Interview: Andrew Friedhof (2015 Nicholl Winner)

Andrew Friedhof wrote the original screenplay “Great Falls” which won a 2015 Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting. Recently I had the opportunity to chat with Andy from his home in Australia about his background as a writer and his award-winning screenplay.

Here are links to the six installments of the entire interview:

Part 1: “I had some encouraging teachers there, but I never had any inkling that I could become a writer. I had an interest in books, but the fact of the matter is that I really felt like I didn’t have anything new or interesting to say at that stage and probably felt that way well into my 20s.”

Part 2: “There were positive steps along the way, but it’s still been a difficult journey. I’m under no illusion that there’s still a lot of difficulty to come. You’ve just got to keep working hard and worry about the thing that you can control, which is the quality of the writing.”

Part 3: “One of the most important things I learned while doing my Masters, was that action is character. It’s easy for a character to say, “Yes, I’m pro death penalty,” but when you test that principle against reality, the idea that they might have to actually do it themselves, what’s the value of those words at the end of the day.”

Part 4: “I’ve read a lot of scripts over the years and I think one of the things I learned from that was that you really need to let your reader know what your story is about as early as possible.”

Part 5: “One thing I’ve learned from the whole thing is you can either view the Nicholl Fellowship as just an achievement or you can also view it as an opportunity. For me it’s an opportunity to write something strong and have people interested in what I write next.”

Part 6: “What you need to do is write as often as possible, and once you finish your project, after making it as strong as possible, recognize when it’s time to move on to the next one. You need to develop a work ethic and treat screenwriting like a job.”

Andy is repped by ESA and Circle of Confusion.

Twitter: @andrewfriedhof.