“Red Rocket” Writer/Director Sean Baker & His Cast On Their Charmingly Offbeat Comedy
Sean Baker, indie writer/director of award winners Tangerine and The Florida Project, has been very successful in creating narratives that feel authentic. Determined to always film on location, never on a soundstage, and a champion of hiring locals and newcomers in featured roles, he has employed guerrilla filmmaking and made more than one career for his performers. You can never see a Sean Baker movie coming,
Aaron Sorkin on Having a Ball Making “Being the Ricardos”
You might think the opportunity to write a film about the legendary Lucille Ball would have been irresistible for Aaron Sorkin, but he wasn’t immediately convinced. “It took me about 18 months to say yes, to commit to it,” Sorkin says of the project that would eventually become Being the Ricardos, his propulsive new film that takes us through a week of production on the set of I Love Lucy,
“C’mon C’mon” Writer/Director Mike Mills on Creating a Space For Intimacy
When it comes to family, we all have our own story. In C’mon C’mon, from writer/director Mike Mills, we connect with a tale not often told, one that drops us in the living room of a sister and brother who have been living their own adult lives on separate coasts and slowly drifting apart from each other. When her husband has an abrupt mental health issue, she asks her brother to step in to watch their child while she attempts to piece back their marriage.
“Passing” Writer/Director Rebecca Hall On Navigating the Complicated History of Racial Identity
The complexity of bringing a thematically laced film like Passing to the screen isn’t a simple one. For Rebecca Hall, who makes her directorial debut, it was also a personal journey, “an extended catharsis” that allowed her “to get to the bottom of a lot of mysteries” in her family.
The story, which is adapted by Hall from the 1929 novel by Nella Larsen, follows two Black women, Irene (Tessa Thompson) and Clare (Ruth Negga),
“Encanto” Writer/Director Charise Castro Smith On Breaking Boundaries
With the release of Disney’s Encanto, Charise Castro Smith (The Haunting of Hill House, Devious Maids) has broken through not one but two ceilings: as the first Latina to receive a directing credit on a Disney animated feature, and only the second woman ever to do so.
“I am glad this milestone has been reached. I wish it had been reached earlier and I wish this weren’t such a small club,” said Castro Smith,
“House of Gucci” Screenwriter Roberto Bentivegna on Centering Lady Gaga’s Obsessive Patrizia Reggiani
Sometimes you just have to say, “F*** it all, I’ll give it a shot.”
That’s what Roberto Bentivegna did when he got his shot to write the screenplay for the new MGM Studios feature House of Gucci, opening November 24.
At the time, Bentivegna had only a handful of short-film credits and award wins from way back in film school at Columbia. But he also had something else: a great idea.
“Sort Of” Co-Creator/Writer/Director Fab Filippo on This Groundbreaking New HBO Max Series
When you start watching the groundbreaking new HBO Max series Sort Of (debuting on HBO Max November 18), you might imagine that it’s yet another precocious-Millennial-auteur-driven show, starring its own creator/writer. After all, Sort Of’s real-life creator/writer/star, Bilal Baig, is a stylish, non-binary, Pakistani denizen of queer Toronto – just like Sabi Mehboob, the lead character they play in Sort Of.
As the story unfolds over eight episodes,
“Belfast” Writer/Director Kenneth Branagh’s Riveting Return to his Childhood
Writer/director Kenneth Branagh has mined his childhood experiences in Belfast to create a riveting, sumptuous film. Belfast (opening November 12), which is shot in black and white, captures a time in the summer of 1969 directly following the first riots in the northern part of the city often cited as the beginning of the Troubles. Branagh and his family were in the thick of it, and the film is shot from his perspective through the 9-year-old character Buddy,
“Spencer” Screenwriter on Getting Inside Princess Diana’s Headspace
Spencer (opened on Friday, November 5) casts Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana, rumored to be “cracking up” when she reluctantly joins the royal family in an enormous countryside manor for a tense Christmas holiday. The movie, directed by Pablo Larrain, describes itself as a “Fable from a true tragedy.” To that end, screenwriter Steven Knight used facts gleaned from the 1991 gathering to devise a fervid psychodrama that takes place largely inside Diana’s head.
“Last Night in Soho” Screenwriter Krysty Wilson-Cairns on Writing a Terrifying Time-Travel Tale
It was producer-director-writer Sam Mendes who introduced writer Krysty Wilson-Cairns to director-writer-producer Edgar Wright. “He thought we’d be very good friends. We’ve got a quite similar sense of humor and a passion for filmmaking,” says Wilson-Cairns, who knew Mendes from working on the Showtime series Penny Dreadful and went on to co-write with him the Oscar- and Writers Guild of America-nominated original screenplay for the WWI drama 1917.
How The “Dopesick” Creative Team is Shining a Light on the Opioid Crisis
Hulu’s new limited series Dopesick is about the origins of the national opioid epidemic. No matter what you think you know, Dopesick will open your eyes to a new level of brazen overreach and hubris on the part of Big Pharma. The series, which stars Micheal Keaton, examines ways in which the drug company Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family made billions by introducing the highly addictive drug OxyContin, leading to an unprecedented nationwide struggle with opioid addiction.
“The Eyes of Tammy Faye” Screenwriter Abe Sylvia on Finding Grace in Disgrace
Tammy Faye Bakker was a larger-than-life personality, both loathed and loved. When she died in 2007 at age 65, she left behind a haunting legacy defined by the fall of the televangelical empire she built with her first husband, Jim Bakker. At closer inspection, however, she transcended the scandals and struggles she faced and was so much more than her flamboyant style and appearance.
Writer/Directors Aron Gaudet & Gita Pullapilly on Their Couponing Caper “Queenpins”
“Two buddy comedies for the price of one,” says Aron Gaudet about Queenpins, the quirky indie escapade set in the thrift-minded world of extreme couponing that he co-wrote and co-directed with Gita Pullapilly. Starring Kristen Bell, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Paul Walter Hauser, and Vince Vaughn, the film follows two best friends who wittingly become embroiled in a multimillion-dollar counterfeit coupon scam, and the loss prevention officer and U.S. postal inspector hot on their tails.
Writer/Producer Max Borenstein Delves Into the Human Cost of 9/11 in “Worth”
This September marks the 20th anniversary of 9/11. While many of the events that transpired that day have been captured on film, one lesser-known account of the tragedy just made its cinematic bow on Netflix. Worth chronicles the story of Kenneth Feinberg, the attorney charged with overseeing the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund and, in so doing, putting a monetary value on the lives that were lost or suffered serious health issues as a result of the attack.
“Free Guy” Co-Writer Zak Penn on The Art of the Re-Write
Zak Penn started his career on a high note when he sold his first script at age 23 and landed Arnold Schwarzenegger as the star. The thrill didn’t last long. Last Action Hero got re-written, Penn was relegated to a “story by” credit and the would-be blockbuster flopped at the box office.
But Penn survived the ignominy and 28-years later, he’s become an expert at crafting tentpole action epics like The Incredible Hulk,
Tracey Scott Wilson on Penning the Queen of Soul’s Meteoric Rise in “Respect”
Writing a biopic is no easy task, particularly when the subject is an international icon who was a very private person. Indeed, crafting the screenplay for Respect, the highly anticipated drama chronicling Aretha Franklin’s rise from the church choir to the global stage, proved challenging, as well as rewarding, for Tracey Scott Wilson. But the fledgling feature film screenwriter, with an award-winning background in both theater and television (she co-executive produced Fosse/Verdon,
Creating the Wonderful World of Disney+’s “The Mysterious Benedict Society”
They met in an improv group while students at Brown University, and joined forces as screenwriters after graduating. Some three decades later, Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi have racked up a noteworthy roster of film credits that include Destroyer, The Invitation, Ride Along and Ride Along 2, and Clash of the Titans. Their finely-tuned creative process moves from talking deeply through plot points to outlining extensively to splitting up scenes to write individually before reconvening to edit and polish — almost always while sitting in the same room,
“Doc McStuffins” Creator Chris Nee on The Future of Children’s Programming
There are few people on the planet who are in a better position to talk about what’s working, and what still needs work, in children’s programming than Doc McStuffins creator Chris Nee. Like so many great ideas, Nee came up with Doc McStuffins, a series about a six-year-old girl who is a doctor to her stuffed animals and toys, while in the shower. Yet the impetus for the beloved series was her own life and her son’s struggles with asthma.
Playwright & Screenwriter Quiara Alegria Hudes on Adapting “In The Heights” for the Big Screen
Quiara Alegria Hudes adapted her Tony Award-winning musical In the Heights for the big screen, with some streamlining and updates. As in the original, it follows the lives of a group of people in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan over a hot summer three-day period that includes a power black-out. In an interview, Hudes talked about using very specific, evocative details to tell a universal story of dreams, home, and family.
It’s often said that the more specific something is,
Taking Flight with “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” Creator Malcolm Spellman
The success or failure of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier laid heavily upon many folks, but perhaps none as specifically as creator and showrunner Malcolm Spellman. Spellman succeeded in delivering not only a thrilling, six-episode season with cinematic-level action but also a character study of one would-be Captain America in Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier absorbed the narrative traumas Sam had already endured as well as the real-world traumas that Black Americans have been dealing with forever.
