Interview: Chris Roessner (2012 Black List) — Part 2

Chris Roessner has made quite a journey to professional screenwriter. His debut screenplay “Sand Castle,” which made the Black List in 2012, is a compelling story that takes us into a world few have experienced: Post-invasion Iraq. It’s a world Chris knows well having served as a machine gunner during the 2003‑2004 invasion and occupation.

Chris was kind enough to spend some time talking with me about his background, the “Sand Castle” script and his approach to the craft of screenwriting. Today in Part 2, Chris reveals how he was inspired to write “Sand Castle” based on his experiences in Iraq:

Scott: That’s a good segue point to shift the conversation to screenwriting. Other than the time you spent in your writing workshops at USC, then whatever writing you did in the Stark program, how did you go about learning the craft?

Chris: I think a lot of it had to do with stumbling around. For me, the key to this whole thing, honestly, was finding somebody else who was invested in the story that I wanted to tell, who was in it for the long haul, someone who would read my drafts and help me shape the story. Because the Stark program gives you such a common vocabulary with your other classmates, one of my classmates, Andy Dahm, was there through every single draft for a year and a half. We stumbled through it together. He would be that objective voice. He would say this part of the screenplay is really hitting me emotionally and this part of the screenplay sounds insincere. That was really his job, to read every draft and say this feels right, this feels authentic, and this feels like, to be quite honest, bullshit. We stumbled through it together.

If I could advise anybody writing their first screenplay I would say find someone whose opinion you trust, who’s invested in your story, and is willing to be a part of the conversation until you finish.

Scott: On the title page of your screenplay “Sand Castle,” it says, “Based on a really shitty experience.” So the story in the script is inspired by actual events in Iraq?

Chris: Yeah. All of the characters in the script are the guys that I served with. I had to construct a narrative, of course. So in order to give the story some thrust I tasked these guys with repairing an aqueduct. Really though, the impetus to write ‘Sand Castle’ was to honor the amazing things I saw my friends do, these 19 and 20 year old kids. To come home and not see their faces in magazines? And seeing billboards that…I just felt, when I came back from Iraq, that out country had gotten really bad at picking its heroes.

So when I sat down to write this script, the only goal I had in mind was portraying those people in a way that was honest and interesting and would hopefully give them the credit they deserve, but would otherwise never get.

Scott: Were you keeping a journal or doing any writing when you were in Iraq?

Chris: Yeah, I did. I still have it. I went back and read through the journal several times while writing “Sand Castle.” It was really fascinating. Not to over‑exaggerate it, but I had this journal, this document, that, from start to finish, traced my growth as a human being from boy to man.

Scott: How many drafts do you think you wrote of “Sand Castle”?

Chris: Jesus. Let me see. The first draft I wrote in three weeks. It was 110 pages and not a single page of that survived. The next draft was 176 pages and maybe 20 pages of that survived. Then I probably went through another three or four, maybe five, drafts until we got to the draft that went out to everybody in town. So probably seven or eight drafts.

Scott: And how long a period of time are we talking about when you typed FADE IN until that final FADE OUT when you sent out the draft?

Chris: Close to two years.

Scott: In “Sand Castle,” the protagonist is a young private named Matt Ochre. You’ve talked about points of connection between the character and yourself. Are there ways in which Matt is different from you or was different from you when you first went to Iraq?

Chris: I think Matt is an exaggeration of one aspect of what I was feeling. It’s hard to describe the complexity of a person going off to war. Matt was simply the part of me that was scared and unsure and realized that he was in way over his head and that there were only two ways of going home, be killed or survive. His journey, much like my journey, is learning what gives you the best chance to survive. Is it admitting to yourself that you’re scared and therefore avoiding missions, avoiding participation? Or is the key to survival participating to your fullest? For me, what I learned is that being afraid and staying indoors, so to speak, was no safer than participating to the fullest because war makes no sense. It’s decisions as to who lives or who dies are incomprehensible.

Scott: That’s interesting because there’s another character in the story who basically sequesters himself from the front lines, yet he suffers a dramatic fate.

Chris: Yeah, he does. The Kidwell character was a guy who didn’t care that everybody else thought he was a giant pussy and he said, “I just want to go home. I will not go on any missions. I don’t care what details you give me. I don’t care what the consequences are. I will not go on any missions. In fact, to take it a step further, I will spend all day building sandbags and fortifying my room so that I’m as safe as I can possibly be.” Then at the end of the story there’s a mortar attack that shakes his building and those sandbags collapse on him and suffocate him. He was literally killed by the externalization of his own fear, which, of course, is a metaphor but, nonetheless, true to the war experience. Being safe doesn’t mean you get to come home.

Tomorrow in Part 3, more from Chris as we dig deeper into “Sand Castle”.

For Part 1, go here.

Please stop by comments to thank Chris and ask any questions you may have.

Chris is repped by CAA and Management 360.

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