Interview (Part 4): Craig Mazin
Craig Mazin is a successful screenwriter in the comedy genre whose movie credits include RocketMan (1997), Scary Movie 3 (2003), Scary Movie 4 (2006), Superhero Movie (2008), The Hangover Part II (2011), Identity Thief (2013) and The Hangover Part III (2013). With fellow screenwriter Ted Elliott, he hosted the informative writing blog “The Artful Writer” from 2004–2011. Currently Craig and screenwriter John August co-host the popular weekly podcast Scriptnotes for which the pair recently celebrated their 100th recording.
I recently spoke with Craig about his background, some of his writing projects, the state of the movie business and the screenwriting craft. Today in Part 4, Craig digs into the movie Identity Thief:
Scott: Let’s talk about Diana’s character (Melissa McCarthy) in Identity Thief. I’m curious about how that developed, this idea of identity thief. She’s so desperately trying to fill a void that she has, essentially a lack of a sense of self, with all of this stuff and these activities. It fits perfectly with the idea of identity thief. How soon did you come up with idea and how did that involve?
Craig: I think that was day one, really. The notion that somebody was going to go out and steal somebody’s identity and use it to buy stuff, to me, demands a character who’s tragically alone, doesn’t know who they are, and has to invent who they are because they’ve been deprived of an identity. Identity in and of itself is a pointless concept. Really, what we’re talking about is the parts of us that are loved and accepted. That’s what we think of as our identity. The rest of it is data. She was unloved and unaccepted, and thus had to construct love and acceptance through buying shit.
It seems so simple, but I see it around me all of the time. I wanted to pair her with a guy who needed to learn the same lessons she needed to learn. The truth is she already knows, she abused herself as a lost cause. She’s there like Jacob Marley rattling chains saying to Scrooge, “Don’t be like me.”
That’s where it all goes to in that scene in the restaurant towards the end of the second act and that’s what he needs to hear. The nice thing is that she kind of pulls herself out of a tailspin because he’s made a choice to be present for her.
That’s something that Melissa and I talked about from the start. We had this really cool idea. We couldn’t get… the movie is a Universal movie and Warner Brothers wouldn’t help us out in this, we really wanted her character to be obsessed with Wonder Woman. Really, the idea of this little girl who was abandoned and grew up in foster care who watched Wonder Woman and wanted to be Wonder Woman. Her hair was Wonder Woman‑y. It was such a sad, specific grasping at an identity. It was the first identity theft this character makes, trying to be Wonder Woman.
We just thought that was really interesting. Melissa is so good at finding the details to make a character like that come to life. That was her idea. I thought it was great, we just couldn’t get the rights.
Scott: It probably existed there in her reacting in the subtext and rehearsing of the character.
Craig: Yeah, if you look at her appearance, all of that stuff is specifically chosen in a Wonder Woman way. The big hair, makeup, fingernails, and all of that is aspiring toward something that isn’t her at all. That’s why I liked the notion that she could finally turn to some other people and say, “Help me” because she really doesn’t know what she’s doing. She’s just clambering around trying to create who she thinks she ought to be because she’s so scared of being rejected for who she actually is. You can read about all of this in Rex Reed’s review, he goes into this in depth.
Scott: I checked on Identity Thief today, and the movie’s done $173 million worldwide. It’s easy to say, “It’s a Melissa McCarthy movie. That’s why it’s a big success.” As a screenwriter, you spent a lot of time thinking about the characters, their underlying motivations, and the psychological nature of the story. How much do you think of the legs the movie’s had is somehow attributable to the viewers’ resonance with the emotional life of the story, not just the funny stuff?
Craig: Who knows? Listen, it matters to me and I think it matters to people who think like me about this sort of thing, but there are other people that just love laughing. I don’t know why people go. I’ve been repeatedly surprised by what people like and don’t like in these movies. Maybe that just speaks to the fact that I’ll always be lost to some extent. For me, what you call “the emotional life of the story” is everything. I want comedies to be about something. I want movies to be about something. I want them to have some sort of argument to make. I have to believe that on some level, even though the movie opened well, the fact that we kept holding and only dropping 30 percent or so week after week is because there was more than just laughs.
There was something that genuinely connected with people. Not just with Melissa’s character, but with Jason’s. I have to believe that. Otherwise, it’s all a crapshoot, I guess.
Scott: I want to ask you about three specific elements in Identity Thief in terms of how you went about developing them. Obviously, in comedies, set pieces are a big deal. There are some very funny physical, almost slapstick encounters between Sandy, Diana, and other characters. How important are set pieces in your writing process?
Craig: It depends on the movie. If you’re making a movie that exists to bring some laughter in this world, then sure, let’s get some laughter. It not enough to just get giggles here and there, let’s get the big one. Let’s get some rolling laughter. One of the things I learned working under David Zucker early on in my career was how gratifying it was to get an audience rolling and we did and it was fun. God knows I’ve seen it with the movies I’ve done with Todd Phillips. For example, that scene in Hangover 2 where Stu finds out what happened with Kimmy in the nightclub in Bangkok.
People are out of breath and it’s just exciting. It feels so good. That’s why we’re all there. You get in a sense in your mind like, “A certain amount of time has elapsed… it sure would be good to get a release and have some fun.” Those set pieces are like mini-movies. They need their own set ups, second acts, and climaxes.
The specifics of how it all happens, why things are funny and why sometimes they’re not funny, you go by instinct and try and not overthink it. I don’t overthink, I just do it. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, but when it works, it’s awesome.
Scott: The second thing I wanted to talk to you about is that the set up of Identity Thief strikes me as a challenging process. There’s a lot of moving parts, you’ve got to introduce multiple characters, create a circumstance whereby they intersect with each other, and then Sandy and Diana realize they can’t go on an airplane and they’re going to drive back together while introducing two sets of the nemesis characters. How much of a challenge was that for you and how much time did you spend on that first act?
Craig: A lot and a lot. In addition to everything you just outlined, which is accurate, the other factor that comes into those sort of elements of the screenplay is that everyone around you can get involved in those. It’s harder for people who aren’t writers, directors, or actors to say, “Your instincts about a character, interior life of a character, or theme, we don’t like those. We want this and this.” Everyone can go, “This isn’t logical. Can you make this faster? Maybe it works here instead of here. Wouldn’t more bad guys be a good thing?”
There’s a lot of that stuff going on. I’ll tell you because I’ve said it before, when I look at what I intended to that movie initially… there’s not much in the movie that I didn’t intend, but the one area where I just disagreed and was overruled, ultimately, was how many villains were in the movie and the nature of them.
I wanted one guy chasing them and I got beat. [laughs] I just lost that fight. Those are areas where you can get a little jammed up.
Scott: Let’s jump to the other side of the film, the ending, where Diana does the right thing. The story has a rather bittersweet ending. It’s nice that the family is together, but she’s in prison. Did you or the studio consider other possible endings? Was there any pressure of “Let’s somehow make it so she doesn’t have to go to prison?”
Craig: No. In the beginning, when I said I wanted to do the movie, I said, “This is what happens in the end, he makes a choice to let her go, but she turns herself in because she knows he is going to let her go. She has to go to jail and that’s that. If we do anything else it’s going to be stupid. It’s going to be false.” Everybody was fine with that from the start. There was no variation from that all throughout. The third act of that movie — I love it. I just think it’s terrific. When they get back to his house, everything at the end of the movie is just great. Seth did a great job with it.
The cast was tremendous. I felt it. I felt the ending, and there’s great joy to it, so I’m very proud of that.
Tomorrow in Part 5, Craig discusses “The Artful Writer” blog, the Scriptnotes podcast series, and the state of comedy in the movie business.
For Part 1, go here.
Part 2, go here.
Part 3, go here.
Craig is repped by CAA.
Twitter: @clmazin.
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