Written Interview: Richard Regen

This week’s written interview comes via DoneDealPro:

Richard Regen is a screenwriter and journalist who lives in New York with his wife and two sons. After getting his BA at Skidmore College and MA at NYU, he spent three years working on Capitol Hill. In D.C., Regen started writing for an alternative weekly newspaper, then moved back to New York and started writing on sports, politics, entertainment, and pop culture for publications like Elle, the New York Times Book Review, The Village Voice, L.A. Style, and Swing, and spent six years as a contributing editor at Interview magazine.

After selling his first spec screenplay, Kill Van Kull, to Disney, Regen created the TV series Secret Agent Man for UPN. He has numerous features in development around town, including a remake of Jean Pierre Melville’s 1970 heist film Le Cercle Rouge and the thriller Bank Robber for Constantine Films. In 2006, he adapted the novel Panic for the Weinstein Company. Regen also wrote on assignment the comedy Getting In for Revolution Studios and the urban thriller Utopia for Strike.

Most recently, Regen’s spec Tehran made the 2008 Black List before being set up at Imagine Entertainment. 2009 saw him adapt the Chinese Civil War drama Chasing the Dragon for Tribeca Productions and Universal Studios, while this year, working with renowned journalist Gay Talese, Regen adapted the life story of the professional football player Bart Scott for Unique Entertainment, former New Line co-chairs Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne’s shingle at Warner Bros.

You can read about all his spec scripts and projects, but I wanted to focus in on Regan’s writing process as well as comments about the business of screenwriting:

What’s a typical writing day like for you?

I drop my son off at school and drive across the 59th Street Bridge to my office in Long Island City, which overlooks the East River and has an amazing view. I could cast a fishing line from my window into the river if I wanted. I generally work from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., but my day varies depending on what’s going on as far as work. If I’m in a writing period and know I have to hand in a script, then I write, mostly. Some days I’ll put out five or ten pages. Other days, I’ll obsess about a single scene. Sometimes it can happen for a week, or more. I have friends who can write scenes out of order, so if they get stuck they just come back to where they got stuck, but I can’t work that way. So I tend to look out the window a lot. The East River and Manhattan are really, really good for that.

If I’m not in a writing period, then I’m either working on a spec, researching an idea, or working on getting jobs. That part of the business has become more and more important post-strike. I hate it, especially knowing there are five or ten other guys up for the same job, but you either put in the time and effort to get an assignment or spend all your time writing specs and hoping they’ll sell. And since the spec market is pretty dead right now, that’s just not a way to make a living. If my agents or managers have me up for a gig, then I’m going to do my damndest to get it.

What is your pitching process like? How do you prepare? What do you do or not do when you are live in the room with the producers?

I’ve been told many times that “I’m good in a room,” but I hate pitching. Hate it. It’s the only time I envy writing teams, because they can work up a song-and-dance routine and do their little act in the room. I know one pair of guys who do card tricks. But I’m on my own. I try to think of it like you’re telling a good joke or a funny story. You have to keep it short, because even if the exec loves your pitch, it has to be something he or she can go upstairs and repeat to their boss. So you can’t say too much because they’ll never remember it. Short and sweet — ten minutes at most. Ten seconds would be best.

One agent once told me, “Don’t fart in the room.” That was his singular contribution to helping me work up a pitch — one that I actually sold. But, frankly, if your pitch is gold, you could fart in the room (though it’s kind of disgusting). What you can’t do is let a producer or exec get you off your game. Some of them will start texting or checking their Blackberry. A director I ended up working with — a famous director — was once watching online porn while I pitched him. And this one studio exec started clipping his finger nails while I was pitching. I’m not kidding. I guess I was lucky he didn’t take his socks off and go to work on his toenails.

Do you outline all your stories first? Write treatments? How do you prepare before you begin a script?

I did when I started out, but now I never do an outline or treatment. Check that — I have to do it when it’s an assignment, because it’s expected. And in a way it’s better if they’ve read your treatment and signed off on it because they can’t come to you later, after you’ve done your draft, and claim you didn’t write what you’d told them you were going to write. You’ve got proof, the outline.

How do you approach rewrites? Any method or path that you typically follow?

If I’m up for a rewrite job, I try not to shit all over the guy (or girl) who I’m (maybe) rewriting because I think it’s disrespectful and everyone gets rewritten themselves at some point, so acting all high and mighty is just plain stupid. The producers and studio know their script is flawed, otherwise they wouldn’t have sent it out for a rewrite in the first place. As far as a method or plan, frankly, I just tell them what I think is wrong with the script and what I’d do to make it better. You can talk to them a little and see what they’re looking for, whether it’s a major rewrite or just a dialogue pass. But trying to guess what they want is a fool’s errand, because a lot of the time they don’t know what they want until they hear it.

Ultimately, you can only tell them what you think needs to be done, and if they like it, you’ll get the job. Either that or develop close personal friendships with major movie stars and have them throw you the gigs. I’m not friends with any movie stars, so I can only hope that someone who works for them (or who works for a producer or a studio) likes my writing enough to reach out to me through my reps and ask me what I think. Really, it’s not rocket science, and there aren’t any tricks or gimmicks. But if there are, please tell me.

You’re repped by United Talent Agency. Who is your agent? What’s your relationship like in terms of talking with them? Updates on projects?

My agents are Keya Khayatian and Barbara Dreyfus for film and Dan Erlij for television. They are all excellent agents, very professional and to the point. I call them when I need them to do something, and vice versa. If I need to update them on projects, I do.

You’re also repped by David Alpert and Kemper Donovan at Circle of Confusion. How do they work with you versus your agent? Do you feel having a manager is necessary for a writer? And how closely do they in turn work with your agent at UTA?

I used to think managers were a waste of time for writers, but the business has gotten so much harder in the last five years that I find having a manager is essential. In today’s marketplace, the more voices you have out there singing your praises the better, especially when your managers have a reputation for repping talented writers, which Circle does. They’re even producing the hottest show on TV, The Walking Dead, on AMC. David and Kemper focus on my work much more than any agent can, and they do it very well. When I’m working on a spec, they’ll read my pages and let me know what they think, and their notes are quite often very good. Ultimately though, you have to listen to your own voice as a writer. Sometimes they can be encouraging, other times they have to remind me that I’m not a Zaillian or a Benioff, and it’s important that they do both. When you’re alone most of the time, you need a voice of reason. And really, I don’t need managers to blow smoke up my butt. As far as how much they work together, I have no idea. I assume they talk when they need to talk.

Do you do much research when preparing to write a script? Do you travel? Take tours? Visit libraries? I would think as a former journalist, research is something you’re very familiar with.

Yes, I do loads of research, and it’s something I really enjoy, but it’s all done from my desk. I don’t have the time or inclination to leave my office that much. A few years ago, it wouldn’t have been possible, but between the Internet and online resources I can find any book, blueprint, magazine, whatever, and have it delivered. I’m also lucky to have traveled a lot in my life and lived in other countries, so I can draw on those experiences.

But really, the atmosphere, the time, the place, the voices, the accents — they’re all in my head. No one has ever said to me that one of my scripts feels inauthentic, so I must be doing something right. An Iranian artist sent me an e-mail from Tehran about a year ago saying he’d read my script Tehran (how he got it, I have no clue) and he wanted to know if I was there during the revolution in ’78. I was very flattered but had to tell him I was on the Upper West Side of New York in middle school at the time.

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