The Toughest Scene I Wrote: Graham Moore (“The Imitation Game”)

Once again, Vulture does screenwriters a solid:

Over the next few weeks, Vulture will speak to the screenwriters behind 2014’s most acclaimed movies about the scenes they found most difficult to crack. Which pivotal sequences underwent the biggest transformations on their way from script to screen?

In this article, Graham Moore (2011 Black List) discusses a key scene toward the end of the movie:

The scene that I must have done 30 drafts of was the final scene between Alan and Joan, when she comes to visit him. On the page, it’s a massive dramatic moment where Joan and Alan haven’t seen each other in years and have so much that they want to say to each other. Alan is going through this hormonal therapy to chemically castrate him, and I love the idea that we learn about that through her eyes. We are horrified with Joan as we learn what’s happening to him.

One thing we talked about a lot was the level of anger in the scene. In my first version, Alan was much angrier about the persecution he was facing and was quite bitter to Joan. Along the way we came up with a version where Alan was simply more sad and resigned about what was happening to him. He wasn’t fighting it because there was nothing he could do, and he just wanted to be left alone with his machine. There’s a lovely moment where Benedict reaches out and touches the machine, and you realize how much he’s able to communicate as an actor with just that touch. This is my first film, and moments like those were a constant learning process for me, because my instinct was always to put it all on the page and give people dialogue to express everything. When we went through rehearsal, I realized what all these actors could do with simply a look, so we pulled out a lot of dialogue and let the actors just be there in the moment.

For the rest of the article, go here. Kudos to Vulture for this annual series which puts the spotlight on screenwriters.