The Toughest Scene I Wrote: “The Theory of Everything”

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, screenwriter Anthony McCarten discusses a scene from The Theory of Everything in which Hawking (Eddie Redmayne) and his wife Jane (Felicity Jones) realize their marriage is at an end.

In my entire writing career, I don’t think I’ve ever scripted a scene that’s done more heavy lifting with so much less going on in the page. And certainly, there were big dramatic rewards if this scene could be reduced down to its very essence.

In this scene, very few words had to carry the freight of very big emotions, and that’s an enormous challenge. It’s like a short-story writer restricting himself to now writing just three lines of a poem, yet still trying to say the same thing. It’s an enormous story arc almost all to be done without language, because Stephen is limited to four words a minute. How do you run a relationship where you can’t effortlessly present your side of any discussion? The same goes for Jane’s dialogue. It would be unfair and almost callous if she used weapons that he couldn’t possess, so if he was restricted in his manner of speaking, she would restrict herself, too. That was an enormous challenge, and I had to do multiple drafts that were almost like carving a sculpture, where I’d take more and more away to get down to its constituent parts.

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

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