Interview (Written): Mike Le

A Geek & Sundry interview with Mike Le, screenwriter of the 2014 Black List script “Patient Zero” and the movies Dark Summer and Amnesiac.

How did you get to where you are today as a writer?

First, let’s agree that no matter what my answer to this is, there’s no short cut to becoming a successful writer. Everyone’s path into Hollywood is different.

Everything I am as a writer today is built on a lifetime of watching and consuming movies, comic books, genre fiction, TV shows, anime, and video games. When I was kid, all those things I mentioned were not considered cool. During class, I would pretend to be reading my text book, when in actuality I was reading a comic book hidden inside of it. I never ate lunch once during my years in high school. Instead, I saved up my lunch money to buy comic books or the latest Stephen King novel. And when all the students were in the lunchroom, I sat alone in the hallways reading and drawing in my sketchbook. I don’t regret a minute of it because everything that made me a social misfit back then, are the very things that helped give me my career.

Natalie Dormer is starring in your feature film, Patient Zero, and Kate Bosworth is starring in Amnesiac. What is it like to have major stars in your films?

It is extremely surreal to have [them] playing characters that I created and speaking dialogue that I wrote. During the 2014 San Diego Comic-Con, Natalie Dormer was on the Women Who Kick Ass Panel, where she was very vocal (and rightly so) about how most of the sophisticated, smart, and complex female characters are written for TV, and film has lots of catching up to do in that regard. It was literally a few weeks later, I found out Natalie wanted to play the female lead in my movie, Patient Zero. I was totally blown-away by this. It was the ultimate validation that a star of Natalie’s caliber and taste would want to be involved with something I wrote. And Kate Bosworth is an amazing actress. I was very surprised to find out she wanted to play the female lead in Amnesiac because that character is unlike anything she’s ever done. It’s a very dark and demanding role, but she pulls it off beautifully.

Patient Zero, starring Natalie Dormer and Matt Smith, is scheduled to launch its theatrical release on September 2, 2016.

Twitter: @writerle.

For more of the interview with Mike, go here.