Interview (Part 3): Melissa Iqbal (2014 Nicholl Winner)

U.K.-based writers Melissa Iqbal wrote the original screenplay “The Death Engine” which won the 2014 Nicholl Fellowship in screenwriting. Recently Melissa and I had a transatlantic phone call in which we covered a lot of territory in an excellent conversation.

Today in Part 3, Melissa reflects on some of the key characters in “The Death Engine”:

Scott: Let’s talk about that. There’s this condition that’s accepted as affecting some people called the ‘melancholia’. Is that any different, in your mind, than what we would specifically call today ‘depression’?

Melissa: No. It’s the same thing. The only difference I guess is that if you live long enough in ‘The Death Engine’ world you will eventually suffer from it and when you do it’s pretty much impossible to come back from.

Scott: There’s a side of dialogue from Lily, something she confesses to her husband, Richard. I’d like to read that to you. This is early on the script.

“Richard, do you ever stare into space and say something over in your mind again and again like your own name until it moves past losing all meaning, and into a place where you can see yourself from the outside. And, then, you try to figure out whether the thing you’re seeing is full of secrets and life and just overshadowed by gray clouds or whether it’s empty. But, either way, it makes you sad.”

And so, that is, a fairly apt expression of her experience of ‘melancholia’.

Melissa: Yeah.

Scott: Richard does not want to hear this. Because he’s in that place of having completely bought into the whole thing. In fact, he even says at one point that death is evil, right? He’s giving voice to the status quo of the people who have bought into the system.

Melissa: Definitely. He sees the world as black and white, he’s still buying into the dream of the perfect life and he has no real understanding of what Lily’s going through. It’s like trying to help someone who’s experiencing depression when you’ve never really experienced it yourself. All you want to do is snap them out of it, you can’t understand why they can’t just be happy.

Scott: And so, she doesn’t have recourse there with her husband. But there’s another major character in the story named Anthony to whom she does go to share her feelings. He’s a ‘cherub’. Could you describe what cherubs are and the role they play in this future society?

Melissa: People can buy their immortality in the form of an injection, which will allow their cells to rejuvenate, keeping them looking the same age they were when they took it. Legally, you can’t buy the injection before the age of 18, but some people from poorer families buy them and give them to their children so they can work as hire children. These children are known as ‘cherubs’. In an overpopulated world where very few people die, getting a license to have a child is difficult, so some people hire cherubs instead. Anthony looks and behaves like he’s 12 years old, but is actually over 100. Again, it’s part of this idea of living the perfect life on the outside when the truth underneath is a very different story.

Scott: Physically Anthony is 12 years old and happens to be the cherub of Meredith, who’s Lily’s sister. So Lily is Anthony’s aunt. They develop a really fascinating relationship as Anthony becomes about the only individual Lily feels she can talk to or share her inner life with. What is it about Anthony that makes Lily seek him out as a mentor?

Melissa: Anthony’s a metaphor for what Lily’s going through. He’s someone who’s pretending to be something he’s not. The difference is Anthony seems to be fine with it whereas Lily’s having trouble coping. She’s experiencing all these dark feelings on the inside, but no one notices, they can only see what’s on the outside. I think she looks to Anthony to see how he manages and they strike up this unlikely friendship.

Scott: It’s funny you mentioned that. There’s some really great scenes with Anthony. He’s a 12 year old kid, but he’s got the mentality of his actual age and the physicality of a youthful body. And so, it’s a really odd disassociation. For example, at some points, he’s talking about these sex fantasies and drinking whiskey.

As I was reading these scenes, I’m going, “Can’t people see the lie here?” If you had the physical embodiment of the delusion of this false reality, it would be these cherubs, right?

Melissa: Yeah, I think so.

Scott: That’s probably one of the reasons why you said she’s attracted to him. That she realizes that he’s, as you said, a metaphor for that lie.

Melissa: Yeah, I think Lily responds to having found someone like her that she can confide in and I think Anthony finds solace in the fact that Lily refuses to treat him like a child and just accepts him for who he really is. Lily’s sister isn’t interested in the real Anthony, she just wants the perfect kid and Lily’s husband isn’t interested in the real Lily, he just wants the perfect wife.

Scott: He is like a mentor figure. There’s a scene where he’s talking about his ‘mother’ Meredith who’s now pregnant with an actual child. The family got a license to do this.

He says to Lily, “Well, sleeping beauty slept most of her life away, didn’t she? She wasn’t involved in the adventure that saved her. She just woke up one day and lived the perfect life. It means Meredith’s a client mother who doesn’t want to see the strings behind the puppet show. Before the license, I think part of her believed that if she wished hard enough and kept her eyes closed tightly enough, one day, I’d become a real boy and she wouldn’t have to wake up.”

And so, that’s a really interesting insight. Also this, Melissa. You got ‘rabbit holes’ which brings up ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and now he’s talking about ‘Sleeping Beauty’. Then, this idea that wishing Anthony could go from a fake child to a real child that evokes ‘Pinocchio.’ And so, I was thinking this is like a dark twisted Disney movie.

Melissa: [Chuckles] I do like twisted fairy tales and I especially like bringing these sorts of references into a real world scenario. It also felt like a really apt way of exposing the imperfections of this seemingly perfect world.

Tomorrow in Part 4, Melissa and I continue to delve into her creative process in writing “The Death Engine”.

For Part 1, go here.

Part 2, here.

Melissa is repped by Casarotto Ramsay & Associates.

Twitter: @Azureix.