Go Into The Story Interview: Donald Margulies

My conversation with the 2013 Black List screenwriter.

Donald Margulies wrote the 2013 Black List script The End of the Tour (based on the book ‘Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace’ by David Lipsky). Directed by James Ponsoldt, the movie (starring Jesse Eisenberg and Jason Segel) was released in 2015.

Here is my interview with Donald.

Scott Myers: The End of the Tour is an adaptation of the 2010 book by David Lipsky, Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace, which itself is based on recorded transcripts from five days Lipsky spent with Wallace at the end of a book tour promoting the 1996 release of the novel Infinite Jest. How and when did it come to your attention?

Donald Margulies: In March, 2011, my friend and manager, David Kanter, who has represented me in one capacity or another since 1991, and who appreciates my aesthetic sensibility better than just about anyone, sent me a book that had come his way at Anonymous Content: David Lipsky’s memoir. Kanter said, “Take a look, there may be a play in it.” Just a few pages in, I began to get very excited; I envisioned not a play but a “road picture.” I had a strong sense of what it needed to be and how I would go about achieving it. Inspiration doesn’t always work that way; sometimes, rarely, I know almost immediately how to solve a play’s or screenplay’s structure, other times I struggle for months. The script that became The End of the Tour was written relatively quickly (once the rights had been secured) and came to fruition not long after that. Between my introduction to Lipsky’s book and the movie’s premiere at Sundance was a period of less than four years.

Scott: Had you ever met David Foster Wallace?

Donald: No, I had never encountered Wallace nor, frankly, was I fanatical about his work. My appreciation of his work and interest in him really began when I read Lipsky’s book, which not only captured Wallace’s dazzling intellect but succeeded in humanizing a cultural icon. It was then that I truly understood what a huge loss his death was to our culture and was moved to read and re-read Wallace in a new light. I’m hopeful that our movie accomplishes a similar feat: of compelling audience members with limited knowledge of David Foster Wallace to seek out his books and revel in his voice.

Scott: When breaking down the book, what were some of the key themes and dynamics you knew upfront you wanted to explore in adapting the story into a screenplay?

Donald: Anyone who’s followed my plays over the years will see thematic resonances in The End of the Tour. (Collected Stories is a two-hander that tracks the complicated relationship between an older woman writer and her protégée; both Sight Unseen and Brooklyn Boy take on the struggle between artistry and fame; Dinner with Friends deals, in part, with male friendship.) In my reading of the Lipsky book, I saw a convergence of so many of the themes that have captivated my writer’s imagination. Here was a story of two incredibly smart, witty, articulate men, both of them writers, who ostensibly want the same thing: literary success and legitimacy. Lipsky, 30 years old in 1996, was the aspirant whose first novel was published to modest acclaim; Wallace, only four years older, was the newly anointed voice of their generation. The men spend five intense days together (after which, incidentally, they will never see one another again) during which their interaction fluctuates between suspicion, intimacy, competitiveness, defensiveness — sometimes from one beat to the next. I have always been fascinated by the journalist-subject dynamic (so memorably written about by Janet Malcolm in The Journalist and the Murderer about Joe McGinniss and Jeffrey MacDonald) and I saw in this material a chance to take that on, too. I had at my disposal the 300-plus-page transcript that was the heart of Lipsky’s memoir. I never listened to the actual recordings but I did spend several hours interviewing David Lipsky, who generously shared moments that weren’t included in his book, details that proved invaluable in my screenplay. My challenge was to take this treasure trove of conversation and carve out a dramatic narrative; I needed to find the conflicts, mine the subtext, create dialogue that melded with their distinctive voices. I deconstructed all that rich, dense language, shattered it, and fashioned a kind of collage out of the shards, creating new juxtapositions and contexts. The dramatic stakes were intrinsic in what became the film’s title: the event being the final days of the tour that celebrated the book that changed his life. When Lipsky leaves Wallace in Illinois and goes home to New York, Wallace is confronted with the rest of his life, which we know will end by his own hand in just twelve years. I decided from its conception to put Lipsky in the foreground of the screenplay and tell the story from his point of view (a position the script adheres to but for two brief instances at the end of the film).

Scott: The script is a ‘road picture’. Did that influence the way you approached the characters and the structure of the story?

Donald: One of the things that excited me when I read the Lipsky book — and what convinced me that the material would be best served as a film and not as a play — was the notion of placing the great satirist of American popular culture, David Foster Wallace, on the American landscape. Not just at a book-signing or giving an NPR interview, but in cars, on highways, on airplanes, in 7-Elevens and iHops and McDonald’s, visiting the Mall of America, watching Broken Arrow in a multiplex — it was all too delicious to imagine. It needed to be a film — it would have been too constrained on the stage .

Scott: One of the most noteworthy aspects of the script is how dialogue-heavy it is. Were you at all concerned about writing a movie, known as a visual medium, in which the story is primarily comprised of two characters talking?

Donald: Yes, there are a lot of words. Chunks of speeches and dialogue scenes that run several pages, almost unheard of, I know, in conventional screenplays. I love cinematic feasts like Lawrence of Arabia but I love My Dinner with Andre, too; sometimes I have an appetite for language. Given the source material, I saw the opportunity to capture on film, through dialogue, the whirring intelligence, wit, imagery, obsessions and demons of a brilliant writer whose fiction is, arguably, largely unfilmmable. I adhered pretty closely to the itinerary Lipsky recounted in his book and was determined not to contrive Hollywood escapades for our guys on the road, certainly not in a craven effort to “open up” the story. For me it was all about the subtle shifts and calibrations in behavior between them; that’s where the drama was. Plus, I thought David and Dave made really entertaining company.

Scott: Another challenge: Handling the end of Wallace’s life in 2008. By going back in time to the events of Lipsky’s book, there is that foreknowledge in the script hanging over everything like a ghost from the future. At one point, Wallace’s character says to Lipsky, “You’re gonna die. In a meaningful way, you’re going to die.” And then in scene description: “Silence. Lipsky mulls over the gravity of what David has said. David breaks the portentous silence when he pops a wad of tobacco in his mouth.” ‘Portentous silence’ would seem to be an acknowledgement of future real-life events. What was your thought process and approach when writing the script in dealing with Wallace’s death?

Donald: I was never interested in making this a bio-pic. This is based on a true story, a one-hour, forty-five-minute dramatization of a five-day footnote that might shed light on an entire life. Bio-pics of writers are mostly embarrassing; the obligatory typing scenes and crumpling of paper; the flashback to the traumatic childhood event that attempts to explain everything. There was to be none of that here. And I was not interested in exploiting mental illness and suicide. The DFW of The End of the Tour is at a healthy time in his life, not at its nadir; that was one of the things that attracted me to this story. However, I felt it was important to acknowledge Wallace’s death at the very beginning, which the script does, on page one, in a prologue that takes place in 2008 (the coda takes place in 2010, with Lipsky reading from the book we have just seen dramatized). There was no point in withholding that information or saving it for a title card before the closing crawl. In fact, I thought it was essential for the film to have the gravitas like that felt when reading the book. It was the news that prompted Lipsky’s reflection on his encounter with Wallace twelve years earlier, and it contextualizes — and ironizes — all that follows. Wallace talked about suicide — being “put down,” “leaving the planet”- a lot. The “portentous silence” you referred to characterizes the experience the reader and viewer has; it registers with us because we know what is going to happen.

Scott: There is a personal aspect to this project. You have been an adjunct professor of English and Theater Studies at Yale and one of your students there was James Ponsoldt (Smashed, The Spectacular Now), who ended up directing The End of the Tour. Could you describe how that came about and what it was like working with one of your former students?

Donald: It was a joy. Around the time the script was finished and directors were beginning to be discussed, I happened to have reconnected with a former student of mine whose directing career was on the ascent. James Ponsoldt was one of the most memorable undergraduates I have had the pleasure of introducing to dramatic writing (Elizabeth Meriwether, Stuart Blumberg and Zoe Kazan are some of the others). James and I had kept in touch since his graduation fifteen or so years ago and rekindled our acquaintance when I contacted him after I saw Smashed to tell him how impressed I was by it. Not long after, with the blessings of my producers (Kanter, Matt DeRoss and James Dahl), acting on a hunch that it would speak to him, I sent James my script. His enthusiastic response came overnight, things moved pretty quickly after that, and here we are. I had a real Mr. Chips moment when I saw an early cut of the film; I was so moved not only by the fine, mature film James had made but by the faithful and loving way he brought his old professor’s script to life. It was as if 25 years of teaching had brought me this incredible reward. On a purely artistic level, it was wonderful having a director who trusted the power of the language (I once had a director who brutally cut a long scene in half and placed the latter portion in a men’s room).

Scott: Were you at all involved during the film’s production for five weeks up in Michigan? If so, what was that experience like?

Donald: The cast and crew tolerated long days in crushing cold. I spent only four days on the set in Grand Rapids (wisely, all interiors), long enough to make a couple of Hitchcockian cameos, most notably, Businessman with Rolling Suitcase in Hotel Corridor. There were not many changes made to the script once we went into production. Some scenes were consolidated, some cuts were made, mostly by email from my home in New Haven.

Scott: You have written for TV and other movie projects, so I’m guessing you’re aware of the Black List wherein each year, they announce a group of the best unproduced original screenplays as voted on by Hollywood creative execs. The End of the Tour made the Black List in 2013. Did that have any special meaning to you?

Donald: As a writer-for-hire, I’ve worked on something like two dozen(!) unproduced screenplays. All kinds of interesting stuff, many of them biographical: Keith Moon for Mike Myers, Gertrude Berg for Bette Midler, John Callahan for Robin Williams, Robert Capa for Oliver Stone; adaptations of novels by Edith Wharton, Jeffrey Eugenides and Tom Wolfe. But none was the labor of love that was The End of the Tour. Maybe that’s why it was the one that actually got made, who knows? A few reviewers of the film mistakenly referred to me as a “first-time” screenwriter when really what I am is a first-time happy screenwriter. I was aware of The Black List but never imagined that I would land a script on it one day. I was delighted when I did. It was very validating. A “They like me, they really like me” moment. It certainly lent the script a little extra sheen and buzz which I think contributed to the impression that it was something special. So, yes, I was very grateful for that recognition.

Scott: At some point when the film moved into production, the David Foster Wallace estate raised objections to the project. Presumably you had already done the lion’s share of your writing on the screenplay, but during the scripting process, were you at all concerned about what the reaction would be, not only from Wallace’s family, but also his fans?

Donald: I set out to capture Lipsky’s impressions of his five days on the road with Wallace. The book was well-received and had the support of the family, who were aware that it had been optioned. My hope was that it would honor the spirit of a revered writer and perhaps inspire a new generation of readers.

Scott: For several years, you have been playwright-in-residence at the Sundance Playwrights Conference. Then this January, The End of the Tour premieres at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. That must have been quite a contrast seeing Sundance in such a different light at the Festival.

Donald: I participated in the Sundance Playwrights’ Institute in Provo back in the pre-historic eighties and nineties. I had never been to the festival before so I wasn’t quite prepared for the traffic and the celebrity-gawkers and the pandemonium, or the smiling sponsors insisting that you take their free merchandise. Oh, yeah, there are movies there, too, but I couldn’t get in to see any but my own.

Scott: The movie has been picked up for distribution by A24, one of the most cutting edge independent movie companies to emerge in the last few years. Can you even begin to describe what it feels like to have traveled on your own creative road trip with this project and now see it all come to fruition?

Donald: I have said that The End of the Tour was a labor of love and I think everyone associated with it would describe it the same way. I take particular pride in having made this film with my longtime associate, David Kanter, and my former student, James Ponsoldt. We’re excited for a wider audience to finally see it.

Scott: What’s next for on the writing front for Donald Margulies?

Donald: I’m looking for a new screenwriting assignment. The older I get, the more I view a potential project as occupying a precious chunk of time and imagine how I would feel living with it for that long. Not too many things pass that test. For the stage, I’m writing a new play and working on my first book of a Broadway musical, for Disney Theatricals, Father of the Bride (based on the 1950 original with Spencer Tracy, not on the Steve Martin remake).

Scott: Some craft questions, if we could. How do you come up with story ideas?

Donald: Most of the work I’ve done for screen has been adaptation, a process I really enjoy. It employs a different part of my brain than when I’m writing a play, a different skill set. My original ideas tend to take the form of plays. I know I have a play when I find myself curious or troubled by something. A play can start with an image that can be as simple as two people in a room and I begin to ask questions about who they are in relation to one another. My play, Time Stands Still, arose from my imagining a loft and a woman on crutches entering it; when I decided that she was a photojournalist who had been injured covering combat, I had my new play. I use photography as prompts in my playwriting class: Diane Arbus portraits as an exploration of character and voice, Gregory Crewdson photos as an introduction to setting and stage pictures.

Scott: How much time do you spend in prep-writing (i.e., brainstorming, character development, plotting, research, outlining)? Which of the aspects of prep do you tend to devote the most time and focus to?

Donald: Research can be seductive. Writers try to convince themselves that research is writing but the truth is research is research. I love research! When I adapted Edith Wharton’s The Touchstone, for instance, I immersed myself in Whartonia. I spent months reading her novels, her correspondence, biographies, scholarly studies about women at the turn of the twentieth century, you name it! I even paid a visit to The Mount! What fun! But there comes a time when you have to say, “That’s enough research” and confront the beast — the script — and start writing. The danger of research is falling in love with too many details and wanting to use everything. Research is useful as inspiration but it mustn’t become an excuse not to write. You ultimately have to make a story your own and too many neat facts can clutter a script. I find treatment-writing a miserable pursuit; what joy is there in describing what you’re going to write?

Scott: When you finish a first draft, you are faced with the inevitable rewriting process. Are there some keys you have to rewriting your scripts and if so what are they?

Donald: I set the script aside for a few days, once the satisfied glow of finishing a draft has faded. I then print out a pristine copy of the script and proceed to mark it up with pencil, drawing lines between beats, making squiggles alongside dialogue that sounded great three days earlier but now seems self-indulgent. Also, I find it very useful hearing the work read aloud. Put together a reading. You can really get a sense of what’s working, what’s overwritten, what’s said two too many times, where you’re having too much fun at the expense of your story. I find myself increasingly impatient with movies and plays — my own very much included — when I feel that the story isn’t moving fast enough. Cutting can feel very liberating.

Scott: What is your actual writing process?

Donald: I don’t write every day. Well, I write something every day — emails, letters of reference — but I don’t always have a play or screenplay in progress to turn to. I love having a play in production. For me, rehearsal is the social reward for having toiled alone for many months. When I’m on fire with inspiration (which isn’t as often as I’d like) I write for hours a day and find that ideas strike as my head hits the pillow, so I’ll scrawl something brilliant in the dark on the back of a New Yorker at my bedside and find gibberish in the light of day. I don’t hang out in coffee shops with my laptop. I have a lovely office on the third floor of my home. My preferred soundtrack is silence but it’s often punctuated by my dog barking at perceived interlopers. If the phone doesn’t ring (which I have come to prefer), I could go through an entire day without speaking to anyone but my dog, and she’s a dog. I was never cut out for writers’ rooms; I’m much more attuned to my own fragile ego than I am to a roomful of them. I’m not used to saying ideas out loud; I always fear they’re bubbles that will burst once they’re spoken. I start out on a pad or in a notebook writing by hand but mostly doodling. When I hit on something that feels like a lead, I go to the keyboard and see how far that lead can get me.

Scott: What do you love most about writing?

Donald: Having written.

For my interviews with dozens of other Black List writers, go here.