Interview [Part 1]: Geoff LaTulippe

One of the more active and colorful voices in the online screenwriting community is Geoff LaTulippe. Writer of the 2010 romantic comedy Going the Distance, starring Drew Barrymore and Justin Long, Geoff also has a blog, is co-host (along with Scott Beggs) of the popular Broken Projector podcast, and is quite active on Twitter (@DrGMLaTulippe).

Geoff and I had a wide-ranging back and forth via email about his background, the development and production of Going the Distance, and the craft of screenwriting.

Today in Part 1, Geoff talks about his youth and how his world view was shaped by his family’s many moves as well as his father’s unusual job.

Scott: Were you always a movie fan growing up? What are three movies you remember which had a big impact on you when you were a kid?

Geoff: I was, certainly, but I look back and find that I really had no film “education” until I got to college. I never really had my mind opened up to the wider world of what was available outside my local theater or the shelves at the video store my parents let me rent from, so my cinematic worldview was an almost entirely commercial one. Obviously that’s changed since I was a teenager and I’m now better versed in all types of film (though, just like most, I still have a ton to absorb and learn).

I think there’s a good and bad there. On one hand, I don’t have the near-encyclopedic film knowledge of many of my contemporaries, and as far as I’m concerned, more knowledge is rarely a bad thing. On the other hand, I grew up not knowing too much about individual directors and writers, so I think my influences were less specific. I feel like that’s helped me develop a writing style that’s just unique enough to keep me interesting. And sometimes when you don’t know that you’re doing something that’s considered “wrong” you end up making choices that really shine.

Or so I hope. I leave open the possibility that I’m a total hack with absolutely no clue what I’m talking about. In any event, my three favorite movies growing up were TOP GUN, THE PRINCESS BRIDE and THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION. Out of everything I watched — back then and up to today — those always struck me as the most perfect movies of their archetype.

Scott: I’ve read where you come from a family of storytellers. What do you mean by that and how did that type of environment help you develop as a writer?

Geoff: I did, but in a very…colloquial sense, I suppose. My family is just full of lively, interesting people who love to spin a yarn. Our gatherings usually consist of us — and there are a couple dozen people included in that group — eating, then drinking, then sitting around a table recounting old stories and tossing a new one into the mix. We’re a bunch of REALLY different people morally, politically and socially, so telling stories and reminiscing is the way we find common ground.

And absolutely, my family has been a TREMENDOUS influence on me. There’s nothing I’ve written so far that doesn’t have some influence from one or many of them, from a character to a situation to a conversation I might have had. They have a hand in every single creative thing I’ve ever done.

And I can’t oversell this enough: there is not a single member of my family, no matter how many disagreements we’ve had or how different our views are, that has not been in full support of me chasing a dream. Not a single person who ever said, “You can’t do that. It ain’t happening.” Not once. To a person, it’s always been, “Give it your best, we believe in you.” As a writer you need confidence in your ability, and I’ve been lucky enough to have that in spades literally my entire life.

Scott: You moved around quite a bit during your youth: Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Kansas, back to Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Did all of that travel have an impact on the type of writer you have become?

Geoff: Yeah, without question. First of all, I got to meet people from all over the country and all walks of life. My father sold caskets, and every time he’d get promoted or take a new job, we’d move to where the business was headquartered. I also spent a LOT of time in funeral homes going on business trips with him, which I’m sure has contributed strongly to my penchant for gallows humor. Also, now that I think of it, my dad was probably using me to establish good relations with his customers. “Look, I have a kid, and I love him so much I take him to work with me! Aren’t I the kind of guy you want to buy your caskets from?” My dad always was savvy like that.

So there’s that aspect to it. There’s also the fact that, wherever we went, I was constantly meeting new people and making new friends. It made me pretty adept socially — I can function in just about any setting with relative ease. That’s made it easier for me to establish business relationships, and I’m sure it’s helped me land/hold onto a writing gig here or there. But most importantly, it taught me to listen to people, to learn about them, to take something away from an interaction above a surface level. That, more than anything, I think, has helped me in my writing — getting deep into certain characters and how they think, how they talk, how they are. It was an invaluable accidental education.

Scott: Do you think spending so much time around funeral homes and that proximity to death influenced your world view and creativity?

Geoff: It was a massive influence. My father was very, very deliberate in communicating the finality of death to me and what it meant for the time you have on this earth. Really early on, I remember him telling me, in so many words, that if there was no death, then life wouldn’t be important and you wouldn’t learn anything from it or ever feel anything. Years later, this near-exact sentiment ended up in an episode of SIX FEET UNDER, so I think it must be something that people in the deathcare (I fucking HATE that word, but it is what it is) industry either believe or are taught to project.

In any event, that’s become a core life lesson for me, and I think about it whenever I’m writing. Death is inevitable, but living life is a choice. I’m always interested in how my characters respond to that given their unique situations.

Scott: You went to James Madison University in Virginia. Did you taken any writing classes there? Any lessons from your collegiate courses you carry with you as a writer today?

Geoff: Many, and many. I took a couple screenwriting classes, a couple playwriting classes, and some film studies classes. Also as many English and Philosophy classes as I could cram into my schedule.

Of all the writing lessons I learned at JMU, the one that always helped the most was: read your lines out loud. Or have some friends do it for you. Dialogue that sounds AWESOME in theory can be TOTAL SHIT in execution, and it’s important to figure that out. I’ve often patted myself on the back for a line I thought was perfect only to hear someone say it and immediately want to kill myself.

Between that and learning that having a thick skin is beyond important and that criticism makes you better, I left JMU, I think, with the right attitude and some great practice under my belt.

Tomorrow in Part 2, Geoff discusses how he broke into Hollywood as a script reader and the genesis of his spec script Going the Distance.

Geoff is repped by WME.

Twitter: @DrGMLaTulippe.

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