Interview: Chris Roessner (2012 Black List) — Part 3

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 3, more from Chris as we dig deeper into “Sand Castle”:

Scott: The story’s based on real events and characters you lived with as your military mates. Are there any movies that served as inspiration for you in writing “Sand Castle”?

Chris: Absolutely. I watched the movie “Platoon” in Saddam Hussein’s palace in Tikrit at 3:00 in the morning. I finished it just as the sun was coming up. And it very much changed my life, not just because the movie was fantastic and wonderful but it was so deeply personal. When Andy [Dahm] and I were talking about “Sand Castle” we talked about that movie constantly because it was so deeply personal. That was the only goal. Write a movie that is deeply personal, that’s indicative of your war and tell the story in as clear a way as possible. I think, without question, “Platoon” was something we came back to time and time again.

Scott: There’s a key plot element in “Sand Castle” whereby the soldiers, the main characters, including Matt, are tasked with repairing an aqueduct that had been mistakenly destroyed by an allied aerial attack. I’m wondering if you ever made the comparison to another movie, “The Bridge on the River Kwai”.

Chris: Yeah, we talked about that movie a lot, as a matter of fact. Absolutely. The aqueduct is one of those devices that didn’t show up until several drafts in. This movie didn’t have a plot until the third or fourth draft. It was just a bunch of scenes on a clothesline, not really relating to each other. We talked about “Bridge on the River Kwai” and I think that’s how we stumbled onto the aqueduct as the story that would be the thrust of the war but also something that wasn’t arbitrary.

We wanted a plot that made the story move and gave it a goal but, at the same time, spoke to the nature of my war, as a whole, and the feeling of being a part of this task, this feeling of rolling a boulder up a hill only to watch it roll down the other side. I think the aqueduct was a really strong metaphor for that.

Scott: It also serves as a really great connective tissue for your narrative. That’s one thing I was struck by in reading your script was how seamlessly the narrative flows. You have this first act that’s basically about the invasion, the second act is largely about the experiences of this group of soldiers in a city called Baquba. It builds to a climatic third act in which the proverbial shit hits the fan. How did that narrative mirror what actually happened and how much of that required you to mold events into a coherent story?

Chris: I would say that the structure of this screenplay was the biggest challenge of all. It took us forever to find. Even when Mark Gordon, the producer, came in we spent another two or three drafts perfecting the structure of the story.

It was literally just constant conversation, constant writing. That was the only way we could have figured this out.

Scott: The discussions you had with Mark Gordon vis‑a‑vis where you were going to start the story really drives home a point about the Hero’s Journey, the idea there is this universal narrative pattern. You start in an ordinary world, creating a baseline where you get to know the characters as “normal people,” then thrust them into an extraordinary world in which you can see them forced to change. It’s almost like you were naturally or instinctively drawn toward that underlying structure.

Chris: Absolutely. The great thing that we discovered about war films in general is that you have lots of latitude in the length of the first act because when you sit down to watch a war movie you know that the shit will hit the fan at some point and you know people are going to die. You can spend a considerable amount of time in the beginning just trusting that that tension will be there. You can spend 45 minutes getting to know these characters before the action even begins because in the back of the audience’s mind they will be asking the question which one of these guys is going to get it? Which of these guys are going to make it? What’s the price that everyone’s going to pay? That’s there inherently. You have a lot of latitude in the first act of a war film.

Scott: There’s a pivotal moment for Matt about midway through the script where he says, “No one wants to die to make things normal. We need to let every person in the town know we didn’t come here to make things normal, we came to make them better.” In fact, it’s a transition point for him, isn’t it? He’s moving from largely a reactive mode, which is what he’s been up to that point, to becoming proactive.

Chris: Yeah, absolutely. Nobody wants to die to put things back to a status quo that was unacceptable. If you can paint a picture of a better Iraq then you have a shot at getting the Iraqis on your side. That’s a great philosophical shift for Matt and it leads him to action.

Scott: Following that, there’s an upbeat period in the script where this group of soldiers has actually succeeded in making progress on rebuilding the aqueduct. They’re even connecting with the locals. But there are some big reversals in the second half of Act Two and Act Three, leading to a confession from Matt in which he says, “I just wish one person in my life, one person, would have told me the truth… If my Dad had the balls to stick around, maybe he’d have told me, ‘Matt, good people die. Cry all you want, but the world don’t give a shit.’ So how I see it is, we spend the next 20 years crying by the front door or we admit it now. Daddy ain’t coming home and we ain’t saving this town.” Is it fair to say that Matt’s journey — broadly speaking — is one from innocence to experience?

Chris: That line came from a realization I had in Iraq. The realization that leaning on moral lessons from your youth, when in a dire situation like war, reveals those lessons to be flaccid and inadequate. For example, you think back to your coach who said, “Go out there and give 110%. There’s no ‘I’ in ‘team.’” To be frank, that shit doesn’t really cut it in a war time situation. You find yourself, for the first time, aware that you’re in uncharted territory and anybody who tried to shape your perspective as a young man did not give you the tools to be successful in this scenario.

Matt’s in no‑man’s land. He has to rebuild his morality brick by brick if he’s going to make it back in one piece, both mentally and physically. I hope that makes sense.

Scott: Yes, it does. It sets the stage for him, where in Act Three, he literally goes through a physical transformation. He cuts his hair, he has a Mohawk, he eventually dyes it blue. In a way it struck me that all this stuff gets scraped away. All his belief systems essentially get broken down, deconstructed. What emerges in Act Three is, for lack of a better word, his inner warrior as an expression of his personal metamorphosis. Do you think that’s an accurate assessment?

Chris: Absolutely. I would say that’s where the title “Sand Castle” came from. When you get to the end of the screenplay, you see the childhood version of that, building a sand castle on the shore and he’s telling his Dad, “I am the king of this castle.” And his Dad says to him, “Matt, of course. Everybody’s the king of their own castle. But you built it too close to shore, the tide is going to take it away.” That’s what happens to Matt in a very real way. He, much like anybody else, can go through life imagining himself the king of their own castle. You can live in that illusion and never be challenged. But it’s only after you let the tide take that illusion away that you can start building yourself into the man that you want to be.

Because you’ve been completely deconstructed, and you recognized what your limitations are. What you’re left with is the very basis of who you are. And now you can start to grow from that.

That’s what has to happen. He has to let the war take away any preconceived notions of his own greatness or his own ability. So that he can know himself at his core. Then he can spend the rest of his life building out from that very honest, sincere place.

Tomorrow in Part 4, Chris wraps up his thoughts about “Sand Castle” and reflects on what it meant to him to make the Black List.

For Part 1, go here.

For Part 2, 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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