Academy Award winning screenwriters Mark Boal and Geoffrey Fletcher
Last night Mark Boal won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay (Hurt Licker) and Geoffrey Fletcher won for Best Adapted Screenplay (Precious). It’s interesting to note that this is the first actual screenplay credit for both writers, so in a sense they can be considered ‘first timers’ — just a few short years ago, both Boal and Fletcher were Hollywood outsiders. Their stories should be inspiration for all of you whose dream it is to break in as a professional screenwriter. In that spirit, I’m reprising interviews with both in this post:
Geoffrey Fletcher:
Tell me how you came to this project?
Photo: © 2009 Lionsgate
Lenny Kravitz and Gabourey Sidibe in Precious: Based On The Novel ‘Push’ By Sapphire.
Lee Daniels saw a short film I’d written, shot, directed, and edited and was really taken by it, and he asked if I would get involved in this project. I had never heard of the book. I’m both grateful and embarrassed to admit that. I’m embarrassed because it’s such a great work of art with a great following. I’m grateful because that might have intimidated or affected me in some way and inhibited my freedom in adapting it.
So, in a way, your ignorance of the book allowed you to come to this material clean and fresh?
Exactly. I came to it fresh and without any preconceptions or fear of changing things. I think it would have inhibited to some degree the freedom with which I felt I could approach it.
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Do you feel as though you maybe grafted your own personal emotional journey onto that of Precious?
These are excellent questions. I mean, really. Precisely. There are a number of specific experiences or theories or things that I’ve studied that worked their way into Precious. Feeling on the outside and feeling like you have something to offer on the inside that other people may or may not see, I can relate to those feelings so strongly. I think it’s partly why I related to Precious so strongly and made sure to use those experiences. Looking back on all the time I felt like an outsider with an uncertain future — I mean, I don’t think anyone has a certain future in this industry or isn’t always hustling to see what’s next — but I wouldn’t trade those difficult days for anything because those experiences make one a better storyteller. They add depth, dimension, and truth to one’s work.
Does your journalism background affect the way you approach screenwriting?
It does. Journalism is all about telling a story through detail, so I took that aspect with me to screenwriting. And as a journalist, my head is oriented toward stories that are topical and relevant.
Another thing you pick up on as a journalist is capturing the dialogue, because sometimes you don’t have a tape recorder. I’ve interviewed all kinds of people and listened to different people talk from different walks of life. That professional listening you do as a journalist carries over into screenwriting when it comes time to invent characters.
So you have an innate sense of dialogue after interviewing all those people?
I don’t know. I don’t want to toot my own horn, but I think in terms of similarities between the two forms. The type of journalism that I do, which is long-form feature writing, is very detail-oriented and dialogue is very important to telling the story.
Congratulations to Mark Boal and Geoffrey Fletcher, and all the other WGA and Academy Award screenwriting nominees.
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