Interview (Part 1): James Acker

Scott Myers
Go Into The Story
Published in
6 min readFeb 22, 2021

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My interview with the 2020 Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting winner.

James Acker wrote the original screenplay “SADBOI” which won a 2020 Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting. Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with James about his creative background, his award-winning script, the craft of screenwriting, and what winning the Nicholl Award has meant to him.

Today in Part 1 of a 6 part series to run each day through Saturday, James discusses film school, moving to L.A., then “retrofitting” a spec script into a novel which is how he got is foot in the door in the entertainment business.

Scott Myers: You grew up in New Jersey and you wrote in a bio blurb I read quote: “I base my entire personality off that fact.”

[laughter]

Scott: Let’s start with that. How has New Jersey impacted you as a writer?

James Acker: New Jersey is famously very loud. I do think it has given me a bit of my volume, not only as a person, but also ‑‑ I don’t know — I think I’ve given some of that noise to my characters. Growing up, most people I knew had something to say and wanted to say it loudly.

I write a lot of monologues. I write a lot of rants. I write a lot of unloading. It’s a pretty common thing for me. A lot of that comes from Jersey. A lot of call‑outs, a lot of verbal fights.

Scott: That’d be one thing if you weren’t any good at it. But judging by the Nicholl script I read, you’ve definitely got a good ear for dialogue. You go from Jersey. You got a bachelor’s in screenwriting and playwriting from Drexel University. What was that program like? How did that shape your learning of the craft?

James: Well, a big reason I was drawn to Drexel, aside from it being right over the bridge, was that they were relatively newer. Drexel was, by and large, an engineering school. They were more known for engineering or medicine or their psych department and the Screenwriting/Playwriting department was newer. I thought that was exciting.

I feel like if you’re going to college to learn about screenwriting, you’re going to end up learning a lot of the same things wherever you go. The building blocks. Things you can learn in a seminar or online. For me, it’s more about who you’re learning from and what they’re having you try.

That’s why I was always really excited by the idea that Drexel was still figuring out what they wanted their students to leave with. I knew that they would give me my fundamentals pretty early on, but they’d also still be figuring it out with me.

There was a lot of trial and error, but I think it gave me a more diverse learning experience. One day I was learning how to write for graphic novels, the next I was writing a monologue for a MOCAP’d teddy bear. Drexel approached learning to write from a very technical, practical level. It’s the engineering school in them.

But they were trying to figure out how to compete with similar programs in Philadelphia, as well as NYU and the other film schools along the East Coast. They were really pouring a lot of time, effort and money into these big tries. For better or worse. It gave me exposure to a lot of different things very early on in my career.

Scott: What did you come away from college with in terms of your portfolio?

James: This is something I regret because I didn’t do enough legwork on my own. I was expecting going to college for screenwriting, learn my ABCs, and I’d leave with a diploma and a voice. Through the curriculum, I’d find exactly what I wanted to do.

They say college is a lot of learning what you don’t want, which is what I will give Drexel. They taught me a lot of things I didn’t want to do. I didn’t want to do straight comedy. I didn’t want to do sci‑fi or fantasy. But they let me try all those things out.

I left Drexel with a bonkers portfolio. I graduated with a two‑act play set in an Olive Garden. I left with a Southern period drama about a 1960s housewife’s book club that turns into a fight club. I graduated with two Web series under my belt and a few low-budget specs I could realistically make on my own. Basically, Drexel helped me generate a lot of very voice‑driven projects I could try and start a career with. The problem was, nothing was in my actual voice.

If I wanted to hit the ground running and create my own material, these would be great ways to put that out, but that none of them, looking back, were really my voice. There were very loud voices, but none of them were exactly mine.

Scott: You moved to LA in 2016, after you graduated. You did the whole working your way into the assistant‑type thing. I think you wrote two novels out there.

James: Yeah. My partner went to USC. I met him at Drexel, and he went to USC for grad school. The production program. I came out with him. While he was doing school, I was temping and doing as much as I could on the industry on that side of things.

The big plan was to get as much admin and assistant experience as possible, so when I finally came across the possibly a writer’s PA or writer’s assistant job, I’d have the backing to be able to do that kind of thing.

My first three years here, it was a lot of temping and a lot of writing on desks. I filled a lot of my time beefing up my portfolio and trying to find my own voice while answering calls at reception, checking in guests, and handing out water bottles. There’s a lot of sitting down.

It worked for me because a lot of my prewriting, a lot of what I do to break into a story, is more lengthy, long‑form stuff. I write a lot of diary entries for characters. A lot of longhand prose kind of stuff. One day, I was doing that for this feature I’d already written. I was trying to think of a sequel for it. Eventually, I just realized, “Oh, this is just coming out like a book.”

Because I had a temp position that was going to last six months, I decided, “OK, I don’t do anything on this desk, but I am facing this Microsoft Word all day. Let’s try to write a book.” So, I ended up retrofitting this romance spec I’d been going around with because I kept getting the note that it felt like a YA book.

I essentially unadapted it and put it into a book form so I could try to sell the novel and get the movie going. Just in doing that, I ended up writing the sequel. They’re both available online until something actually happens with them. I’m working on the third now.

But yes, the novels are something that I kind of fell into. It started as just a brainstorming, prewriting thing. Enough people liked it that I decided to keep putting them out there.

Tomorrow in Part 2, James talks about writing the script “SADBOI” for the Nicholl competition and his inspiration for the story.

James is repped by The Gotham Group and Fuse Literary.

Twitter: @JamesUmAcker

For my interviews with every Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting winner since 2012, go here.

For my interviews with Black List writers, go here.

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