Interview (Part 1): Lori Evans Taylor

In July, Lori Evans Taylor sold the spec script “Bed Rest” to MGM. Deadline reported it this way:

Spec is a Hitchcockian thriller in the vein of Rear Window and What Lies Beneath, centering on a pregnant woman who is isolated and confined to bed rest.

I reached out to friend of the blog Chris Sparling, whose screenwriting credits include Buried, ATM, The Sea of Trees, and The Atticus Institute which he also directed. Chris is adding the role of producer to his credits with “Bed Rest”. He got me in touch with Lori and we ended up having a great one-hour conversation.

Today in Part 1, Lori discusses her background in the film and TV business:

Scott: Let’s go back to the beginning. You were born in New York.

Lori: Yes, I was born in Upstate New York, Fredonia, which is around Buffalo.

Scott: Fredonia, isn’t that from a Marx Brothers movie?

Lori: I believe it is, although I don’t recall the exact reference. Sadly I am woefully behind on my Marx Brothers trivia.

My father was a chemistry professor at SUNY — Fredonia, but we only lived there a few years. I’m not sure how much you know about upstate New York, but it snows all the time. Like nine months out of the year. Apparently when I was four-years-old I pointed to the sun and asked my mom, “What’s that?” I think it horrified my mother to think her four-year-old daughter had no idea what the sun was, so she put her foot down and said, “We’re moving.” Then we moved down to North Carolina. That’s where I lived most of my life.

Scott: Were movies and TV much of a presence in your life as a youth?

Lori: Absolutely, I grew up a film nut. I loved horror. I was the weird girl who would always record horror movies and bring stacks of them to slumber parties. Movies were a really important thing in my life.

Scott: Do you remember some of the more influential horror movies that you liked?

Lori: Jaws. Jaws is absolutely my favorite movie of all time. It’s the perfect fusion of a high concept idea, great storytelling and character. It was interesting, when I met my husband on our first date we both realized that Jaws was our favorite movie. When we got married we ended up actually playing the Jaws theme as I went down the aisle.

Scott: You mean the duh-duh-duh-duh…

Lori: Our organist played the theme and then segued into “Gabriel’s Oboe,” which is from the movie The Mission. But yeah, it’s a very important thing for both of us, so we incorporated it.

Scott: I have to think of all the millions of impressions that went through Steven Spielberg’s mind about Jaws, he never once imagined that it would be used as a wedding processional.

Lori: [laughs] Exactly. I felt like I was the Great White. I had my big white dress on, so it made sense.

Scott: You and I have something in common. You attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, right?

Lori: Yes. Did you?

Scott: No, but I teach here.

Lori: Oh, my gosh. I had no idea. That is so cool. It’s such an amazing place. I just love Chapel Hill. I loved my time there. I don’t get back enough, but I love it.

Scott: What was your major?

Lori: I was a theater major. I was really involved with plays and the black box theater there, the Lab theater. I was a theater junkie the entire time I was there.

Scott: As an actor?

Lori: As an actor, yes. I directed a little bit, produced a little bit. I just loved theater. I loved performance.

Scott: What did you do after you graduated? Did you go to New York?

Lori: You would think that would have been the logical choice, but no, I ended up coming out to Los Angeles. I love New York and I actually did the Circle in the Square program there one summer, but I didn’t think it was a place that I could live for a long time. I felt a little bit claustrophobic there. I needed space. I needed a yard with grass. Grass is oddly important to me. It’s a psychological thing. So I opted for Los Angeles.

And even though I was involved with theater, I thought I would probably find my way into film and television.

And, ultimately, that’s what happened. I never really considered writing, but I started doing it on the side to explore character and story ideas.

I grew to really love it. I thought, “I should actually finish something and show some people.” I ended up writing a TV sample. It was around the time that Fox was staffing those telenovellas. I happened to know somebody involved, so I got my sample in there, not thinking anything would really happen. Then, a week later, I had a job. I was staffed on this show called “Desire.”

There were 65 episodes. Nine of us were on the staff. Then, a few of us were kept on to do rewrites. From there I moved to another telenovella, “Wicked, Wicked Games,” starring Tatum O’Neill. That was another 65 episodes.

It was like being shot out of a cannon. It was like writer’s boot camp. You really learned to outline quickly and work with a group of other writers, track stories, hit your deadlines, do production rewrites. It was a really great experience.

But then, I came out the other side with no representation because I had been so busy. I didn’t even have my own original material. So I started writing some pilots.

One of the pilots I wrote was called “Fever,” it was basically “Boogie Nights” meets “Six Feet Under.” It was set in 1981 in the adult entertainment business here in the San Fernando Valley. The concept is the owner of an adult entertainment empire dies and his estranged son, who is an NYU film graduate, has to come back and take over the family business, which he has no interest in. I love history, so it was fun to explore something set during the Reagan years. During the rise of AIDS, sex, drugs, rock and roll, and the end of the golden age of adult entertainment.

I was part of a writer’s group at the time and some of the people in the group really liked the script and championed it. They passed it out to people in the industry that they knew, managers and producers, and suddenly, it took off. That’s how I ended up getting repped by Kapan/Perrone.

That was actually a funny story. KPE was in the midst of a move at the time, so when my script got sent over, it got lost in the shuffle. Once they got settled a couple of weeks later, Sean Perrone was trying to find a writer for a talking animal movie.

He loaded up his Kindle with samples and somehow, my little adult entertainment script ended up in the mix. As he’s reading these samples, he suddenly gets to my pilot, and is like, “Well, this is an odd sample for a talking animal movie!” He ended up flipping for the script, and trying to figure out who I was and how he got the script.

I got a call and ended up signing with them. Then, Josh Goldenberg came on at KPE and I very quickly started working with him as well. They’ve been kicking ass for me ever since.

After that, I started getting some staffing heat from my pilots. Then, I got pregnant.

That basically killed all my momentum. But instead of sitting around for nine months, I decided, “OK, well, I need to work on something else. What am I going to do?” I decided to write a feature. I ended up writing a thriller, which Temple Hill got involved with.

After that, I went back to the TV side. Tried to get the staffing wheels moving again. Started getting a little bit more heat. And what do I do…I get pregnant again. [laughs] I was having these wonderful personal wins in my life, but professionally everything just came to a standstill.

So again, it was back to square one. I thought, “OK, let’s take another stab at a feature.” That’s when I wrote “Bed Rest”. That’s been my chutes and ladders career.

Tomorrow in Part 2, Lori talks about the genesis of “Bed Rest” and the challenges of writing a contained thriller.

Lori is repped by ICM Partners and Kaplan/Perrone.