Screenwriters Roundtable (Part 1): Jessica Bendinger, Lindsay Devlin, Stephany Folsom, Liz W.
Screenwriters Roundtable (Part 1): Jessica Bendinger, Lindsay Devlin, Stephany Folsom, Liz W. Garcia, Julia Hart, and Lisa Joy
A special treat this week and next as I will be posting excerpts from an extensive screenwriter’s roundtable I did in December 2015 with a group of talented Hollywood screenwriters: Jessica Bendinger, Lindsay Devlin, Stephany Folsom, Liz W. Garcia, Julia Hart, and Lisa Joy.
Here is Part 1:
Scott: Welcome all. I’d like to start with something easy. 2015 was another good year for some quality movies. Actually it seems like we’ve had a good run of it since 2012. Maybe to start off, are there one or two movies you saw last year that really stood out for you?
Liz: Mad Max really moved me and I found it extremely exciting both as a feminist parable and piece of filmmaking. What an incredible accomplishment. I cannot imagine how George Miller pulled that off…but I was really encouraged by it and very moved by it.
Scott: His wife, an editor who had never done an action movie, edited it.
Liz: I thought it was flawless.
Stephany: I would second the Mad Max. I was blown away by that film. It was the first movie, in a long time, where I left the theater talking about everything that I loved about it instead of what upset me about it. It was such a fantastic visual, visceral experience and Charlize Theron was amazing in it. It was a blast.
Julia: I agree on the Mad Max front, especially as a new mom, seeing that gorgeous, fully pregnant woman being a total badass was so inspiring. Also, 45 Years has really stuck with me. The performances and the writing were pretty extraordinary.
Scott: That’s the one with Charlotte Rampling?
Julia: Yeah. It’s this filmmaker Andrew Haigh. He made a movie a couple years ago, called Weekend that’s also really special. He’s definitely a really exciting filmmaker.
Jessica: I loved Diary of a Teenage Girl.
Stephany: That was great, too.
Jessica: It’s extraordinary they made it for half a million dollars. The emotional nuance they use to investigate this really complicated age in a young woman’s life and the circumstances is crazy. She did an amazing job. I also loved to Me and Earl and the Dying Girl and Brooklyn.
I thought Brooklyn was just this delicate, lovely movie. The tonal tightrope it walks is genius: it has to slog through all our cynicism and a sea of jaded, sophisticated audiences. The job it has to grab you is monumental. It does so with such confidence and assurance. I felt like I went through some kind of unjading and anti‑cynicism douche.
[laughter]
Scott: That’s great. They should’ve gotten you for one of the blurbs.
Jessica: I’m in the Academy, so I’ve probably just tilted my hand with my votes, but yeah.
Lindsay: I really enjoyed Ex Machina. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It was an extraordinary, cerebral experience. I went to Norway this year, so I connected to that landscape as well. I also really loved Spotlight.
Julia: Oh yes, Spotlight. So good.
Lindsay: Yeah, the performances and the direction were restrained in such a lovely way. The subject matter is so powerful that I think it could go to such crazy melodrama, and it didn’t. It really just let it be powerful on its own.
I know two of the producers, two women who killed themselves the last ten years on this project. It’s really wonderful to see they’re getting so many accolades for this movie.
Scott: How about you, Lisa?
Lisa: I’m sitting here racking my brains about what movies I’ve seen this year. Because unfortunately, I haven’t seen a lot of them because between having a two‑year‑old and the show (Westworld), I feel like I never get out of the house. So please, one of you ladies, take me out of the house.
[laughter]
Lisa: I’ve seen three movies this year and I enjoyed them all. I saw Mad Max, and like you ladies, I loved it. I adored Star Wars. J.J. [Abrams] gave that incredible franchise a wonderful jolt of energy and heart, not to mention some fantastic new characters. The Martian, I saw and I loved. I thought it was funny and inspiring and hilarious and great.
Jessica: Yeah, Drew Goddard who wrote The Martian really killed it. I’m a huge fan of Cabin in the Woods, which is — if any of you haven’t seen it — it’s an absolute joy and pleasure to see a great writer taking an AK‑47 to a genre. He does that with The Martian, too. It’s really kind of miraculous…he’s very facile. It’s great, right?
Scott: And he made science sexy.
Stephany: Totally.
Scott: Hopefully, the whole generation of young kids out there would see that movie and go, “Hey, science is cool. I’m going to go do that.”
Why don’t we segue into some projects you are all developing and working on, and hopefully they’ll be hitting screens, big and small in 2016 and beyond. Jessica, why don’t we start with you. I was in L.A. in November and you told me about this musical you’ve written called “Psyched”. What’s the back story on that and where does it stand?
Jessica: I’ve been working on it for five years, and it’s a passion project. It’s a comedy about mental health. It’s a comedic musical of all things. I don’t even know how to describe it, I guess Breakfast Club meets Orange is the New Black. You’re going into the worlds of these six characters.
You get into their problems through song. I’ve been unhappy with the way mental health gets treated, and I want to wrap the medicine in some candy and have a destigmatizing look at this stuff. It’s not the end of the world.
There’s so much heaviness around mental health. I thought it would be a fun challenge to bring some levity to the table in moving the conversation forward. So I’ve been working on that and we’re casting right now and trying to raise the money to make it.
Julia: That’s so cool.
Scott: Excellent. Jumping to Stephany here. Just recently got into the trades that you’re doing ‑‑ it’s the third in the Thor series. Is that right?
Stephany: Yeah, it is. Marvel has just been my complete world and life and I have been sleeping there. [laughs] It’s just been 24/7 writing of Thor 3. I can’t talk too much about it though, because working for Marvel, they’re like the NSA of movies.
I’ve been working a lot with the director too, Taika Waititi. He worked on Flight of the Conchords.
Scott: Flight of the Conchords? Really?
Stephany: Yeah, and he did What We Do in the Shadows, which is a great little Indie film if you guys haven’t seen it.
Scott: That’s great. Good luck on that. Julia, you’ve followed up their movie The Keeping Room, which was based on your 2012 Black List script, with a project you wrote and directed called Miss Stevens. Wasn’t that based on, and in some ways inspired by, your years as a teacher?
Julia: It was. Inspired by is a better way to put it than based on.
Scott: Inspired by.
Julia: Fine line.
Scott: How was that experience?
Julia: I was on the set every day for The Keeping Room and it made me really want to direct the next one myself. And I’m glad I did, it was an incredible experience.
I had a 10‑month‑old at the time and missing him was the hardest part of making the movie. Otherwise it was smooth and fun and inspiring.
[Note: Miss Stevens premiered at the SXSW Festival to strong acclaim and is being released in September by The Orchard.]
Scott: Congratulations. Working with a 10‑month‑old or working with an actor, which is more difficult?
Julia: Actors.
[laughter]
Julia: No, actually, that was just for the laugh. The truth is that I love working with actors. I found that to actually be one of the easiest parts of directing.
Scott: You’ve also got “Madam X”?
Julia: Yeah, I’m writing a miniseries for HBO. It’s based on this absolutely incredible book called “My Notorious Life” by Kate Manning, and it’s based on ‑‑ or I should say, inspired by ‑‑ a real life midwife and abortion doctor who was living in New York and practicing in New York in the late 19th Century. That’s with Anna Paquin and Jack Black, and I’m super excited about it.
I’ve been balancing, doing post production, being a mom, and writing that. It’s been an interesting year.
Each day this week, I’m going to highlight one of the writers. Today: Jessica Bendinger. Jessica is known for her work on Bring It On (2000), First Daughter (2004) and Stick It (2006). You may watch a Writers Guild Foundation Q&A with Jessica here, here, here, and here.
Please take time to leave a reply with your observations and follow-up questions, and while you’re there thank these writers for taking time out of their busy schedules to do this roundtable for GITS readers and the wider online screenwriting community.
On Twitter:
Jessica Bendinger: @JBendinger
Lindsay Devlin: @DevlinLindsay
Stephany Folsom: @StephanyFolsom
Liz W. Garcia: @lizwgarcia
Julia Hart: @juliahartowitz
Lisa Joy: @lisajoynolan
Tomorrow: Part 2 of this exclusive screenwriter’s roundtable.