Interview: Michael Werwie (2012 Nicholl Winner, 2012 Black List)

The Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting competition is the most prestigious of its kind and holds a primary place of importance in Hollywood movie development circles. With the recent announcement of the 2014 Nicholl Fellowship winners, I thought it would be a good idea to reprint all of the interviews I have done with previous Nicholl winners since there’s a lot to be learned from these talented writers. Today: Michael Werwie, interview originally posted January 2013.

Michael Werwie’s original screenplay “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile” not only won the young screenwriter a 2012 Nicholl fellowship, it also landed on the 2012 Black List, garnering 31 votes, the 7th highest total of any script on the list this year.

Michael was kind enough to agree to an interview and recently we had a wide-ranging hour-long conversation in which we covered a lot of territory related to screenwriting.

Here are links to all five installments of the entire interview:

Part 1: “So by the time I got to my 10th or 11th script, I just started writing whatever I felt like writing, regardless of genre, and trusted that I had the skill and craft to do it well.”

Part 2: “It all began with a character, a tone, and my own obsession.”

Part 3: “I was on the phone with one of my managers as it was being announced on Twitter and we were both in suspense. It was all very exciting.”

Part 4: “The two scripts that have done the most for my career both began as character concepts.”

Part 5: “If I can force myself to crank out a first draft, it becomes a lot easier for me to go back and assess it in an analytical way.”

Michael is repped by UTA and Evolution Entertainment.

I am happy to report I have interviews lined up with two more of the 2013 Nicholl winners and all four of the 2014 winners.

Tomorrow: Frank DeJohn & David Alton Hedges 2013 Nicholl winners.