Interview: Jonathan Hensleigh

With much attention being paid nowadays to the action genre, it’s good timing for this interview with screenwriter Jonathan Hensleigh. His screenwriting credits including A Far Off Place (1993), Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995), The Saint (1997), Armageddon (1998), and The Punisher (2004). Here are a few excerpts from the interview:

Why are you best suited for action? I don’t know. The action genre features usually a very strong male protagonist. I know that world. I can write dialogue for men under pressure, men with dark pasts who are somewhat compromised. I was a lawyer, so I know a lot about the legal system. I read widely, so I have a working knowledge, just enough to make me dangerous, of a whole bunch of technological, scientific topics that usually factor in. And I think I’m pretty good at designing physical sequences and physical movement that have some ingenuity involved that also bring out character.

What writing tips have you learned by watching movies? I read the scripts. Sometimes, certain pictures I like so much that I actually stop them, back up and then I transcribe the dialogue and study the cadence and the syntax of the lines.

If you’re an action writer, read the interview, then some Hensleigh scripts like Armageddon.


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