stuck with that term now.

For the rest of the interview, go here.

Twitter: @StevenEdeSouza.