Interview (Part 1): Aaron Guzikowski (“Prisoners”)
One of the best movies of 2013 was Prisoners, written by Aaron Guzikowski, directed by Denis Villeneuve, and starring Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal. So I was thrilled to have the opportunity to have an hour-long conversation with Aaron about his background as a writer, his work on Prisoners, his involvement in the new Sundance Channel TV series “The Red Road” (which premieres February 27), and his thoughts on the craft of screenwriting.
Today in Part 1, Aaron discusses how he got into writing and used a rather old-fashioned methodology to get his first break in the entertainment business:
Scott: As I understand it, you grew up in Massachusetts. How’d you find your way into writing for movies and TV as an interest?
Aaron: I don’t know, I kind of took the long way. I grew up in Brockton, Massachusetts. I had mostly been doing visual art for most of my life. Drawing and making short films and stuff like that. I went to art school and I did major in film there. I made some short films but when I got out, I didn’t really have any entry into the business and I just ended up doing an assortment of weird blue collar jobs in New York City of a good long time.
I was doing music and art and all of this other kind of stuff. I was all over the place and at some point, I decided I would pick one thing and see how that went so I decided to just try writing scripts exclusively and not doing anything else. I was working a job at the time so I would write in the morning, write at night and just try to start writing spec scripts.
I had written one and basically sent a query letter to three management companies in LA that I randomly pulled out of the Hollywood Creative Directory and one of those responded. The guy is Adam Kolbrenner who is my manager today.
Soon after that, we would write back and forth, and I would send him drafts and stuff like that. After a little bit, I sent him the idea for Prisoners and started sending him drafts of that. Then about 2009 I had finally finished it after I had worked on it for about ‑‑ it was late 2009 ‑‑ so I was working on it for about two years. Then at that point we were able to sell it and that allowed me to move out here and start writing full time.
Scott: Let’s break that down a little bit, because actually I met Adam in Austin for the film festival. First of all, he told me you sent him a letter, right? An actual envelope?
Aaron: Yeah, it was a written letter. [laughs] I don’t really recall exactly what the letter said, but the fact that it was an actual letter, I think persuaded him. The fact that I lived in Brooklyn was also something that he responded to. He’s from Long Island, so he appreciated the New York City angle of it all. That seemed to help. Those two things caused him to actually get back to me, so it worked out, I was lucky in that respect.
Scott: That’s what Adam told me. He said, “I looked at the envelope, and I saw the return address was Brooklyn. I said, ‘You know what, I’m gonna read that letter!’”
Aaron: Exactly, I had kind of a long, strange name, I was from Brooklyn. All of these things, for some reason, pushed him to actually read the letter. Which was good.
Scott: At some point, you decided to focus your writing on screenplays, but that presumes at some point, you understood there are actually people who actually write movies.
Aaron: Yeah, Right out of high school I’d gone to art school. I majored in film there, so I knew how everything worked, in terms of just basic film production. After I got out of school, I made short films and things like that. I was very much aware of the process and screenwriting as a possible career, or what have you. I’d never really applied myself towards that aim until like six years ago.
Scott: Did you take screenwriting courses when you were in art school, or did you pick up the craft some other way?
Aaron: I never really did. I never took any courses. I think I might have taken a very basic one at some point during film school. I think it was a required class you had to take, and I think they went over the format a little bit. Other than that, I never took any writing courses or screenwriting courses or anything like that. I just tried to read as much as possible. In general just reading fiction, just reading books.
I read some screenplays, but constantly watching movies. Which I’ve been doing my whole life. I definitely think it’s one of the best, in terms of an education in screenwriting, was just I think watching way too many movies, probably. [laughs]
Scott: Yeah, that’s the great thing about doing this gig is you can always just say, “I’ve got to watch a movie,” and that’s part of the research.
Aaron: Right, exactly, part of the job.
Scott: What are some of the movies that influenced you early on, inspired you to write?
Aaron: Definitely The Silence of the Lambs was always a big one for me, both the screenplay and the movie, I always had a great deal of admiration for it. I always loved The Exorcist. It was one of my favorites. The Shining is another one of my favorites. All of the Kubrick films. I like popcorn movies. I like a lot of early Spielberg stuff, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Jaws are two of my all time favorites, just to name a few.
Scott: Evidently you’ve got an interest in the horror genre because I believe the script you sent to Adam that he first read was a horror script.
Aaron: That’s correct, yeah. Yeah, I’ve always loved horror as a genre, elevated horror movies. Yes, the script I actually caught his attention with was a horror script.
Hugh Jackman, Aaron Guzikowski
Tomorrow in Part 2, Aaron talks about writing the script for the movie Contraband, the long development history of Prisoners, and how the story evolved into a “two-hander”.
Aaron is repped by Verve and Madhouse Entertainment.
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