Q&A: Screenwriter Chris McCoy, Part 1

Chris McCoy is pretty unique among screenwriters in that he has three scripts that have made the Black List: “Get Back” (2007), “Good Looking” (2009), and “Good Kids” (2011). That alone is enough to warrant significant curiosity about this young writer. The fact his screenplays are highly entertaining, distinctive, and filled with quirky characters and strong dialogue makes it even more so. Therefore I was quite happy when Chris agreed to do a GITS Q&A.

In this 5-part series, which will run today through Friday, we cover Chris’ background as a writer, reflections about each of his Black List scripts, and his insight into the craft of screenwriting.

Today: Part 1 — Chris’ background.

Let’s start with this: In reading “Get Back,” “Good Looking,” and “Good Kids,” I have come to one inescapable conclusion: You’re really funny. Do you have any idea how that happened or is a good sense of humor simply in your DNA?

I come from a somewhat enormous family of Boston Irish Catholics, and I do think there is something to the idea this particular group has a good sense of humor built into its DNA. I’m actually nowhere close to being the funniest person in my family — my mother was the youngest of nine and she has me beat by a mile. Bad weather and guilt seem to serve as a nice petri dish for humor.

What are some of your favorite movie comedies and why?

The first comedy that blew my mind was “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” which might speak to the Catholic thing — I couldn’t believe that those guys were able to hide such brilliant commentary in this blanket of absurdity.

After I saw “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” in the theatre, I spent a week just walking around San Francisco thinking about it. I felt like Kaufman rewired my idea of what movies were.

Finally, “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” was a massive influence on me as a kid. I’d love to pretend I was shaped by Woody Allen and Preston Sturges — but if I’m honest with myself, I spent a lot of time watching Bill & Ted.

What is it about comedy that appeals to you as a story genre?

Comedy is such a great delivery system for subversive ideas — as long as you make people laugh, you can say whatever you want.

Let’s go back a bit. When did you first realize that somebody was responsible for writing a movie?

Junior year of high school, when I joined the theatre club and started getting my hands on plays. That’s probably when I made the leap that there was a secret recipe to drama.

When and how did you decide you wanted to try your hand at screenwriting?

In Massachusetts, we had a competition called the “Massachusetts High School Drama Festival” where schools would stage productions of one-act plays and compete with each other in a sort of knockout tournament. The festival held a playwriting competition as part of the festivities. I’d always enjoyed writing, so I wrote a play and entered the competition, where I did pretty well.

So I discovered that I enjoyed playwriting, and I’d always wanted to go to college in New York. With a little research, I found the Department of Dramatic Writing at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and that’s where I started learning the craft of it.

What was your big break that helped to kick-start your career as a Hollywood screenwriter?

The “big break” was a long road. Hollywood is the ultimate who-you-know place, and if you don’t have any connections in the industry or your dad isn’t somebody famous, you have to figure out how to do it yourself.

My road was this: after college, I was broke, so I worked the overnight shift at the Stop & Shop in my hometown stocking groceries, until I had enough money to move west.

I worked in San Francisco for a year at Francis Ford Coppola’s literary magazine “Zoetrope: All Story,” where I was technically “Associate Editor,” though I was really just a glorified intern, though the perks of wine were great. I was also making ends meet by going door-to-door for Sierra Club, which was not a career with a lot of growth potential, so I decided to move to Los Angeles and try to use my degree.

I didn’t know anybody in LA, so I went to the Friedman Agency, which is this entertainment industry staffing service that puts connection-less individuals into random temp positions. Through them, I got a job as an assistant at CAA.

There’s sort of an unspoken rule in the agency business that after a year of working for someone, you’re allowed to ask for a favor. I wanted to write, so when I was thirteen months in, I got the name of three good lit managers from a friend of mine at the company. I went into my boss’s office and asked him to call the numbers and pretend I was just some good writer he knew who needed representation. My boss had barely read anything I’d done — maybe some McSweeney’s stuff — but to his credit, he just went “done!” and he picked up the phone and called the managers and said, “I’ve got this guy…”

And that’s how I met my manager, which started everything. Thirteen months of work for three phone calls, but my boss was awesome about it.

You have the rare distinction of having three original screenplays on the Black List. How has your scripts’ presence on the Black List influenced your experience as a screenwriter and the perception of you as a writer by the industry?

The nice thing about the Black List is that it provides an industry shorthand that means “This Is A Script Worth Reading,” and by association, “This Is A Writer Worth Reading.” It’s a huge benefit for writers like myself, who have written stuff that people like, but haven’t got anything produced yet, and therefore can’t be pitched by their produced credits.

I have no clue how representatives sold up-and-coming writers before the Black List. There must have been so much “you’ve got to take my word for it!” The Black List has this in-built stamp of approval.

As for being on it three times… I hope it’s just seen as a mark of consistency. I care tremendously about my work, and I hope inclusion on the list reflects that.

Each of your three Black List scripts are comedies, yet each is different in their own way. “Get Back” is very high concept with a time travel device taking the lead characters back to England in 1966. “Good Looking,” which is set a “half-beat in the future,” also has a high concept at its core — a company that guarantees it will “match you with your soulmate” — but feels almost like a satire. “Good Kids” is a contemporary mainstream teen comedy in the vein of American Pie. Are the differences in narrative approach and tone between each script part of a conscious decision on your part to explore various types of comedies or is it a reflection of simply writing story ideas that appeal to you?

The guiding mantra for my career thus far has been to write movies that I actually want to see, which sounds simple enough, but I think it’s kinda easy out here to fall into the trap of writing stuff that you would never plop down $12.50 at the theatre to watch, and that’s when your work can really start going off the rails.

The nice thing about writing specs is that you can show people exactly what you want to show them. You’re doing it for free, so there’s no reason not to. I’d get bored if I was continually using the same kind of narrative approach or tone, and if I’m bored writing something, people will be bored reading it.

“Thirteen months of work for three phone calls.” That’s Hollywood for you!

Tomorrow in Part 2: Chris talks about his screenplay “Get Back”.

If you have any questions for Chris, post them in comments. I can forward them to Chris and there’s a decent chance he may respond.

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