Written Interview: Jason Fuchs (“Ice Age 4”)
A Script magazine interview with twenty-six year-old screenwriter Jason Fuchs who wrote Ice Age 4:
SM: Which came first, screenwriting or acting?
Fuchs: Acting definitely came first. I started acting, professionally, when I was seven. Screenwriting is still, it feels like, relatively new to my life. I really didn’t get into screenwriting until college when I wrote my first feature based on a writing internship I’d had that turned into a job with a private intelligence service back in high school. And it was a mediocre script, but a good big idea, and it got me my first agent, and I’ve been writing ever since.
SM: How has being an actor helped your writing?
Fuchs: Well, it helped practically and creatively. Practically, I already had an acting agent, so, when I wrote my first script, I asked my talent agent to show it to her agency’s lit department, so, it gave me an in I otherwise probably wouldn’t have had. Creatively, it helped in a variety of ways. First of all, I’d been reading scripts since I was seven years old, so, I was really familiar and comfortable with the structure. That was huge. And, to be honest, the most valuable way in which my acting background helped is with pitching. If you’re good in a room, as a writer, that’s a big asset. And I love to pitch because I love performing. Whether they buy my pitch or not, I’m genuinely very happy to have anyone pay attention to me for 10–15 minutes. And that comes from the acting. Or maybe the acting came from that. Either way, it helps.
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SM: What would be the one piece of advice you’d give to either a teenage writer or a 40+ one out there who everyone scoffs at because of their age?
Fuchs: I feel a little too early in my career, really, to be giving anyone advice. So, buyer beware when it comes to career advice from a 26 year old, but I would say the most liberating thing about screenwriting is that age matters far less than in almost any other area of our business or of any other business, for that matter. If you can write, you can write and you can do that for the rest of your life. You may have ups and downs, but you don’t lose that ability and you are forever one great script from your life being changed because that’s all it takes. And that’s a constant motivator. You are always one brilliant script from everything being different. You can be 17 or 70, but if you produce something wonderful that studios think can make money, that’s all that matters and then in the blink of an eye, your life is very different. If you’re an NBA player who’s averaged 8 points and 12 minutes a night for ten years, you’re not going to turn into an All-Star in season ten. You are who you are. That’s not true of a writer. You’re always one great script from a star on Hollywood Boulevard and maybe you won’t get there, but it’s a wonderful career to pursue and a wonderful life to lead where there’s always the possibility of something wonderful just over the horizon. Which is to say, I guess, that the best advice to a prospective screenwriter is never give up. Just keep fighting. Just keep writing.
Money quote: “You are always one brilliant script from everything being different. You can be 17 or 70, but if you produce something wonderful that studios think can make money, that’s all that matters and then in the blink of an eye, your life is very different.”
And that is absolutely true. Write a great script, everything changes.
For the rest of the interview, go here.