Interview: Barbara Stepansky (2013 Nicholl Winner, 2013 Black List) — Part 1

Barbara Stepansky’s original screenplay “Sugar in My Veins” not only won the filmmaker a 2013 Nicholl fellowship, it also landed on the 2013 Black List, so I was excited when she agreed to do an interview to see what we could learn from this talented young filmmaker.

Today in Part 1, Barbara talks about how she developed a love for movies as a youth and pursued that passion in multiple countries.

Scott: As I understand it, you were born in Poland and lived in Germany.

Barbara: That’s correct. I was born in Poland. My father’s involvement with Solidarity at the time was frowned upon by the Communist Party, and so we had to leave the country. We moved to West Germany, and that’s where I pretty much spent my formative years.

Scott: At some point you were a projectionist at a local movie theater?

Barbara: Yes, I was, at the local cinema in our small town, Lennestadt. I knew pretty early on that I wanted to make movies, about around 15, 16, but I didn’t really know how to go about it. I just tried to do anything that had something to do with cinema.

I became head of the drama team. I was directing plays, and I wrote a lot. Then, of course I thought what better to learn about movies than projecting them? [laughs] I actually worked as an ice cream girl at the cinema there first. Because in Germany at the time you had these girls that come in, and they sell you ice cream in the break between the commercials and the movie. Then, I made the switch to projectionist, which I had to beg my boss for because no girl had ever done that before.

This was the time where reels were super heavy because it was all film. You had to lug around pretty much your weight from one theater to the other.

Scott: When you were doing the projectionist work, does that mean you were watching the same movie over and over again, night after night? If that’s the case I’m wondering if that may have helped you in terms of more deeply understanding movies, because you’re analyzing them seeing them so often.

Barbara: Yes, definitely. I didn’t have to watch them repeatedly. You could start the film and walk away, but sometimes when it was a movie that I really admired, or I wanted to see again I would just stay.

I saw a lot of beginnings that way, which is now funny to me because I’m really good at beginnings of movies, when I write them. Everybody has problems with the second act, but I sometimes wonder if my affinity towards beginnings is because I’ve watched a lot of them. [laughs]

Scott: Is it true that when you were around seven years old you rewrote The Wizard of Oz in German?

Barbara: I did, I wrote a kind of Wizard of Oz meets Narnia version. I read it out to my parents out loud. They thought it was cute.

Scott: Your roots in movies go way back, then. If you were seven years old and writing stories.

Barbara: I was always fascinated by movies and all these amazing stories. I would make up my own, and would create versions of stuff I saw, but I never thought that it was going to become a profession. I never thought that it was something that you do as an adult. It was just something I did.

Scott: You went to the University College London. Is that where you began to study film seriously?

Barbara: No, actually. When I graduated high school I knew I wanted to be a filmmaker, but I also had been really sheltered and lived in a small town all my life. I didn’t really feel like I had much to say yet to the world about life, because I hadn’t lived it. I thought it might be a good idea to just do something completely unrelated to film for a few years.

I actually went to London to study History and Philosophy of Science. It’s kind of an obscure subject, but it gave me a lot of insight into the workings of the world. I got to analyze. I got to argue. It was a perfect education for me. Then, on top of that, I was away from home for a few years and got to live life independently.

Scott: Did you then proceed directly to the USC School of Cinematic Arts or did you take some time off?

Barbara: After UCL I applied to any film school that I could speak the language of. I got accepted into two film schools in Germany and USC in LA. I went to the Munich Film School for a semester but, ultimately, I left for Los Angeles because I just really like the way film was taught there.

Scott: How do you feel your education in film studies helped prepare you as a filmmaker?

Barbara: To each their own. I don’t think you necessarily need to go to film school, as we have seen from numerous examples of working professionals.

I enjoyed it because it gave me license to make mistakes, and to learn with other people that would become my team later on. I did a second Master of Fine Arts degree at AFI for two years, and met many of my collaborators there. The UCLA Master Class was once-a-week kind of thing that I did on the side very recently.

Scott: Looking at your IMDB page, you’ve got over a dozen film credits as a director, a writer, editor, even actor. Most of these are short films. How important has it been for you, in terms of your writing, to actually get out there and be involved in the actual production of the movies?

Barbara: Honestly, it’s been amazing. That’s been helping my writing tremendously. You can have very strong intellectual ideas about character and dialogue, but when you get on set, it’s a completely different world sometimes. I’ve learned so much from actors just telling me, “I can’t say this.” [laughs] “I don’t know what this is.” “What are we actually trying to get at?” Collaborating with actors has been most valuable for my writing dialogue and intention.

Scott: In your acceptance speech for the 2013 Nicholl Fellowship you won, you mentioned the support of your writers group. Can you describe what that is and how that got started and what exactly you do with that group?

Barbara: The writer’s group I mentioned basically became an extension of a UCLA master’s class. Because we all got along really well, we wanted to keep it going. We bring in 10–12 pages per week. We read it out loud and then we discuss them.

You get a really thick skin very soon because none of us are actors so our dialogue reads aren’t Oscar worthy. So if it works with us it’s probably fantastic, because a good actor can mask bad writing very well.

Every week we go though material and then we bring it back next week, either a continuation of the material or rewritten pages. This is where “Sugar in My Veins” really began properly, got brought back, rewritten, brought back again. It was quite a process.

Tomorrow in Part 2, Barbara shares a key inspirational moment in her life and what winning the Nicholl Fellowship has meant to her, both professionally and personally.

Here is Barbara’s acceptance speech when she was presented the 2013 Nicholl Fellowship Award:

Please stop by comments to thank Barbara for taking the time for the interview and post any follow-up questions you may have.

Barbara is repped by ICM Partners and Hertzberg Media.

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