Go Into The Story Interview: Tara Tomicevic

My conversation with the 2021 Black List writer.

Tara Tomicevic wrote the screenplay “Thicker Than Ice” which made the 2021 Black List. I had the opportunity to chat with Tara about her creative background, her script, the craft of screenwriting, and what making the annual Black List has meant to her.

Scott Myers: Let’s start at the beginning. Here’s a brief bio: “Tara is a Croatian war refugee who grew up in Italy and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley on a full scholarship.” That’s a lot going on there. Could you unpack that?

Tara Tomicevic: Sure. I was born in Croatia, or, Yugoslavia at the time. When I was four, there was a civil war. My dad saw it coming, and we got out of there just in time. We moved to Italy because it was next door and my dad had spent some time there.

We moved to Como, which has since been made famous by Mr. Clooney.

Scott: George Clooney, yeah, I was going to say.

Tara: We did not live anywhere near the villas that you’re picturing now [laughs]. We were there for six years. We moved to the States when I was 10, and even then we did a bunch of moving around. We lived in Buffalo, New York, for three weeks. We lived in Utah for a couple years. Then we settled in Sacramento, for middle and high school. I went to Cal for college, and then I moved to LA. I joke that I’ve lived in LA longer than I’ve lived anywhere else in my life and I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing.

Scott: If you’ve been in LA for a month, they consider you a regular there.

Tara: I’m a veteran, then. [laughs]

Scott: What did your dad do?

Tara: I know it sounds like I’m an army brat, but I’m not. One time it was escaping a war, and one time it was the cliché American dream. It was very challenging for my parents to make a living in Italy, and to have faith that I would have opportunities as a non-born Italian. It was going to be tough for an immigrant kid. We came to America hoping that I would have options.

Scott: Have you got multiple passports at this point?

Tara: I do.

Scott: You go to Cal. What was your major there?

Tara: I was a Mass Communications major.

Scott: How did you end up in that major?

Tara: Truthfully, I was a teen actor, and I thought I was going to be an actor forever. And being the practical person that I am, I realized that what I major in was never going to make any difference. I just studied what I thought was interesting, which was this interpretation and analysis of media, its messages, and how the business of media works. It was a broad major and I was doing a bunch of Equity Theater on the side, which was where my heart was.

Scott: Did you move to LA to get into acting?

Tara: 100 percent. I couldn’t wait to get to LA. I wanted to move here when I was 12 and I just could not understand why my parents would not let me be a Disney Channel star. [laughs]

Though at the time all I wanted to do was act, I very quickly realized that the pursuit of acting was not for me. In the Bay, I did one Equity Theater show, and then I started getting offers and auditions all over the Bay. I very quickly realized that this was a much bigger pond, and it did not work that way.

I always felt like I was waiting for permission. I felt I had no control over my career at all. I interned at a bunch of casting offices, and I had a bunch of actor friends that were pretty successful, and I saw how much of it was out of their hands. That scared me.

I’m too proactive of a person to wait for the stars to align, and that’s how a lot of that profession felt to me. As a result, my friend Brandi Nicole, who was feeling just as miserable being an actor, and I were like, “Well, we’re auditioning for a lot of crap. We’ll at least write something that’s crap plus? At least we’ll be proactive. We’ll be productive. We’ll feel engaged in what we’re creating.” And we did that. She wrote a short. We Kickstarted it. Then we were like, “We’ve interned at casting offices, we know how that works. Why don’t we hire a casting director?” We paid $400 to hire a casting director to make three phone calls for us. We got incredibly lucky and got Chandra Wilson to want to be our lead.

Scott: This was “Muted”?

Tara: Yes. Then Malcolm Jamal Warner wanted to do it to be opposite her. Then we found ourselves on the set looking around like, this is amazing. It was truly amazing. The whole point was for us to create our own material as actors.

This was at the time when Brit Marling broke out for writing and starring in two Sundance features. That was the model that we were inspired by and were trying to emulate. Then I got to that set, and I absolutely loved acting opposite Chandra, it was a dream, but I also realized that acting had never been as fulfilling as bringing this thing together from nothing. The producing and the writing were so much more fulfilling. Then I made another short film, “Cuddle Party,” with Matthew Irving Epstein, and that went to Tribeca after “Muted” was acquired by HBO. I had to sit back and say, “The best things that are happening in my career, I created.” I made them happen. I didn’t wait for them to come to me, and I was also much happier in the process.

That was it. I stopped acting, and I started writing pilots and features. Then a few years later found myself the Showrunner’s Assistant on “Scandal.” That’s when everything changed, and I realized that TV was it. All the turns and the pivots, they make sense now.

Scott: I watched both of your short films, “Muted” and “Cuddle Party.” Quite different films. That shows some range. The first one: “The Gladwells struggled to get the support of media and law enforcement when their teenage daughter disappears.”

The intriguing sociological hook there is that, they’re black, and their daughter disappears. Then there’s this White girl that disappears at the same time, and that’s the thing that the media gloms onto. It’s quite a provocative story, and reflective of our culture’s inherent bias. What was your inspiration for that story?

Tara: “Missing White Woman Syndrome.” I remember Brandi mentioning the term and not being surprised at all and me being shocked — just not believing it could possibly be a thing, and us having many, many conversations about it afterwards. So, her educating me, honestly, that’s where it was born. Let’s create something about this. Let’s start a conversation. Let’s put this out there in a creative way that will also send a message. It came from that term and us having polar opposite reactions to it.

Scott: It’s generated quite a bit of viewers on YouTube. I think it’s over 160,000 views when I checked it last night. Congratulations on that. Let’s talk about “Cuddle Party.” That’s a comedy. What was the inspiration for that?

Tara: It’s a dark comedy. That project I was not there at the inception of like I was with Muted. Matthew Irving Epstein wrote it and also directed it. I produced. When I came on board, he already had the script. We were getting the cast together at the same time. I know for him it was personal experience. He had gone to a cuddle party and wrote about his experience.

Scott: As a Showrunner’s Assistant on “Scandal.” Did that open some doors for you, open your eyes, or both?

Tara: Both. I was there for the last two seasons, which was lovely. It was such a well-oiled machine at that point that I just got the cliché of “getting paid to go to grad school.” It’s really what it was. Got to see the writers’ room and how television was made.

Also, most importantly, I figured out that that was the path that I was most attracted to — the collaborative nature of television. I couldn’t wait to get my chance to be in a room.

Scott: And here you are with a feature film script, “Thicker Than Ice,” that made the 2021 Black List. Let’s talk about that movie. Here’s the plot summary.

“Inspired by the true story of Hannah and Marissa Brandt, adoptive sisters and hockey players who put their relationship to the test as they vie for Olympic glory on different teams. Topranked Team USA and Korea’s first ever unified team.”

How did you learn about this story?

Tara: Research. I was looking for what I was going to write next. I was doing a lot of general research. I always gravitate towards sports. I gravitate towards family stories and stories of sisterhood and female friendships. When I came across Hannah and Marissa’s story, it was just a news article but it hit all my targets. I was like, “I wonder if I’m late to the party. I wonder if there’s been a movie already.” So I messaged Hannah on Twitter.

I was like, “Hi. You don’t know me. I promise I’m legit. Here are the things I’ve done. Has anybody ever approached you about writing a movie about you and your sister’s story?” She said no. They’d had a bunch of media coverage when they went to the Olympics together in ’18, but no narrative offers. I was like, “Oh. Would you mind getting on a Zoom with me? I would love to talk to you guys and see if you would trust me with your story.”

We got on a Zoom. They were just lovely and were very interested. That was that. My manager was very excited about the idea and loved it thematically just for the things that are aligned with me and who I am.

I started writing the spec with their blessing, and with them on board to answer questions, tell me stories, and get on the phone with me. We started group texting. I could just ask really simple, quick questions when I needed to. I talked to their dad on the phone. They were fully on board from the get go. Then I wrote the spec.

Scott: I’m curious to know more about your research. Was it more just an ongoing thing where you’re popping questions to them as you move along in the process?

Tara: It was a little bit of both. For me, the focus is the sisterhood. I definitely asked them a bunch of questions at the top about that. We had a couple of Zoom meetings where I had specific questions planned out, just in case I heard something that maybe sparked me in a different direction.

Then it was a lot of texts to ask for specifics, especially regarding Marissa’s experience in Korea. Once I knew the story that I wanted to tell, then it was running it by them to make sure that they approved and they thought it was worthy.

I asked for details, memories, sometimes with leading questions, like, “Tell me about your two best friends on the team,” and “Was there any conflict between the leaders of the team and the coach?” Really focused questions.

Scott: Adapting real life stories is a real challenge because people’s lives don’t tend to lay out in three act structure. Though, while I was looking, I was going, “Well, you’ve got a big ending. It’s going to end up at the Olympics.” That’s something you build toward.

Let’s provide some context and meet some of the key characters, specifically the Brandt family. Could you describe Mom, Dad, and then the two sisters, Hannah and Marissa?

Tara: Of course. The Brandts are the most close-knit family. They are exactly who I portrayed in the movie. There was no extra work necessary there. They’re a lovely, Midwest, hardworking family.

Hannah is the very outgoing American-born sister. Marissa was adopted from Korea at four months old and, therefore, does not look like the rest of her family, but was raised in Minnesota, and is very much an American girl — like me. The girls grew up playing hockey since they were four or five years old.

Their dad depicted it as, “Well, if there was practice, then that’s where we were that day. If there was this tournament, then the family was in this city that day.” Hockey very much charted their path as a family and brought them closer.

Scott: Just to provide context here, because there is something unique in some regards to that whole Minnesota thing. First of all, hockey is like a religion there. Hannah played for the University of Minnesota as…

Tara: Yes.

Scott: They’ve won championships, NCAA championships. Certainly, women’s hockey is a big deal. Did you find yourself with a little bit of a learning curve there, tracking the whole hockey phenomenon in women’s hockey and then, in general, the women’s hockey in the Midwest?

Tara: Hockey, yes, because that is a sport that I knew very little about. I’m a lifelong athlete who has played almost every team sport, but of course I wrote a film about a team sport I never played.

There were deep dives into hockey, University of Minnesota hockey, and how different that is from Division III hockey, which is where Marissa decided to go, the competitive nature of it in terms of youth hockey in Minnesota. That was a lot of what I got from their dad — what it was like to have two daughters who are both top players, and they’re playing on the same team. What happens when you show up in a league and they’re new but they take other kids’ spots? Just that competitive, athletic culture in a place that runs on hockey.

Scott: There’s another thing, too, about Minnesota and the Twin Cities. The community there is very active in adopting children from overseas. I’m wondering if that had an influence on Marissa, the fact that this was a very accepting environment in that area? They grew up in a suburb, essentially nine miles away from St. Paul.

I would imagine that they may see other kids with that type of background. Did that ever come up in conversation with them?

Tara: Yes. I think that she saw a couple other examples around her, but not in hockey. She remembers being the only non-white face.

Scott: Because she’s a little different. The way you introduce them I thought was interesting, is eight years old before you cut fourteen years later when the story takes place. Here’s how they’re described when you introduce them in the script.

“[We’ve been following this phenomenal hockey sequence] Our ride was courtesy of Hannah Brandt (8), the baddest motherfucker on the ice. This scrappy little white girl turns heads on the regular.”

Then you cut over to the other side of the ice arena, “Graceful Korean-American figure skater in a sequin pink dress, MARISSA BRANDT (8) executes an eye-popping double axel.” She is different in her attitude about hockey.

Was that true that Marissa was more into the ice skating thing? That’s where the family raised her?

Tara: Yes, she began as an ice skater, exclusively an ice skater. The only reason she started playing hockey is because she missed her sister, wanted to hang out with her sister on the weekends, and didn’t get to because they were doing different activities. Hockey was the uniter of the family as a whole.

Scott: That distinction, where Hannah was, would you say, in a way obsessed with hockey?

Tara: Well, she was in the Olympics last week for the second time.

Scott: Second time in the Olympics. Whereas and this is something that becomes more clear as the story unfolds, for Marissa, I think she even says, she enjoys hockey, but it’s not to the level that Hannah, right?

Tara: Yes.

Scott: Could you talk about these two girls who go on these parallel journeys, one of them gets called into the Korean team and goes to Seoul Korea, that’s Marissa. Hannah has her own journey, she gets injured. A lot of physical therapy. So they are on these parallel journeys.

Could you talk about how early you landed on that construction, because you’re bouncing back and forth between those two storylines?

Tara: That was my initial instinct. The story was the year-ish before the Olympics. One of the challenges of this was figuring out whether the central story was the hockey and the Olympic success, or whether the central story was the sisterhood. The majority of the rework of this script was because in my heart I knew it was a sister story, but I created major moments and act breaks that were about hockey. So at first they were more moves than story.

Once I realized that in my heart the script was one thing, but on the page, I’d made certain decisions that reflected it being another thing, it took some rewriting. My boyfriend, who’s also writer, pointed that out to me. He was like, “I don’t know if you’re sure which one it is?”

I was like, “Hmm, I don’t know if I’m sure either” [laughs]. Once I was able to make that decision, I was off to the races.

I wanted to pull apart these two girls that had never been apart and see how they grow, whether it’s together or apart, and how these parallel journeys coincide at the end.

How is their relationship tested in the meantime? At first, I had my manager going, “OK, so they’re not going to be together the whole movie…? That’s the movie you’re going to write? The sisterhood movie where the sisters are not together…?!” I was like, “I know, I know. Not usually how it’s done.”

But that was the story to me. The story was testing this relationship, their closest relationship. How does the relationship change and exist and survive when they are on opposite ends of the world chasing the same thing? And are they different when their paths cross again?

Scott: It was a smart choice on your part. Part of it, you benefit because it’s cinema and you’re crosscutting between, it may be South Korea and Minnesota, but you’re still seeing the sisters side by side, from scene to scene. Psychologically, we’re tracking them emotionally, even if they are separated.

I couldn’t help but think, if this were presented to some movie mogul at MGM in 1938, “What? They’re not going to end up on opposing teams and the gold medal. Come on, you got to change that.” Right?

Tara: Yeah. Oh, man, I was tempted to. I had a couple of those mogul voices saying, “Well, you might want to change history a little bit.” I don’t know that I feel powerful enough to do that. But the practice game that happens prior to the Olympics did really happen so I focused on just upping the sister vs. sister stakes there.

Scott: There’s that old Hollywood saying: “Don’t let the facts get in the way of the story.”

Tara: That was the hardest part of writing the script. Once you get to know people and you like them, then you want to do them justice, and you’re not sure how much you can stray from their real story and still do so.

It was always a conflicting value for me — I have to write a movie here, I know that that’s what I’m here to do, and I think that they understand that. However, these are two small town girls from Minnesota who aren’t thinking about narrative structure all day every day like I am, and I wouldn’t blame them for wanting to be portrayed a certain way.

I did have to a couple times be like, “Hannah, you’re not always going to like yourself, but I promise this has to happen or there’s no movie — please trust me.” I didn’t think that I would get quite so emotionally involved, but I did, I felt a real responsibility, and that ended up being the biggest challenge.

Scott: Korea only qualified because the Olympics took place there. In fact, I looked it up, they scored two goals and they allowed 28. It’s not like they’re going to end up in the gold medal final, which was US versus Canada, which the US won.

Tara: It would have been stretching the truth too much if I put them in the gold medal match. [laughs]

Scott: I have this theory which is there’s an existential question at the heart of all stories. The protagonist has to ask, “Who am I?” Stories are fundamentally about self-identity. It struck me that that’s what you got going on here, because you got these two sisters who are so close and so defined by each other’s presence. Then the call to adventure. The classic, the world intervenes, boom, one of them goes off to Korea.

She doesn’t know the language. She’s never eaten the food. She doesn’t know the culture. She left when she was four months. That was a great environment for her to have to go and experience.

Meanwhile, Hannah has now experienced this knee injury. Now, she’s got to go through physical therapy with the possibility that she may not make the US team, and perhaps never play hockey again at the level she was. Both of them are put into a new environment, and they’re separated.

All of that is new stuff that they got to deal with that’s going to force them to look at themselves individually. I’m sure you’re aware of that. Is that playing pretty much into where you were going, with their exploration of the characters?

Tara: Yes. Absolutely.

Scott: It’s like a hero’s journey. The macro things that Campbell talks about. Three movements. He calls them Separation, Initiation, and Return. You’ve literally got the sisters separated, geographically, emotionally. They go through some tense times.

Hannah’s jealous, angry, frustrated because of her health situation. Marissa is actually enjoying herself in Korea. Plus, Hannah is separated from being able to play competitive hockey. The initiation, that’s part of it, is that she’s learning what it’s like to not be able to play hockey versus learning what it’s like to be in Korea, and then you come back a transformed individual.

They got to find themselves in that whole process. That’s their journey, isn’t it? Does that seem like a fair perception or articulation of their journey?

Tara: Spot on.

Scott: Let’s talk about this family of characters that emerged for both of them, because they both have a family of characters that they experience in the act, too.

Marissa is with their teammates in South Korea. Some of them are from North Korea, including most specifically Yoon Jung. She’s the one who plays the goalie. Were those fictitious? How did you figure out that cast of characters in terms of the family experience for Marissa in Korea?

Tara: A couple are based on real people. I changed names. I would say that at least one thing was taken from the real people for all of Marissa’s teammates. There was some defining characteristic or memory that Marissa shared that guided the inception of those characters.

Then I would also ask leading question like, “Who did you connect with and how? How did you do that when you didn’t speak the language and they didn’t speak English?” A lot of digging to get those little golden anecdotes.

I read a lot of articles about the team and the integration of the North and the South. It was always a combination of fiction and starting from a drop of the real people.

Scott: There’s some very touching moments, but they also play into Marissa’s psychological journey. At one point, they go out with a teammate and they visit a great-grandmother that one of our North Korean teammates has never seen. Is that right?

Tara: Yes. Marissa’s North Korean teammate had a great-grandmother in Seoul, South Korea, whom she’d never met because of the fragmentation of the country.

Scott: The great-granddaughter has an opportunity to see someone who she’s never met before, but has an impact on her in terms of her understanding. It’s almost like a little bit of a bridge for Marissa. She may not even realize it consciously. Like, “Oh, my experience here with these people here is going to help me understand my relationship with myself and my sister a little bit more.”

Did you ever think about that like that at all?

Tara: I did. I did because, sadly, there’s a pattern of this in the world. I’m also from a country that was divided, that was torn into not two, but six at this point. There are brothers and sisters literally on opposite sides of political lines. Fortunately, in former Yugoslavia, Croatia and Bosnia, where we’re from, it wasn’t North Korea. It wasn’t that once you cross the border you were never seen or heard from again, which is most of these people’s real-life stories. There was a division that was created by powers that have nothing to do with the everyday man. My dad has a saying, “Our lives are in their shadows.” The everyday man’s life can become collateral damage. That’s how I saw the North and South Korea fragmentation. Everyday people who had families who just happened to live on the other side of this border that was artificially created by governments. Their lives were forever changed.

Scott: There’s an interesting thing going on at that time with Marissa in her own individual journey. She and Hannah are not on the outs, but she’s trying to reach out to Hannah and Hannah is not returning text. It’s like, “Let’s watch “Miss Congeniality,’” which is a runner. There’s that separation.

She has a choice, though, whether she’s going to abide by that or whether that’s something that she’s going to fight through. Similarly, Hannah has her own family. These two characters, you must have had fun writing these guys, Cosmo and Martin. Were they based on real characters?

Tara: They were not. I kind of thought of them as my, maybe even quirkier version of Cam and Mitch on “Modern Family” because I just love them and they’re the best.

Scott: These are characters that accompany Hannah on her arduous journey. They’re just a hoot, these two characters. Hannah learns something from them in that process, doesn’t she?

Tara: Absolutely. Cosmo and Martin were the right people to put in Hannah’s path to help change her in the way that she needed to.

Scott: It’s really that emotional high point, in some respects for me, where they’re at the Olympics and Hannah defies her coach. The coach has that line like, “Whatever you do now is going to define you.” It speaks to that question about, “Who am I?” She says, “I’m going to go,” and she goes to see her sister, right?

Tara: Yeah.

Scott: That’s more important than even right now, we’re on the edge of the gold medal final. They do go on this journey in which they discover stuff about themselves including that their sisterhood is super important to them.

Tara: The most important.

Scott: You mentioned you’re doing this back and forth with calling and Zoom sessions and whatnot with the sisters. How long did it take?

Tara: I want to say that I got on Zoom with them for the first time in November of 2020. Then, I remember spending Christmas break watching various sports and biopic movies. I really didn’t

find anything that I could try to emulate, nothing was really speaking to me, it all felt a little bit outdated. Then I started figuring it out in January, February, and that’s when I started writing.

I think I was done in June. It certainly felt longer than that [laughs] It felt like… I had to write three movies before I really figured out this one. It was a lot of moving big parts, and then, like I said, being accused of not knowing what story I was telling, which was completely true.

So maybe eight months altogether.

Scott: You always look for those crawls at the end. Where are they now? I guess they live together. There’s some sort of philanthropic thing that they’re involved with.

Tara: Yeah. They’re a part of multiple philanthropic groups, mostly surrounding adoption and intercontinental adoptions. Also, they have an ice rink named after them now in their hometown, which is badass. They live together. They have a dog together, they’re best friends. Then, Hannah represented Team USA again last week.

Scott: In the Winter Olympics. All right. They got to celebrate. And you got to celebrate on December 13th, 2021 with the roll-out of the annual Black List. Were you tracking this at all?

Tara: It’s something that I’d wanted but I was actually on my very first episode of television when I found out so I didn’t have the bandwidth to be tracking it.

I was on my first tech when I got a text from my manager, Kendrick Tan, and a text from my showrunner, Matt Lopez, because we have the same management company and he’d heard too.

Scott: There you go. Hollywood has a way of squashing you. I hope you celebrate it later, but it’s like, “OK, great. Now I got to go do this.”

Tara: It felt like two fruits of many years of labor.

Scott: Can you talk about the TV show that you’re on?

Tara: Yeah, it’s “Promised Land” on ABC. I think episode five aired this week, so we’re in the middle of the first season.

Scott: Which episode is yours?

Tara: Seven.

Scott: Congratulations. Terrific script. I hope that somebody sees the merit in this thing.

Tara: Thank you. I can’t help but feel that all the sports movies that I grew up loving are in men’s sports. If you look at the Disney+ categories, they have one that is literally called “feel good sports movies,” which is very much my jam, obviously. They’re all men’s sports. The one that is about female athletes is the new series “Big Shot”… but it’s actually centered on the male coach, or a classic, “Double Teamed,” which is from 2002 and that’s just sad. It’s a pattern that I cannot unsee.

Scott: There’s ancillary things like “Bring It On,” which is about cheerleaders.

Tara: “A League of Their Own” was a wonderful classic.

Scott: Yeah, absolutely.

Tara: But how many years ago was that? It’s like, “We could use another one guys.” [laughs]

Scott: It was ’89, ’91, something there.

Tara: I think I was born…? [laughs]

Scott: Hollywood’s had that whole “similar but different” approach for years. You say,

“It’s Mighty Ducks in the Olympics but with girls.” I put on my producer’s hat, I’m like, “Yeah, I see this.” Good luck with that.

Let me ask you a few craft questions here if I can. Maybe this is the way you come up with story ideas. You browse through the Internet or are there other ways that you generate story ideas?

Tara: The last few have been research. The process is somewhat different every time depending on what kernel I start with. There are a couple of scripts that I’ve written that were more personal, more autobiographical. If that’s not the case, then it’s a lot of reading and finding something that sparks.

Scott: You’ve been a producer. You produced some films that you talked about earlier. How important do you think that story concept is where the conceptual elements are to the success of a spec script?

Tara: Funny you ask. Today I read a Twitter thread saying that a couple of decades ago, it was all about concept. It was all about idea. It was all about writing something that was commercial, that you could quickly retell and intrigue with. His argument, and it was a manager who was saying that, was that that’s not necessarily how people are getting studio work anymore. It’s not writing the big splashy thing that is more likely to sell, yes, but it’s more about writing something smaller and more charactery and more voice-y. I can see that. I’ve certainly read a bunch of scripts that were not concept-y nor big ideas and launched careers. In terms of selling, it does seem like idea is king.

Scott: You made an interesting point there which is that, someone out there writing a spec script, you got to say, “What is your goal here?” At the risk of chasing the market, I know writers who do this and made a living doing this.

I know that the standard thing from professional screenwriters to aspiring writers is, don’t chase the market. Write what you’re passionate about. Absolutely. I do know writers who do or at least aware of the market.

If you do want to sell something, it’s almost like you got to push the concept more forward, because it’s all about marketing nowadays so much of it, running an eyeball.

Which I think you’re right, in terms of being able to craft a career and establish yourself with having a unique voice or a distinctive story to tell, the less concept these stories can work for your benefit.

Tara: Yeah, that seems to be what I’ve seen but maybe in a couple of years I’ll have a different take. I still feel very new to the feature side. It’s just so different because if they buy it and then hire three other people to write it, then it does seem like concept is what matters because…

Scott: That’s what they bought, it’s the concept.

Tara: Exactly. Television is different.

Scott: Let’s talk about developing characters. Apart from saying, “Well, I’m going to use the married couple on that TV show for inspiration for the characters.” What tools or techniques do you have in developing characters, or is it more of an instinctual thing?

Tara: It’s more of an instinctual thing. I tend to keep the core of a character extremely simple and then let it grow on the page. Sometimes, and it sounds so elementary, I’ll have one or two words that define a character and that’s what I start off with, especially if it’s in contrast to another character, and develop her from there.

Scott: Are those words more about personality? Are they more about the narrative function that they have in the story, or both, or something in between?

Tara: Something in between. I have to understand the character enough to be able to say, “This is how this person would react in this situation and why, or this is how this conflict would reveal this character and what we would learn about her.” It’s all groundwork and the rest of it comes out on the page, in many drafts, of course, and it grows draft after draft.

Scott: It reminds me of that quote from Francis Ford Coppola, where he says, “Whenever I do a movie, I try to reduce the theme down to one or two words.” “The Conversation” was privacy. “The Godfather” was succession.” What’s interesting, what you’re saying is, you do that with the characters.

Give that concise, simple, touchstone in a way that you carry with you, that speaks to their essence. Is that a fair assessment there?

Tara: Yes, that’s exactly right.

Scott: We mentioned theme. Were you thinking theme upfront? Did it emerge, or do you not think about theme? How does theme fit into your story crafting process, or does it at all?

Tara: It changes project to project. I would say that generally that’s not where I start. I start with what I care about, the story, or what I want to showcase about human potential. That will inherently reflect the theme. I don’t try to articulate a theme beforehand.

Scott: Most of the writers I interview that’s the same thing, because it emerges over time. What about when you’re writing a scene, do you have goals?

Tara: I have what needs to happen in the scene and what my characters want and the rest happens on page.

Scott: I’m curious, when you’re writing a feature script and approaching a scene and you’re writing TV and you’re approaching a scene, is there a difference, or is it pretty much the same thing?

Tara: Same thing. The big picture structure feels like a completely different thing, but within the scene, not at all.

Scott: Because I know some TV writers and one of them told me, “If I wrote a scene that was over page and a half the showrunner is going to call me.”

Tara: I can see that. But I have the opposite problem of most writers in that I write short, so I’d be wrapping up a scene in two pages anyway [laughs].

Scott: Where do you see yourself at 5 or 10 years? Running your own show?

Tara: Yes. I would love to be running my own show and then have a few months off a year to write a feature, if there’s something that sparked for me and I feel close to.

Scott: Let me allow myself to paint a portrait of that future. That also includes a vacation home in Como near George Clooney, and then you can invite your family over there to like, “OK, this is a little different experience than where we were before.”

Tara: So much better than what I came up with, let’s go with yours [laughter].

Scott: Last question. What advice do you have for aspiring screenwriters? To try to learn the craft and break into the business.

Tara: When I signed with my manager, I remember him being very explicit about, “You need to be generating pages at all times. You need to be generating, generating, generating,” because every time you do you have a chance at bat. More at bats, more chances of breaking through and staying in once you’ve broken through. It’s been the last six months that I’ve had success in both TV and film but it’s been many years of creating “at bats” to get here. And now I have to keep doing the same thing. The advice has stayed exactly the same. Don’t wait for things to come to you, create them.

Scott: You did that with those short films that you made too, right?

Tara: Yeah. Anything that’s ever happened in my career was because of something that I set into motion, that I created.

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