Go Into The Story Interview (Part 1): Omar Al Dakheel and Elie El Choufany

Omar Al Dakheel and Elie El Choufany wrote the original screenplay The Washroom which won a 2025-2026 Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting. I had an hour-long conversation with the pair exploring their creative backgrounds, analyzing their Nicholl-winning screenplay, and a discussion of key aspects of the screenwriting craft.

Today in Part 1, Elie and Omar talk about growing up and how they developed an interest in movies and writing.

Scott Myers: Congratulations for being named Nicholl fellows this year. I'd like to begin our conversation just getting some background on each of you. Elie, let me start with you. I believe you  grew up in Lebanon, is that right?

Elie El Choufany: Yes. I was born and raised in Lebanon until I was 20. And then I actually came to LA for eight months and did a couple of workshops, writing and directing workshops at New York Film Academy. And I thought at that time that I wanted to be a director, but after I did the workshop, the writing workshop, I realized that writing's where my heart is. I applied to the London Film School, and I got my master's degree in screenwriting there and then after I graduated, basically I got an opportunity to  work on a feature film with Lionsgate. So, I packed my bags and came here.

Scott: Let's jump back a little bit here. You're growing up in Lebanon. There was a civil war going on.

Elie: Yes. up until I was, like, five and a half years, my family and I lived in an underground bunker, basically. It was, like, the neighborhood shelter. And my parents owned a VHS store literally right above that shelter. So, I figured out where they hid the keys, and I would wait for everyone to fall asleep, and I would go upstairs, and I would watch movies and it was one of the safest places that I found during my childhood.

Yeah. And I even remember one of the first movies that I saw was 2001: A Space Odyssey. And, I saw the potential of going to space, and I was like I want to do that. I want to be there." That really spoke to me and set me on a course to find myself in film.

Scott: And how amazing it is that movies can transport us, completely take us out of our lives. Here you are in Lebanon, a civil war going on. You could go upstairs, pick out a VHS,  pop the tape into the VCR, and boom, you're in a different environment.

Elie: I think that's the rare piece of magic that still exists in, in the world is art and cinema has the ability to not just transport you to a different world but shows you really the potential of what it means to be human.

And I think that's what is captivating to me is that I genuinely didn't think it was possible to live anywhere outside of war, and fear, and violence. And movies showed me the potential for fear to become strength, for violence to become kindness, and being able to not just change, transform how you see yourself and how you see the world around you

Scott: Very well said. Thanks for sharing that. Omar, I think you're from Kuwait originally.

Omar Al Dakheel: Yeah. Kuwait born and raised, and I came to the US, I was almost 18 when I came here. I came here for college. I got a scholarship from Kuwait. For undergrad, I studied broadcast journalism and theater at the University of Miami, and I loved both. In my last semester, I took a documentary class, and at the same time I was a production assistant for my friend’s short fiction film. I realized I loved the production side of it, but I also loved directing and story. I think that's, when you're growing up young you don't know what exactly attracts you about the whole craft. You don't know what directing is. You don't know, when you're a kid, you don't know what any of these things are. You just see something and you like it.

My family were not fond of cinema or movies or anything, but I had a cousin that was obsessed, and he would have a lot of those VHS tapes, and we'd watch a lot of movies. A lot of them are random films. And you know what's interesting is a lot of the films that I saw were, like, independent small films.

Or maybe they're not that small, in relatively speaking, they're not franchise. What's Eating Gilbert Grape, that was one of the movies that I really loved. It was just about this boy who's stuck in a small town taking care of his family, which in many ways is like The Washroom. It was the first time I saw Leonardo DiCaprio, and as a kid I genuinely thought he was a person with an intellectual disability. I didn't realize he was acting. The performance felt that real to me. It was incredible, so I was really fascinated about that.

Another film I saw around the same time was Dead Man Walking. I was probably too young to be watching it, but I loved the moral complexity between this nun and this inmate who's on death row. I was always captivated by this style of acting that feels almost like a documentary. It doesn't really feel like they're acting. So yeah, those are the kind of films I grew up with.

Watching movies stayed with me very much. And after I did journalism and I did theater, I was like, "Okay I do like the production aspect of it. I like the story aspect of it." And even when I was taking the acting classes, a lot of times me and the whatever, the acting partner, I would tell them what to do and the professor's “No, you can't do that. This is not your job." And it's like maybe that should be my job.

And so somebody that I met, he was doing film, and he's "You want to come on set?" And when I came on set, I was like, yeah, this is it. Because in my mind was being on set was a huge thing, but when you see it in one location on one day on one's little story, you realize, oh, this is actually doable.

And then I was like, okay what are the film schools, top film schools? And I applied for USC, got into the MFA in production program. And at USC, that's when I think I found my voice, which is as a Muslim man growing up in Kuwait. I grew up in Kuwait in the aftermath of the Gulf War, and later experienced another period of war in the region. That history was always part of the background of my childhood. I felt like there was a void, a lack of authentic stories told by people like me and Elie. And at USC, the shorts that I've done are what really opened the door for me in many ways. We can talk about more what, where it took me after that, but I think that's the best thing I found at USC.

It's not just a good film school or the best film school or whatever. I think it's the film school that I found to support everybody's voice and really want you to find your voice and who you are. I think that's the best thing that I got out of USC. The second-best thing was the people that I met.

But the first best thing is to have the courage, and it takes a lot of courage to be who you are, and I think that's the best thing that USC gave me.

Scott: Elie was thinking, "I'll be a director, but wait a minute, maybe I really want to be a writer." And Omar, you are more, you wanted to be--

Omar: I was like, I want to I thought I was going to be a I wanted to be either, like a reporter or as an actor. I liked those. I liked the journalism, I liked the news, but I also liked acting. But then I realized I like telling the story but telling it in a visual way. So at USC, that's when I found directing.

Tomorrow in Part 2, we discuss how the pair met and originated the idea for their screenplay The Washroom.

I have interviewed every Nicholl winner since 2012. You may read those interviews here: LINK.