Interview [Part 1]: Misan Sagay, Screenwriter, “Belle”
Misan Sagay is a screenwriter whose credits include The Secret Laughter of Women, starring Colin Firth, and Their Eyes Were Watching God, starring Halle Berry. Misan’s most recent writing project is Belle, an historical drama starring Tom Wilkinson, Emily Watson and Gugu Mbatha-Raw playing the title role.
Today in Part 1, Misan discusses her background as a screenwriter and her first movie projects:
Scott: Where did you grow up and were movies a significant part of your life as a youth?
Misan: I grew up all over the place really. From Cambridge in England to Nigeria. Books were a far greater part of my life that movies and later, of course, television. But I have always loved films.
Scott: What are some of the most memorable or important movies from your youth?
Misan: I remember vividly a visit to my home town of Sapele in Nigeria in the early 90’s. A movie was being shown in a makeshift movie theater in the market place. It was Fatal Attraction. It was a mixed audience, from local market women to me, newly home for the holidays from studying in England. That audience was held spellbound! This story set a world away held them in its grasp. It was so different form the hushed cinema experience in England. There was so much audience participation. They identified with it, lived it and loved it and were utterly satisfied at the end. That home-breaker got what she deserved! Film at its best can reach anyone anywhere. It is the narrative art form of our time.
Scott: Originally you went to university to study medicine. How did you transition from that to a career in writing?
Misan: I was working as a doctor and loved the cinema, but I never saw people onscreen who were like me. So many were servants or gangsters. Or their stories would be told through white protagonists. I wanted to redress that balance. So I started writing. First casually, then with increasing intensity between shifts, even between patients on the night shift. I finally wrote a screenplay.
Scott: How did you go about learning the craft of screenwriting?
Misan: I sent my first screenplay to British Screen! To my surprise, they called me back the next day. They loved it. Someone there had sent the script on to Jeremy Irons. He loved it, too, and unusually wanted to help get it made. He attached his name to the project and helped look for financing. It was a strange time. I was clerking on the ward as a junior doctor and taking calls from a star! British Screen really helped me. I was sent onto a scriptwriting course and helped through the process. I really owe a great debt to Simon Perry.
Scott: Your first screenwriting credit is for the movie The Secret Laughter of Women which was released in 1999 for Handmade Films starring Colin Firth who would later go on to win an Academy Award for The King’s Speech. Here is the IMDB plot summary for Secret Laughter:
“A beautiful young single mother feels the pressure from the ex-pat Nigerian community to get married. Her precocious son has met his hero, a cynical English comic book writer and decides he is a match for his mum. They fall for each other but their love is tested by resistance from the community.”
What is the background for this project and your involvement in it?
Misan: It was the screenplay I wrote while working as a junior doctor! I wanted to control the process and so I went on the European Audiovisual Producers Course. It was fun meeting filmmakers form around Europe. I wrote and produced.
Scott: Then there was the 2005 Harpo Films movie Their Eyes Were Watching God, starring Halle Barry, also an Academy Award winner, that aired on ABC, a movie you co-wrote. Here is the IMDB plot summary:
“A drama set in the 1920s, where free-spirited Janie Crawford’s search for happiness leads her through several different marriages, challenging the morals of her small town. Based on the novel by Zora Neale Hurston.”
What is the story behind that project?
Misan: The development people at Harpo read one of my writing samples and commissioned me to adapt the book whose rights they had owned for many years. Many people had tried to adapt it and it had laid dormant for a while. It was daunting because this was a book loved by so many people, but it had all the things I love. A black female lead — in fact almost everything I’ve written has a black female lead. It also had a town with chorus of funny wise women. It’s the story of Janie Crawford. After a stifling abusive marriage, Janie frees herself. She defies all expectations by running off with a much younger man. She finds love and sensuality in that relationship that ends tragically.
There Eyes Were Watching God was set just after emancipation. The characters were ex-slaves or people one generation from slavery who were setting up the first incorporated black town and it really piqued my interest in slavery. It also made me wonder about slavery in England. Slavery is part of the experience of our diaspora. But for those who were not taken, it really isn’t.
Tomorrow in Part 2, Misan reveals how the project Belle came to be and her earliest involvement in it.
Misan is repped by Independent Talent Group.
Twitter: @MisanSagayFilm.
Here is a trailer for the movie Belle which opens this weekend in theaters across the United Kingdom:
For an interview with the movie’s director Amma Asante, go here.
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