Interview (Written): Kelly Fremon Craig (writer-director), James L.

Interview (Written): Kelly Fremon Craig (writer-director), James L. Brooks (producer), ‘The Edge of Seventeen’

A /film interview with The Edge of Seventeen writer-director Kelly Fremon Craig and producer James L. Brooks.

When you did read the screenplay and come on board, was role that of a mentor? Or did you let [Kelly] do her own thing?

Brooks: It was four years of chats. [Laughs] Kelly very much did her own thing. I believe in research. She did it remarkably well. We’d go over the tapes and we’d talk. We’d talk a lot. And then, after a couple of years, a second draft came in and it was just spectacular.

[To Craig] Was there something in those conversations that stands out? Something that helped make the story stick?

Craig: There were two big things. Number one. When we first sat down, Jim said “Go interview a bunch of teenagers and hang out at high schools and just make sure you’re getting this world right.” Just make sure the details are right. So I went off and did that for six months. I got more into it than I probably should have. I loved it. I just loved talking to different people this age and asking them questions and having follow-ups. It was just… It turned into great group therapy in a lot of ways for these kids and also for me. Because a lot of what they were saying was universal and true and I could it myself and it took me right back there. It just gave me a real sense of mission in terms of what I wanted to say. So that was a defining thing for me because it made me realize I would never ever write anything again without doing that research. So that was a huge gift to me.

And the other thing Jim said, and this was absolutely life-altering, was “The first and most important thing you have to answer is, what is this movie saying about life?” That’s number one. That was such a big deal because I had spent plenty of time with producers who would say “Okay, what’s happening on page 15 and then we need a set piece…” and doing that whole thing. To just have somebody say to me, “What do you care about?” That you want to write about? What matters to you that you want to say? It was “Oh my God, oh my God. Thank you! Thank you!” It sent me back to why I wanted to write in the first place. You can lose that over the course of… you can just have that beaten out of you in the industry. [Laughs] There are a lot of things pushing against that. It was never nice to go back there and I’ll never approach a script again without that being the question echoing through my head from the get-go.

For the rest of the interview, go here.

A compilation of scenes from The Edge of Seventeen:

The movie’s website here.