Interview: Nikole Beckwith (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 announcement on Friday 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: Nikole Beckwith, interview originally posted in April 2013.

Nikole Beckwith’s original screenplay, the gripping drama “Stockholm, Pennsylvania” won a 2012 Nicholl Fellowship and a spot on the 2012 Black List. Nikole was kind enough to agree to an interview and we had a probing conversation about her background, her award-winning screenplay, and her unique insight into the craft of screenwriting given her background as an actor, musician and playwright.

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 ICM Partners and Manage-Ment.

Twitter: @nikolebeckwith.

I am reaching out to the five writers who won the 2014 Nicholl Fellowships and have another interview lined up with a 2013 winner.

Tomorrow: Sean Robert Daniels, 2012 Nicholl winner.