Interview (Part 3): Joshua Golden

Joshua Golden wrote the spec script “Road to Oz” which was not only a finalist in the 2014 Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting competition, it sold in September to New Line. From THR:

New Line Cinema has preemptively scooped up spec script Road to Oz, written by hot rising talent Josh Golden.

Recently I interviewed Josh and learned how he had taken an interesting proactive approach to marketing “Road to Oz,” something from which all writers can learn.

Today in Part 3, Josh discusses some of the other key characters in his script:

Scott: You mentioned the mother, Matilda. She’s a strong personality and, in fact, provides a lot of opposition to Frank throughout. From the beginning, she has doubts about the marriage. She’s not entirely an enemy to Frank, as she travels to South Dakota to help take care of her ailing granddaughter, Emily’s young daughter, Dorothy. But by the end of the story, Matilda has come around. She actually believes in Frank’s talent as a storyteller. Did you always have that arc in mind, that she would essentially go from enemy to ally?

Joshua: Yeah, very much so. I think she comes around. She sees the value in what Frank is doing. My goal wasn’t to make her a villain necessarily. But when our lead character is kind of off in the clouds, it helps to have someone like her who really gives us a reality check and brings us back down to Earth. The relationship between her and Frank is something that I really enjoyed developing.

Scott: There are several children in the script including Frank’s sons, Junior and Robert. But it’s really Emily’s daughter, Dorothy, who is key. Her relationship with Frank is central to the plot. When we first meet Dorothy, she is refusing to talk. Could you describe the reasons for that condition?

Joshua: Dorothy’s father, Henry, who she was extremely close with, had recently passed away. She’s a young girl. This has a profound effect on her. She essentially shuts down and stops speaking. She’s not speaking to her mother, to anyone.

When everyone else arrives on the farm, Frank, Maud, and the kids, she’s not speaking to them, as well. Frank, being who he is, kind of makes it his mission to get her to speak again.

Scott: That’s what I was thinking. By refusing to talk, she creates a great motivation for Frank: get her to talk. As a result of that, he starts spinning these stories for her to win her over and hopefully convince her, maybe even connive, to get her to speak. In a way, that helps him to reconnect with his storytelling.

Joshua: Exactly. Aside from all the external factors surrounding him and everyone else, she is very much a catalyst for him. That relationship between the two of them — I think we all had that one kind of adult figure growing up, the who ideal adult-child relationship. Whether it’s the fun uncle or the goofy grandfather. Her and Frank have that very special relationship.

Scott: You even deepen it with another point of connection. They obviously love stories, especially fantasy, but they also share a weakness in the area of their physical health. Was that a conscious choice on your part to give them that even tighter emotional bond, both knowing what it’s like to be physically frail?

Joshua: Definitely. Yeah. That is something that they both have in common. I think it helps Frank relate to her more and vice versa. Frank’s heart condition, he had since he was a young child, so he knows what it’s like, in a sense, to be where she is. That was definitely a conscious decision.

Scott: You also have the character William Denslow, who was the actual artist who provided pictures for the eventual book.

Joshua: Yes. He was the illustrator for the first “Wizard of Oz” book.

Scott: They develop a nice bond and friendship where they go on the road to sell their wares. Then, ultimately, he’s involved with the book. How much did that depiction hew to real life?

Joshua: I definitely expanded on that bond and that friendship in the story. There is some information out there regarding Denslow as an individual and their relationship. From my research, it seems that Denslow was a little bit more of a stiff than I portrayed him in the story.

Frank traveled on the road in real life, but Denslow was not a part of that. I wanted Frank to have that one person outside of his family the he could talk to and bond with. Denslow is very much Frank’s sort of sidekick, in a way.

Scott: One last character I want to mention. That’s Rak the Terrible. He’s basically the town bully, slots right into that antagonist role. What was the inspiration for him?

Joshua: The inspiration for that character was to have someone in town with sort of a very clear, opposing view to Frank’s. Someone to bring Frank out of his shell and sort of awake the sleeping wizard, in a way.

Just out of curiosity, the draft you read, did you get a hold of that from the Nicholl’s competition?

Scott: I think so. Yeah.

Joshua: There have been many…

Scott: Many drafts? [laughs]

Joshua: Many drafts. The Nicholl’s draft was the first draft, I believe. It’s come a long way since. But in a more recent version, we see Frank as a child, being bullied, in a way, in the opening of the piece. I think Rak kind of brings back some of that torment and pain that Frank felt growing up. Rak very much provides a reason for Frank to find his courage. That’s Rak’s purpose.

Scott: I’d like to ask some questions about some of the key choices you made in writing the script. This is a story about the writing of a story. There’s an inherent challenge in the face of it because what could be more boring than to show someone writing?

Joshua: [laughs] Right.

Scott: Yet, you hardly ever see Frank writing. Rather it’s all conveyed through dialogue and, mostly, these wonderful images through the POV of Frank and Dorothy, basically, what they’re imagining. How early on did you land on that narrative approach?

Joshua: Very early on. I didn’t want to tell a story where we see the author sitting and writing in his book for 90 or 100 pages. I wanted that to be implied, in a sense, and make it known that he’s writing this all kind of off screen and in the background, and what we’re seeing are the moments that inspired him.

That way, when it all kind of comes together at the end, it’s that much more rewarding.

Scott: Then what about this idea of entering into their perspectives and these fantasy images that Frank and Dorothy see? How did that evolve?

Joshua: That’s something that, also from the very beginning, I knew that was the way in which I wanted to tell the story. I wanted the audience to see the world how Frank sees it and how Dorothy sees it, with the help of Frank.

I knew going into it, that was how I wanted to go about showcasing these moments that we see and instantly are like, “Oh. OK. Well, that, I remember that from reading the ‘Wizard of Oz,’” or, “I remember a similar moment from the 1939 movie, with the flying monkeys at the fair, or the yellow brick road.”

Tomorrow in Part 4, Josh discusses how he landed an agent, attached a producer to the project by himself, became a Nicholl finalist, then sold the script to New Line.

For Part 1 of the interview, go here.

Part 2, here.

Please stop by comments to ask any questions you may have for Josh.

Josh is repped by ICM and Heretic Literary Management.

Twitter: @joshmgolden.