Interview [Part 5]: Lisa Joy

“Scott, you are the only screenwriting teacher I’ve ever had.” This is what Lisa Joy shared with me when we had dinner together in L.A. last fall to celebrate the recent sale of her spec script “Reminiscence” which Legendary Pictures acquired in a deal worth a reported $1.75M. In addition to her screenwriting, Lisa has been on staff and written for TV (“Pushing Daisies,” “Burn Notice”), created a graphic novel “Athena” which has been developed for TV, and co-wrote the pilot with her husband Jonathan Nolan for a TV series adaptation of the classic 1973 science fiction movie Westworld for HBO in association with J.J. Abrams and Bad Robot, and producer Jerry Weintraub.

I was thrilled when Lisa agreed to an interview, not only because of the mark she is making in Hollywood, but also because she is a genuine human being: smart and insightful, but also grounded and generous in spirit. Yes, there are people like that in Hollywood… and Lisa is one of them.

In Part 5, Lisa talks about making the Black List, balancing a writing career and being a new mother, and what it’s like being a woman writer in Hollywood:

Scott: You mentioned the word “complicated” earlier in terms of the script’s structure. You’ve got these reminiscing events and you have flashbacks, yet they’re distinct. I think in the script you say they have a distinctly different look.

Lisa: Right.

Scott: There are several of them. How challenging was that for you? How many to use? When to use them? How to use them? Did you do a lot of rewriting on that or did that lay out pretty easily for you?

Lisa: I did a lot of thinking on it beforehand, it wasn’t as much rewriting as it was a long and heavy meditation period beforehand.

I wanted to talk about memory’s fallibility and subjectivity. The thing about the archaeologist’s reminiscence machine is that when you go back in those memories, they are accurate. You are just pushing a button in your brain, and the exact replica of that memory is coming up. You don’t get the kind of subjective bias that you do in an organic memory.

Organic memories are fuzzy. They’re hazy, and you can get confused about did that really happen or was that something somebody told me? Did I embellish it over the years? Did I turn it to suit my purposes? Did I tell this memory as a funny anecdote so many times that the little embellishments I’ve added have now become fused in my mind to the actual memory? You do lie to yourself about your own past, and I think you do invariably lie to yourself about your own past. They can be white lies, or they can be more malicious lies. But the way in which we think about the past is not honest.

It cannot be honest because our brain just does not conjure it back up with that level of detail, we fill in the blanks. We fill them out to suit our purposes.

I wanted to be able to juxtapose from the way Bannister remembered things for himself, or the way things actually went to illustrate that point and understand the Bannister character in terms of the lies that he told himself about the past.

Scott: One final question about the script. The conventional last two words of a script: The End. Not in “Reminiscence.” In your script, you end with the words: “The Middle.”

Lisa: Right. The thing that influenced me structurally in writing “Reminiscence” was a format of a Rondel poem. In that poem, the first two lines of the first stanza are refrains, and they repeat at the last two lines of the second stanza and the third stanza. Basically, you have a poem progression where certain lines are echoed and tweaked in their repetition.

In a way, the structural underpinnings for “Reminiscence” are borrowed from that sort of poem. Because for me that kind of poem works like a memory, where certain memories tug you back again and again. I wanted to mimic that in the structure of the screenplay.

The last two lines, the words, of the screenplay wanted to point out that that was the structure that was happening, and to point out that an ending is not always an ending.

Scott: So you sell this thing to Legendary Pictures for a boatload of money. Then the script makes the Black List. Where are you with all the amazing buzz around this project?

Lisa: I don’t know. I’m so grateful for the interest that people took in it. Honestly, for me the most thrilling part of it was some of the directors and some of the producers who responded to it, and wanted to work on it were fantastic, and the fact that there were those options out there.

These were my idols, and to be able to just have them read something that I wrote, frankly, was so gratifying to me that it was probably the most meaningful part of the process. Not even the sale itself, but just hearing from people I admire, that they liked it and responded to it was truly, for me, fantastic.

The collaboration with Legendary is so fun. They’re a company that invests in big, bold worlds. They have this huge appetite to tell stories, and tell them provocatively. They’re not afraid to take chances and take on big things. To be in collaboration with somebody who’s as keen and driven to create a world that people believe, and love playing in it has been really gratifying.

It’s been really great because you have this baby, and it’s a script, and you just want to make sure you raise it with the right people. To have such great collaborators has been so gratifying, on so very many levels.

In terms of the actual feeling of selling a script — it was pretty unreal. But nothing really has changed in my life, [laughs] I have to say. Except I have some really great meetings with people, and there are more opportunities to work on really cool projects.

But I have this philosophy where, it’s going to sound pretentious…I’m even hesitant to bring up another poem. There’s a line in it, “When you meet with triumph and disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same.”

Scott: Rudyard Kipling?

Lisa: Yeah, Kipling’s “If”. My grandmother used to love that poem and had it hung on her kitchen wall. It was a lesson to his son on how to be a “man”. But man or woman, the same lessons apply.

“When you meet with triumph and disaster, and treat these two impostors just the same”, you really have to have that mentality when you’re a screenwriter. Disaster comes, triumph comes, and they never last, either of them. The most you can hope for is that you love what you’re doing, when you’re doing it. I celebrated selling “Reminiscence” by getting back to work.

Scott: You called your script your baby. Of course, you actually have a baby now. That’s the trifecta of good news — setting up an HBO series, selling a spec script, and having a baby. How’s it balancing, being a mom and a writer?

Lisa: It’s been really great. This is something I’ve thought about a lot because I was actually very worried. There are fewer female writers in Hollywood, and we’re still trying to find a place on an equal standing in this industry. You get scared.

You get scared that if I take my foot off the pedal for even a minute by having this baby, will I be sacrificing the stuff that I’ve worked so hard to achieve? I was really scared of that thought.

In fact, people will tell you that that is going to happen. I heard a lot of, “It’s impossible. You’re going to have to choose. You can’t do both. You can’t be a good mom, and also be a full‑time writer.”

It was about the same time that this debate about “Can a woman have it all?” was reaching a fever pitch. I was feeling somewhat hysterical about it all and then one day I just thought — ENOUGH. “This is fucking bullocks. This is nonsense.” The question should not be, “Can a woman have it all?” That is a ridiculous question, because it is doomed to failure. No one can have it all. You can’t eat all the cake and also have the figure of a super‑model. You just can’t do it. It’s impossible.

The fact that “can you have it all” was the question posed to women specifically — was complete bullshit. It makes everything a binary all or nothing choice. And if “all” is impossible — then we must settle for “nothing.” The paradigm itself is messed up.

What I realized after I was done freaking out was that I don’t want it all. Here’s what I do want. I want a family that I love, and that I’m an active part of. I want to be the best writer that I can be. My job and my family. Those are two things. They’re not “it all.” It is a perfectly reasonable ambition and I shouldn’t spend time feeling ridiculous or doomed for wanting it — I should instead invest my energies in attaining it.

I had to overcome a lot of fear, and a lot of conventional wisdom about that stuff. For me, it’s important to talk about because first of all, I do also recognize that I’m in a privileged position, where my husband also works, I’d saved up money, and I could take time to do this.

If, like me, you find yourself in a very fortunate position like that, I felt it was my obligation to not be afraid, and to chase down the dreams that I had, both personal and professional. To not let the status quo and conventional wisdom about what the limitations would be on someone in my position hamper me too much.

The end goal for me is, I believe — I have an obligation, when you make some headway in an industry like this, to help affect change. There are many writers rooms with no women or only one woman on the team. I don’t think that’s right. I don’t think it’s a reflection of talent in the marketplace. I feel like there’s an obligation for me to do better on my own shows.

There are other people doing that. I just talked to Marti Noxon, who’s a friend of mine who just had two shows greenlit. She was saying, “Why don’t you come on my show?” She said, “If you have time, you can bring the kid. We’ll have a room set up, and you can get a nanny to help you out.” Timing wise, my TV focus is Westworld right now so I can’t work with her this go-round although it would be wonderful. She’s an amazing writer and doing such a great service to future voices by unlocking the potential of so many writers, who would otherwise not get their full chance of expression.

I was so scared of how having a child would influence my career. It’s true, there are some sleepless night. I’m tired sometimes, but I used to be an insomniac anyway. Now instead of waking up and staring into the darkness full of spiraling thoughts, I get to cuddle my sweet baby. [laughs] It’s just a pleasure. Having a child is just another experience in life, another wonderful experience in life. It unlocks so many feelings and so many thoughts that I’m sure that will at some point filter in however, indirectly into my work.

Scott: It’s insane, isn’t it, the numbers? If you look at it all across the board in Hollywood, the paucity of female directors, female writers getting hired, it’s just crazy.

Lisa: It is crazy. Part of the reason why, when I find somebody I love to work with, I never let them go. When you are fighting for equal ground, when you are not of a group that is equally represented, the people who believe in you are the people who keep you going when stuff gets tough.

My friendships with writers like Marti Noxon, Laeta Kalogridis, Bryan Fuller, Michael Green and my husband and so many others… they all inspire me and keep me writing even when I want to give up. Friendships and those allies mean so much to me. It also enriches the work and gives you an obligation to be that kind of friend to other people. It’s something that I try to do, and will continue to try to do.

Tomorrow in Part 6, Lisa shares some tips on the craft of writing.

For Part 1 of the interview, go here.

Part 2, go here.

Part 3, go here.

Part 4, go here.

Lisa is repped by UTA.

Please feel free to stop by comments with any questions you may have. Lisa has kindly agreed to answer some of them. I’ll pass along the best of the bunch.

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