Interview (Part 4): Chris Sparling

Variety recently named Chris Sparling as one of their 10 Screenwriters to Watch. With good reason. Chris made his first splash in the business with his script for the movie Buried, starring Ryan Reynolds and followed that up with another contained thriller ATM. He has multiple projects in development and two movies slated for release: The Sea of Trees, starring Matthew McConaughey, Naomi Watts and Ken Wattanabe, directed by Gus Van Sant, and The Atticus Institute, written and directed by Chris. It comes out on iTunes on January 9, then on VOD and Blu-Ray/DVD on January 20.

Chris and I had an in-depth interview about how he broke into the business, analyzing some of his movies, and his thoughts on the craft of screenwriting. I will be featuring the interview throughout the week.

Today in Part 4, Chris reveals the background on another of his movies now in production The Sea of Trees:

Scott: What’s interesting [re The Atticus Institute] is you’ve got this history of movies featuring demon possession and exorcisms, but it really is that militarization angle about the potential use and utilization of a person with those capabilities that enables you to create this character, Judith, who is both in the tradition of these possession stories, but also unique because of her circumstances.

Chris: Between Dr. West, who William Mapother plays, and Judith, who’s played by Rya Kihlstedt, I wanted to show not just the relationship between the two of them, but once the government steps in, how it throws everything out of whack.

The Government was initially brought to The Atticus Institute, in a way, to try to help the situation, but they end up doing the exact opposite. Once they’re there, they create this divide, not only between Dr. West and Judith, but also between themselves and Dr. West and his staff. The Government agitates Judith, the entity is inside her. They start to push it and push it — and it starts to push back.

That’s what happens. This thing is retaliating to, essentially, the torture that they’re putting it through, the physical torture, all in efforts to gain control. This isn’t a church matter. This is a government matter, and as we’ve seen, that can get draconian.

That said, I wouldn’t go as far as to say the movie is about torture. Or even an allegory about the dangers of torture. Still, I can see how it could potentially be perceived that way, because it does suggest that it’s wrong to treat human beings that way, and that there’s a danger in treating people that way, regardless of how menacing and awful they are. Like I said, the movie’s not necessarily saying that, but at the same time, I guess it is.

Scott: You go off and direct this movie. I believe you shot it in LA.

Chris: We did.

Scott: What was your experience like shooting a movie? How long was the shoot, and what was it like?

Chris: It was a fairly short shoot. We did it in, I think, 15 days. We did three five‑day weeks. We shot at this place called Linda Vista Hospital in East LA. I think it’s torn down now. I know, in the past, a lot of people shot a lot of low‑budget horror films there because it was a completely derelict, old hospital that was pretty creepy. And supposedly haunted, on top of it.

We didn’t really use the hospital, per se. We used it as a space to build our set. We just built a psychology lab. That’s what the Atticus Institute is. It’s not an institution for the insane; it’s not an asylum. It’s an institute of study. It’s a parapsychology lab.

So, yeah, we built our lab inside Linda Vista, and it was great. The experience was everything I hoped it would be, honestly.

Scott: Were there some writing lessons you learned from your first feature film directing experience?

Chris: It’s seeing the script-to-screen in practice. Directing, obviously, I could see it very clearly because I was involved with every stage of that.

Even with my other films I wrote, where I watched the production or watched what became of the things I wrote, I learned that sometimes things that are relatively easy to write require quite a bit of heavy lifting for them to materialize on the screen.

The example I always give is, it’s easy to write “They fight.” But there’s a lot of people involved with “They fight.” It takes me two seconds to write “They fight,” but it could take two days to actually shoot, if not a hell of a lot more.

So, yes, absolutely, I learned a lot of lessons from it all. It all informs my writing at this point. I can’t help but be aware of what these words mean, even more so than before.

Scott: Let’s talk about another of your movie projects THE SEA OF TREES. Is that still in post‑production at this point?

Chris: Yeah. Actually, I just got an email asking that I watch the updated cut of the film. That’s what that ‘ding’ sound was that you might have heard.

Scott: The plot summary for that:

“A suicidal American befriends a Japanese man lost in a forest near Mt. Fuji, and the two search for a way out.”

The movie stars Matthew McConaughey, Naomi Watts, and Ken Watanabe, directed by Gus Van Sant.

As I understand it, the concept arose when you discovered there’s this actual location in Japan where people go to commit suicide.

Chris: Yeah, that’s right. I think I was on Cracked.com, which is a great website, by the way. [laughs] I don’t fully remember, but I’m sure the title of the article was something like “Weirdest Places on Earth” or something to that effect. Aokigahara was one of the places listed in the article. It’s a forest, also known as “Suicide Forest” and also known as “The Sea of Trees”, at the foothills of Mt. Fuji.

This place, Aokigahara — there are more suicides committed there per year than anywhere else in the world, except for the Golden Gate Bridge, perhaps. It’s primarily Japanese people, but, strangely, people come from all around the world, too, to commit suicide in this forest. Nobody fully understands why. It’s a very mysterious place.

The Japanese have their own mythology built around it. They think it’s a very dark place, for obvious reasons. Plus, the forest is very disorienting. Compasses allegedly don’t work there, cell phones don’t work. It has this built‑in mysticism to it.

It was weird because it was like BURIED again, in that my first inclination was that this would be a good setup for a horror movie but I instead decided, “No, I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to take what seems like the obvious path. How about a drama? What’s the drama that can be made in this surreal place?” That’s when I came up with the idea of the two men bonding during this survival story.

Scott: You specifically said a drama, not a genre piece like BURIED, ATM, or even ATTICUS. Was this a conscious decision on your part to try to break out of that thriller brand?

Chris: Not so much to break out of the horror or thriller brand, but to break out of the smaller movie box that I had been ‑‑ no pun intended — put in. Early on, with BURIED and ATM, I actually found it beneficial. People have asked me that many times, “Did you feel you get stuck in this box? Was that a bad thing?” Early on, no, I thought it was a great thing.

I was occasionally being considered for non‑contained, thriller‑type movies, but I was always considered, it seemed, for contained thrillers. I was always the guy they thought of for those movies, which was great. It, at least, separated me from the overall pack in one specific way early on in my career.

But as I said, my goal is never to just be complacent and stop. And before writing THE SEA OF TREES, I wondered, “How do I continue to grow? How do I move out of strictly being the contained thriller guy?” The answer was that I needed to write a bigger movie than what people might be used to from me. I remember I told my agent about the concept. He was like, “Uh.” [laughs] He was like, “It sounds like it could be an interesting story. I just don’t know how commercial it could ever be. I don’t know if it’ll ever get made, but if you feel like you have to get it out of your system, if you feel passionate about it, then go do it.”

I did. Thankfully, I did.

Scott: I think that’s the default mode for reps, isn’t at, at first? It’s like line of least resistance. If someone establishes themselves in a genre or specific story type, that’s the easiest thing to get them work on.

On the other hand, if a writer comes and says, “I’m really passionate about this new story arena,” eventually, if they’re a good agent, they’ll support the writer and say, “Yeah, you go do that.”

Chris: For sure. Absolutely. My agent did support it. He did what agents do: he looked at it from a business perspective first. It wasn’t exactly the greatest business decision. [laughs] But he was still supportive. So was my manager.

Scott: Turned out to be a great business decision. What was that like ‑‑ because you were also a producer on the film ‑‑ working with a well‑known director, Gus Van Sant?

Chris: It was great. I’ve been really lucky, honestly. As you well know, it’s not very often that what a writer writes ends up on the screen the same way it appeared on the page. [laughs]

I’ve been really lucky with my three movies now, not counting ATTICUS since I directed it myself, that the directors I worked with, pretty much, they’ve all read the script and said, “This is the movie I want to shoot,” and then that’s the movie they shoot.

In that regard, I couldn’t have been more grateful that Gus wanted to make my movie, and not just something in the spirit of my movie. As far as how he and I got along, he’s an extremely gentle soul. Very quiet, mild‑mannered guy. Really nice. Just a nice human being.

Going in, I didn’t know what to expect. Obviously, he’s a big‑time director. I had no idea what his personality was. Of course, you hear horror stories, not about him, but about people in general once egos start to take over and everything else. I didn’t know if he would be that type of person. I had no idea what to expect.

It turned out not to be that at all. He’s a very normal, down‑to‑earth, soft‑spoken guy.

Scott: Then the stars aligned, literally. Matthew McConaughey commits to the project. Then he’s riding high off the Oscar from DALLAS BUYER’S CLUB and the success of “True Detective” on HBO.

You’re sitting back in Providence, Rhode Island, and you’re looking at this project with him in the lead. How does that make you feel?

Chris: It was great. We were fortunate enough — and by “we” I mean me and the producers, Gil Netter and Ken Kao — to get Matthew on‑board when we did. I believe it was a week before the Academy Awards. Who knows? I don’t know if he would have done the movie or not had we approached him after he won his Oscar. He might have, he might not have. His agents could have taken a different view of his career. I honestly have no idea. Thankfully, the timing was perfect, and we were thrilled.

I got the call saying that Matthew’s in. Ken Watanabe was already in at that point. Soon after that, we got our female lead, Naomi Watts. It call came together very fast after that. On top of it, selfishly, I thought it was especially great because we shot in Massachusetts.

Scott: You were able to just pop up there, then?

Chris: Yeah. It took me about 40 minutes to drive to set.

Scott: Massachusetts has a pretty attractive film production tax rebate program now, right?

Chris: Yes, they do.

Scott: When can we expect to see THE SEA OF TREES?

Chris: If I were to go by how quickly things are moving along, it looks like some time in late 2015. I can’t say that with certainty, but I would imagine the idea would be to launch it at a high-profile festival.

Tomorrow in Part 4, Chris reveals details about a TV project he’s working on and shares some thoughts about the craft of writing.

To read Part 1 of the interview, go here.

Part 2, go here.

Part 3, go here.

Chris is repped by UTA and Kaplan / Perrone Entertainment.

Twitter: @chrissparling.