Interview (Part 1): Anthony Grieco (2015 Nicholl Winner)

Anthony Grieco wrote the original screenplay “Best Sellers” which won a 2015 Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting. Recently Anthony and I had an excellent phone conversation in which we covered a lot of territory, his background and how he got into writing, a deep analysis of “Best Sellers”, and a discussion about the writing craft.

Today in Part 1, Anthony talks about his own origins as a writer and how “Best Sellers” represents a “big fuck you” in terms of style versus content:

Scott: I really enjoyed your script Best Sellers. It’s terrific.

Anthony: Thanks. I’m not sure which version you got. There’s the current version and the one I sent into the Nicholl Fellowship months ago. I continued to work on it long after it was submitted. I’m glad that you enjoyed the script.

Scott: The draft I read has 108 pages.

Anthony: They’re both 108. Nothing has changed in terms of the story. I tightened and tweaked a few things, but specifically I raised some stakes before the end of Act I.

Lucy’s ready to sign off on selling the catalog when Harris shows up. It’s one of those moments where she’s about to give up when Harris storms into the office. It changes the dynamic and makes the stakes more prominent.

I also have her and Harris working more in tandem before the midpoint of the script, because I felt there should be some growth before she buys into what he’s selling her.

It’s stuff like that — that only comes to you after putting it down for a week or two. The spirit, and the idea, and the story doesn’t change.

Scott: The draft I read, Harris does show up and slams a door in that guy’s nose.

Anthony: That’s gone.

Scott: Gone?

Anthony: I tried to trim out some of the farcical moments early on in the script to balance it out with its ending. When I sent it to the Nicholl Fellowship it was on a whim.

At the time it was submitted, my wife read it and said, “This is one of the best things you’ve written. This feels like a Nicholl script, you should submit it.” So, I did. And here we are.

To a certain extent what’s interesting about that experience is that it reinforced for me the belief that the spirit of the story, what it’s trying to say, carries a lot of weight with readers. I was told by someone that the Nicholl Fellowship is not necessarily about choosing the best scripts, but rather it’s about choosing the writer — a writer they feel is trying to say something. I always felt the script had that element. The spirit of it was there. I kind of always felt that because I was writing something that I cared about, even though I knew I was going to be up against it, because the idea of selling a script like that to the studios is ridiculous these days, really.

Scott: I do want to talk about the point you were making, because when Billy Ray introduced you at the Nicholl ceremony, he talked about how this story is character driven and set in the world of book publishing. This is in direct contrast to Hollywood’s obsession with pre-branded content, prequels, sequels, remakes, reboots. Your script Best Sellers demonstrates — and this is Billy Ray’s exact word — “courage” on your part.

I was wondering, were you at all thinking like that when you were writing the script, writing against, as Billy Ray called it, “Hollywood’s timidity” when it comes to taking on original stories?

Anthony: I wrote from an emotional place and part of that emotion was definitely fueled by a big “fuck you” to style versus content, which I feel Hollywood is guilty of.

Lucy’s trying to get this book sold, and she’s getting all these Twitter followers, and she’s this big sensation, but there’s nothing behind it. It’s still not driving the sales, and it’s like all of us falling into this situation where we’re led to believe that this is what we need to be fed in order to survive artistically.

Yeah, maybe there’s an element of thumbing my nose at the system, but I decided a while ago to write things that make me happy — that I want to express. When I wake up in the morning, what’s important is that the first thing I think about is what I’m writing.

If that’s not the case, then I’m writing the wrong thing. I really wanted to say some things with this piece, but not be too heavy-handed. The story’s ultimately about the fear of being a fraud, but I guess that ties into doing things for profit instead of art.

Scott: Let’s put all this in context a little bit, by going over your background. I believe you attended University of Toronto?

Anthony: Correct, yeah.

Scott: And you majored in English and minored in Film. What was your thinking there?

Anthony: My thinking there was that a friend told me there was an Italian neo-realism film class available, and so I was suddenly immersed in watching all things De Sica. It complemented my love of books and acting.

I was what you would call a commercial TV actor at the time. I was always drawn to acting, and I thought, “I may as well take an academic route towards this…” I was taking acting classes of course but, “…Why not try and incorporate it into my education?”

I started taking the few film courses that were available at the University of Toronto. Following that, I did a summer at Circle in the Square Theater School. I was always interested in the sides I was being given by instructors — playwrights, like Sam Shepard, David Mamet, and John Patrick Shanley.

I found myself more enamored with the words and the stories than the exercise of playing them out. That’s when I started thinking about trying my hand at writing screenplays.

So, like most, I began to write a bunch of shitty screenplays and started soliciting agents and managers in Los Angeles with handwritten letters though the Hollywood Creative Directory. [laughs]

Scott: How did you go about learning screenwriting?

Anthony: I think a lot of storytelling is intuitive but the execution of it is completely something that’s craft. Something you must learn. Structure became a big deal for me. I began to read some of the primary screenwriting books that were available at the time — Syd Field’s book, etc.

I started hacking my way through screenplays in Toronto, while ordering materials and books from The Writers Store in Los Angeles. What happened was, I had a bit of a rapport with these people.

When I came out to L.A., I had representation for one of my scripts. One of my agent’s assistants left assisting and became the manager of The Writers Store, which I thought was completely serendipitous.

She said, “Would you like to work there?” I thought, “Oh my God, yes!” I didn’t want to bartend, I wanted to try and put myself within the sphere of this world. At the very least, I knew everybody who worked there was working on a screenplay.

We were surrounded by the idea of writing. You were constantly on the phone with screenwriters. A lot of the time, you were helping people download Final Draft but in the same breath, you had actual screenwriters who were calling the store and coming in. It was like the video store version of the screenwriting world.

Some of the writers were very chatty and very helpful. And because I was low man on the totem pole there, on weekends I got to open the store for all these screenwriting gurus that would come in to give seminars.

I’d meet the likes of Syd Field, Blake Snyder, Michael Hauge, and Dara Marks. Because I had to stay to close the door at the end of the seminars, I got to take all these seminars for free and things started to click. When it comes to writing books on how to, everyone’s saying the same thing, however some people say it in a way that strikes your gray matter more profoundly.

Like, “Oh, wow, I get that. Why didn’t anyone else ever put it that way?” I was learning screenwriting as I was working and sharing pages with my co-workers and then my screenwriting partner at the time took a screenwriting extension course at UCLA and introduced me to the man who is now my screenwriting mentor. He has a class on his own in Sherman Oaks every Tuesday night.

I’ve been going to that private writers’ group for close to five years now. I’ve learned so much from him. I’ve been very lucky. I’m surrounded by a very rich community of resources in terms of sharing my work with people and getting feedback.

That’s how I got to where I am now. I’m workshopping scripts as I’m writing them. It’s been very helpful.

Here is Anthony’s speech when he accepted the Nicholl Fellowship in December 2015 with an introduction from Oscar nominated screenwriter Billy Ray:

Tomorrow in Part 2, Anthony discusses the inspiration for “Best Sellers” and talks about how he would have made a key change to the movie Spotlight.

Anthony is repped by Paradigm and Aperture Entertainment.

Twitter: @SwimCharlieSwim.