Interview [Part 1]: Frank DeJohn and David Hedges [2013 Nicholl Winners]

Frank DeJohn and David Hedges are one of five recipients of the 2013 Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting for their historical drama screenplay “Legion”. It’s a terrific story set in the latter days of the Roman Empire and garnered a lot of attention for the duo including being hired by A&E to write “The One”, described as a “coming-of-age story of exploring Jesus’ early life and formative years as he comes to learn he is the Son of God and is destined for greatness.”

Frank and David have had an unusual path to Hollywood success, so I was pleased to be able to interview them at length about their respective backgrounds, their script “Legion,” and their approach to the craft of screenwriting.

Today in Part 1, David and Frank talk about their burgeoning interest in screenwriting, and the origins of their award-winning screenplay “Legion”:

Scott: As I understand it, Frank, you’re a businessman, who at this point writes full time. David, you’re a K-9 policeman with a degree in English Literature. It almost sounds like the making of a high concept buddy comedy.

[laughter]

David: Sometimes it is!

Frank: David has been writing a lot longer than I have. I sold a business I had in Santa Barbara in 2004 to write full time.

A common friend of ours named John Corre, also a police officer, kept saying to each of us individually, “You guys have got to meet, you both write historical pieces. “

At first we were both lukewarm to the idea, but eventually we did connect. We started kicking around story ideas and it just clicked.

Scott: What year was that?

David: I think 2006.

Scott: Let jump back a bit. David, how did you get into police work?

David: I was going to major in art, but I had no talent, so I majored in English Literature, and started writing in college. I had an instructor that really pushed me. He said, “I’m going to teach you how to write screenplays.”

I finished school, went out into the world, and realized an English degree meant nothing to anybody. I tried working in an office for a year. I was miserable, so I moved to Santa Barbara and spent my savings running on the beach for a few months, trying to cleanse the cubicle out of my system.

I was running out of money. Then I saw an ad in the paper: the police department was hiring. I thought, “That might be kind of fun.” On a whim, I went and applied. A month later I was marching in the police academy.

Scott: What college did you go to?

David: I went to Azusa Pacific University, a school in the LA area where my father taught for many years.

Scott: How about you, Frank? What business were you in?

Frank: I went to Cal Poly where I got a degree in business administration. I eventually teamed up with a friend, opened one of the first athletic footwear stores in Santa Barbara. We were at the right place at the right time, and had a great run. Writing always was there in the background for me. I’d write, throw some things in the drawer, thinking one day I’ll get to it.

Scott: Did you all grow up loving films?

David: Movies were a huge part of my life. I remember waiting to see a movie for an hour and a half in a line that wrapped around the movie theater. It’s unthinkable now to go two hours early and stand in line. In those days, it was normal.

I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark twice, back to back. I actually stayed in the theater and watched it again. I was just a kid so I had to call my mother and tell her not to come pick me up yet.

Scott: How about you, Frank.

Frank: Movie night was a big deal at our house as a kid. The whole family would gather around in those days and watched some classic feature.

Scott: Let’s talk about the script “Legion”, which won you both the 2013 Nicholl Fellows Award. A plot summary: “Just days before he’s to a leave a life of wafare behind him, a Roman Centurion must assume command of a group of misfit soldiers trapped deep within hostile country.” What was the inspiration for this story?

Frank: When we first got together I was doing research for a Roman period piece. We were looking for something that would be a contained story, not some sprawling epic that would cost a fortune to make. We came across a reference to a Roman fort that in 9 AD that held out for three days against the German uprising. We coupled that fact with a real character, Marcus Caelius, a centurion who died in that battle, and fashioned a story about his last days commanding the fort.

Scott: Speaking of movies from our youth, it reminded me of “Remember the Alamo” when I was a kid.

Frank: You could say it’s a Roman Alamo, for sure.

Scott: The script has got a real sense of authenticity. I always felt like you, as the writers, were in control of the facts. How much research did you do, and what was your focus in trying to achieve that sense of authenticity?

David: Frank had already done a lot of research on that period, wanting to write a very similar story, set on Hadrian’s Wall. We moved it to Germany.

There was a lot of research that went into Legion. The great thing about that is during the process you come across nuggets of information that lead to an interesting character, or plot point. The research wasn’t really drudgery.

Scott: How long do you think you spent in the research phase?

Frank: First we just got together and talked about what we wanted the story to be about. We started creating an outline. It was several months before we would actually get down to writing the script.

David: We had the luxury of a spec, which means nobody was waiting for it.

Frank: That’s for sure. [laughs]

David: If we didn’t talk to each other for a month, by the time we got together again we both had done a lot of fact-gathering. I think if we knew it was going to come to this we probably would have worked a little faster, but we were just sort of working as fast we could work well. I know it was months before we even had an outline.

Tomorrow in Part 2, Frank and David discuss some of the key characters in their script “Legion”.

David and Frank are repped by UTA and BenderSpink.

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