Interview: Nikole Beckwith (2012 Nicholl Fellowship, 2012 Black List)

One of the best ways to learn the craft is read what professional screenwriters have to say about it. To that end for the next few weeks, I will be featuring interviews I have conducted with Black List screenwriters.

Today: My April 2013 interview with Nikole Beckwith whose script Stockholm, Pennsylvania not only put her on the 2012 Black List, it also won a 2012 Nicholl Fellowship in screenwriting. Nikole directed Stockholm and wrote the 2015 movie About Ray.

Here are links to the six installments of the entire interview:

Part 1: “I met Eric [Bogosian] roughly a million years ago when he was doing a residency at The Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida. He was seeking six actors from the country to go down and workshop some plays. I was chosen as one.”

Part 2: “When I first started writing the screenplay I…just for the hell of it to see what would happen, I cut and pasted the play and copied it and put it into film format. It was like 499 pages of just talking.”

Part 3: “I think if you’re inviting people into a story, you should invite them into all parts of that story. I tried to inhabit each character as fully as I could.”

Part 4: “The Nicholl really affirmed for me that I should be writing films. I should be doing this and so that’s what I’m doing. The Black List really affirmed for me is that “Stockholm, Pennsylvania” is a film that should be made.”

Part 5: “The best, most amazing concept doesn’t mean anything if you don’t have characters that people want to spend time with. Circumstances and concepts are only interesting to me based on what the characters are doing within them.”

Part 6: “Nobody has it easy. Just know that you’re in good company when you get that rejection letter, so just keep going. Commitment is so important.”

Nikole is repped by CAA and Manage-Ment.

Twitter: @nikolebeckwith.