Shane Black is so cool. Hes worked on some of my favorite movies from my youth such as Lethal Weapon and The Last Boy Scout and made millions doing it. But all that money hasnt erased or even diluted the real artist in him. Black writes down and dirty noir where men punch other men in the nose sending bone shards into their brain and when a guy is hitting on a girl and she slams the door in his face, his finger gets cut off in the door frame.
That last bit is from Blacks directorial debut Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang starring Robert Downey Jr as a small time hood Harry Lockhart who stumbles [literally] into an acting audition and ends up in LA where he gets caught up in some shitheads conspiracy. Now he has team up with a Perry Van Shrike, a gay private eye, [Val Kilmer] to try and make sure his ex-flame, Harmony Faith Lane [Michelle Monaghan]. dont stop breathing.
Check out the official site for Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
Daniel Robert Epstein: I loved Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, its so amazing. How long has this movie been inside your head?
Shane Black: This is just the kitchen sink version of all the accumulated private eye stories that I stuffed into my head from childhood on. But I think this one focuses particularly on a specific type of hard-boiled 50s/60s private eye with a modern twist on it. Theres a fictional character in the movie, named Johnny Gossamer, that is a detective from that period and everyones trying to emulate. One character is a gay tough guy and the other one is kind of a schlub who tries to do the tough style and cant even do it. So basically its contrasting the modern attempts of people to live up to the private eyes of olden days, when theyre pitifully inept and unable to fulfill the shoes theyre trying to. Everyones failing because reality keeps slapping them down. Thats what I came into it with.
I think when I was a kid I always wanted to be a tough guy and I always got slapped down but I would still read the books. I would still desperately bask in this certain fantasy of what if I had the cool and the grace under pressure that these guys had. But I know if I ever really tried it, Id get my ass kicked.
DRE: What about Joel Silver? Is he a tough guy?
SB: Joels not necessarily a tough guy, but boy he understands tough movies. I think like me, hes not just a fan of action movies. I think he became sort of paired with that label. He likes thriller movies with a really tough minded protagonist. The movies that have done best for him have combined action with a lot of character. As much he makes money off the Matrix films and these $100 million dollar extravaganzas, I honestly believe that hes just as interested in a small time crime movie with real rough edges to it and raw dialogue and a tough protagonist with a real pragmatic sense. Joel and I are both drawn to that character.
DRE: Ive been to film school and the scriptwriting teachers always told us to avoid phone conversations in movies. Whats interesting is you incorporated cell phones into this movie. Were you aware of that or was that part of what you were trying to do?
SB: Its part of what I was trying to do. The magic words from childhood that you expect to come from God on high, or from his tortured memory, at the end of the movie, they end up coming from a cell phone. Thats the whole idea. Now in LA you cant walk anywhere without people barking at each other on these damn phones. Ive talked to mystery writers and theyve agreed that cell phones ruined everything because they made it harder to write mysteries. If theyre like Somethings happening. Weve got to get to a phone. Now everybody has a phone. You cant have that race against time. So things get harder and hopefully better.
DRE: Did you have a chance to see Sin City yet this year?
SB: Yes.
DRE: I loved that movie and I love the comic book as well. But what I liked about Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, is that it wasnt about the huge government takeover of the city. It was about this small time schmuck and what an asshole this small time rich guy was. Was it always going to be such a small-scale private eye story?
SB: Yeah, I think so. The template on which this was based exists to tell stories that are hard-boiled puzzles but not necessarily epic. The 50s/60s private eye stories had this sort of formula. In Raymond Chandler stories, a guy walks in and hires him for a case and another guy walks in hires him for another case and they end up being connected. One is a very small thing and the other is a swindle of some sort, but not necessarily huge. The Rockford Files was a great example. With that it was just some white collar asshole trying to make a corporate bundle or trying to get a lawsuit withdrawn. Its very crass and everyday sort of crimes. Theres a period where the mob came in and then it was all about the private eye against the various gangsters and mobsters. I never liked that as much. I always liked the more classical structure of just someone whos fighting one guy whos committing a crime while executing this elaborate swindle or hoax.
DRE: I always knew that a film like The Last Boy Scout was really a film noir. But in the hands of Tony Scott, thats probably not going to happen. Rewatching Lethal Weapon I realized thats very much a noir as well. Were you always writing in this style, but it was other directors changing it?
SB: Yeah. I think this is the first time this style has emerged sort of unscathed from the development process because the only guy developing the script with me was Joel Silver who also enjoys the same sort of material. I like a lot of what Tony did with Last Boy Scout and I like Lethal Weapon a lot but there is a darker side to the more melancholy quality. But I realized that people would rather just cut that out and make it more action with less noir. Look at Lethal Weapon 2. He has a girl who is brutally murdered. Hes crazy. By number three and four its just a Wild West show. Theres not a touch of noir in it.
DRE: Four was bizarre because hes just walking into that Chinese guys restaurant and just smashing things.
SB: Hes not even a hero anymore. Hes just an annoying guy. Hes an asshole.
DRE: And a lunatic too on top of that.
SB: Yeah, but at least you had the sense before that this wasnt just Freebie and the Bean. They were just going around beating people up and being assholes and thats what I tried to avoid. Let them be a pragmatic asshole. I dont even care if he has to do something really horrible, but make it for a reason, not just because hes a dick.
DRE: What was the process on the Kiss Kiss script?
SB: I started out to write something that I didnt want to be an action picture. So it was going to be a very dark LA romance movie. As it turned out, it was getting to be so dark that people Id show it to said, Well, the scenes are okay. We sort of like it. Its a little too dark to be a romantic comedy. It feels like youre sort of floundering a bit.
DRE: Wow.
SB: One of the people telling me that was James L. Brooks, who I trust. Also I was really trying to emulate Brooks in a way. He said, Instead of jumping so far away from action movies in that youre trying to do romantic comedy. What if you do something more like Chinatown which is still very suspenseful, with a lot of twists and turns but its just not an action movie. I thought to myself, That sounds about right. Why not do something and make it a murder mystery with romance in it and stylize it and make it classy? But I didnt have to go so far away from what I do in my desperate attempt to get away from action that I actually overcompensated and ended up in Tacoma.
DRE: Were you always going to direct this script?
SB: Yes, that was the idea.
DRE: When did you sit down and say, You know what? Im going to direct now.?
SB: I didnt realize until probably after Id made The Long Kiss Goodnight that those experiences were less satisfying to me than I needed. I wasnt getting as much of a kick out of writing something because I dont like writing. Its really torturous. When its done, its great. When its going well, its great. But for the most part, its just like pulling teeth. Finally getting to that place where I said I want to direct was a wake up call. I always thought directing was the fun part and Ive just been doing the bad part and it turns out that I was right. It is the reward for all the hard work and in my case directing on paper because I tend to do that anyway. So getting it up on its feet and seeing it come to life is the gravy. I just realized that around the millennium so I set out to write something for me to direct. I felt stale and that I needed to reinvent and start over. Id written a bunch of scripts in the action genre and made a lot of money and I felt like Okay. Thats good. Now what? Make more money? Write more action movies? No. Try something. Hopefully my next picture will even be farther away from action movies. I want to try to keep pushing to something that challenges me a little more each time. But not something so far off my sensibility that Im dooming myself. For instance, I couldnt do a period drama about some Spanish queen.
DRE: Oh please dont.
SB: Or some historical romance. Id be floundering and totally insane.
DRE: Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer are two of my favorite actors. What was their different energies like and how did that contribute to the chemistry?
SB: I think they both have their own process. There was this mutual respect when they encountered each other. I think each one was very aware of the lofty pedigree that they were going up against her. It wasnt like Val said, Oh. Ill just get up, go to the set and hang out. Hed be like, Shit. Im acting with Robert Downey Jr. I better put on my game face. Robert similarly thought, Val Kilmer. Jesus. They were very aware that the other guy was going to come to play the game. I think there was even a little bit of competition where they were going at each other and making some sparks just because they really respected the fact that there was a great actor working opposite them. You cant really find two more acclaimed actors just for their pure craftsmanship or talent. Its always everything else that people talk about in the bad sense.
DRE: Right, when theyre good, theres almost no one better. .
SB: I think that together as one, theyre almost the star of the movie. Its not that Robert Downey Jr. is in it and Val Kilmer is in it. The star of the movie is the fact that these two guys, who have never worked together, are now doing a picture together. That is exciting enough to get me out of my chair and go to the movies.
DRE: How was your confidence level with directing for the first time?
SB: I didnt have time to worry about it or be afraid. I just had to get the job done. We had 35 days which is such a small amount of time. So I just put my head down and stayed relentlessly on track. I tried to be as flexible as I could to incorporate changes and the problems that would come up. I also wanted time enough for new ideas during a scene to emerge in the staging of it and the execution. At the same time, I had done a six month preparation where I ate, slept, breathed nothing but film. So I came in feeling pretty competent that I had at least a working knowledge of what I was doing. Couple that with 20 years spent on movie sets.
DRE: With this being your first movie and your lead actress has a nude scene, how was directing Michelle Monaghan?
SB: Thats the one good thing about my acting training back at UC. I dont get shocked. Nothing like that bothers me especially if youre as open and kind as Michelle is. Also Im steeped in the history of theater and acting. That sounds pretentious, huh?
DRE: [laughs] Yeah it did.
SB: I dont get shocked by the things actors do or want. Im comfortable on a set. Ive been on sets for 20 years. Im not going to get freaked out because theres a woman there. In fact, Im going to try to make her feel as safe as possible and encourage her. Give her permission to do her best work by doing my best work and showing her that it's okay.
DRE: Speaking of acting, when I told a friend of mine that I was going to be interviewing you, he immediately went into the big vagina joke from Predator.
SB: Oh yeah. Once again nearly 20 years ago.
DRE: Im not going to bug you too much about this old stuff. But thats probably your biggest acting role.
SB: I was an actor in college. I directed plays and I would act in plays in college. Im a better actor now than I was then because I understand more. But I hate the auditioning and the standing in line. I dont particularly like writing roles for myself. If someone came to me and said, Heres a role. You dont have to stand in line. We want you to do it. Well pay for a coach if you want a coach. Id say, Fine. Thanks. I just dont like all the bullshit to get there. But it feels almost unfair to those poor actors who have to stand in line and fight if I go into the process and Im half-assed.
DRE: Just a couple of weeks ago I got to speak with Joss Whedon about his movie Serenity.
SB: Yes, hes a really talented guy.
DRE: Like you, not only is he a successful screenwriter turned director but he also was a big time rewriter on movies. Im sure you guys even rewrote some of the same scripts at some point.
SB: Weve never shared a rewrite, but probably.
DRE: Some of his scripts have been treated like hell by other rewriters, directors and producers. I asked Joss if after finally directing a feature did it make him understand why those directors and producers might have been so harsh on his screenplays. Im asking you the same question.
SB: The answer is no. Sometimes what they did was better than what I had on paper. But in the instances where people really just went off in a new direction entirely and didnt adhere to what I wanted, without mentioning names, I thought, Well, that wasnt a budgetary decision. Thats just temperament. Thats just sensibility. My sensibility is different than some peoples. I think the tendency has been to buy my scripts because they have some wisecracks in them and say, Yeah. Its got some great, funny wisecracks. Lets just keep those. Just get rid of the dark stuff. Thats been the sin of omission that I have regretted through the years. Its not like they say, You cant write. But the minute they buy it, they go about sanitizing it to some extent. Thats okay because sometimes they even make it better than what I had intended. Other times it becomes worse. Now Im just happy to take the blame, if it couldve been better in the hands of a Tony Scott, but I managed to screw it up instead, then at least its my fault. Tony wouldve actually been a great director for this piece because I think his sensibility is very good. Hes also been the kindest to me in print about Last Boy Scout. He always talks about the script and he says that he likes the movie, but it couldve been better. Hes a real sweet guy.
DRE: From what I read about you and the story behind writing Lethal Weapon, were you ever surprised that youve made it as far as you have?
SB: Yeah, back in 1996 I was really shocked. By that time, I had done Long Kiss Goodnight and I kept getting more and more money and all this stuff. Since then Ive come to think that its not important to really get as far as you can go in terms of the business, I just would rather find a niche that makes me happy. Im not pushing to do a $100 million picture. If I directed low budget movies that were constantly challenging to me and each one cost $15 to 20 million dollars I would be perfectly happy. I dont have to push to get all the way to the top of the business heap because Ill leave that for the people who are more ambitious. Im ambitious but insofar as storytelling is concerned, not about acquiring more power.
DRE: In the past year Ive gotten to speak to Zak Penn and hear a bit about what went down around The Last Action Hero and all that. Hes now become a big script rewriter and he tries to get in touch with the original writers of the screenplays hes working on, did you ever do that?
SB: I tried with Zak and he was an asshole. I invited him into the office. I sat down and said, Ive got a new take on this, but I wanted to let you know because this is your script. I changed a lot of things. The movie is not one Im fond of. Theres a script thats good that I liked a lot and Zak hated. I had a couple of choices. I could change the entire script back to the way Zak wanted it or I could do what my job was, which is writing as good a script as I was capable of writing.
Zak for years afterwards has been all over me in the press about what an asshole I am. I have no idea why he continues to badmouth me years later. He wont leave it alone.
DRE: Do you rewrite scripts anymore?
SB: No, not anymore. Im thinking more in terms of directing projects now. Discovering directing really was discovering dessert. Fuck the vegetables.
DRE: So you dont think youll be writing screenplays for other people anymore?
SB: I dont see it. Theres too little time. A screenplay is such an investment for me of effort and time. Its not just six weeks I put in. I know people who do that. I know Joss has done that. Hes good at it. He can come in for six weeks and walk away and there will be a script thats really better. But, for me, unless I take the whole thing apart and start over, its difficult for me to do polishes and things like that. Id rather work on my own stuff.
DRE: What are you writing right now?
SB: Im trying to write an elegant horror thriller. When I say elegant, I mean theres no slasher or chainsaw or anything like that. I want to do something thats a bit more freakish, but not in that kind of 80s way. Im trying to go back to my favorite horror films, which tended to be more in the 70s like The Exorcist and Rosemarys Baby.
DRE: Are you going for a religious horror story?
SB: Im not sure yet. Theres no character whos a priest, but I may in fact end up looking at it and saying, The message of this is almost religious. I dont know. Certainly good and evil.
DRE: Are you going to be breaking clichs again like you did with Kiss Kiss?
SB: I think if I did it the way that I did in Kiss Kiss, then it would be a clich because Id be doing it again. Ive got to figure out a brand new way to get juice out of the horror genre. Not even new juice, just capture the things that I like and leave behind the things that I dont. Im curious to see how I would do a horror film because I love horror films so much, but I only like specific things. It would be like a banquet where you get to pick the stuff you like and leave the rest.
DRE: What do you do for fun now?
SB: I just travel for fun. Im doing a vacation, which is also disguised as sort of a promotional tour for the film. I just got back for Turkey. Ill be going to London and Madrid. Thats what I do for fun. I dont like LA What do you do for fun here? I cant find anything.
DRE: In LA? Im in New York. I cant stand LA.
SB: I used to go out in LA a lot and then it lost its luster. I cant figure out what to do anymore here that seems remotely interesting.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
That last bit is from Blacks directorial debut Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang starring Robert Downey Jr as a small time hood Harry Lockhart who stumbles [literally] into an acting audition and ends up in LA where he gets caught up in some shitheads conspiracy. Now he has team up with a Perry Van Shrike, a gay private eye, [Val Kilmer] to try and make sure his ex-flame, Harmony Faith Lane [Michelle Monaghan]. dont stop breathing.
Check out the official site for Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
Daniel Robert Epstein: I loved Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, its so amazing. How long has this movie been inside your head?
Shane Black: This is just the kitchen sink version of all the accumulated private eye stories that I stuffed into my head from childhood on. But I think this one focuses particularly on a specific type of hard-boiled 50s/60s private eye with a modern twist on it. Theres a fictional character in the movie, named Johnny Gossamer, that is a detective from that period and everyones trying to emulate. One character is a gay tough guy and the other one is kind of a schlub who tries to do the tough style and cant even do it. So basically its contrasting the modern attempts of people to live up to the private eyes of olden days, when theyre pitifully inept and unable to fulfill the shoes theyre trying to. Everyones failing because reality keeps slapping them down. Thats what I came into it with.
I think when I was a kid I always wanted to be a tough guy and I always got slapped down but I would still read the books. I would still desperately bask in this certain fantasy of what if I had the cool and the grace under pressure that these guys had. But I know if I ever really tried it, Id get my ass kicked.
DRE: What about Joel Silver? Is he a tough guy?
SB: Joels not necessarily a tough guy, but boy he understands tough movies. I think like me, hes not just a fan of action movies. I think he became sort of paired with that label. He likes thriller movies with a really tough minded protagonist. The movies that have done best for him have combined action with a lot of character. As much he makes money off the Matrix films and these $100 million dollar extravaganzas, I honestly believe that hes just as interested in a small time crime movie with real rough edges to it and raw dialogue and a tough protagonist with a real pragmatic sense. Joel and I are both drawn to that character.
DRE: Ive been to film school and the scriptwriting teachers always told us to avoid phone conversations in movies. Whats interesting is you incorporated cell phones into this movie. Were you aware of that or was that part of what you were trying to do?
SB: Its part of what I was trying to do. The magic words from childhood that you expect to come from God on high, or from his tortured memory, at the end of the movie, they end up coming from a cell phone. Thats the whole idea. Now in LA you cant walk anywhere without people barking at each other on these damn phones. Ive talked to mystery writers and theyve agreed that cell phones ruined everything because they made it harder to write mysteries. If theyre like Somethings happening. Weve got to get to a phone. Now everybody has a phone. You cant have that race against time. So things get harder and hopefully better.
DRE: Did you have a chance to see Sin City yet this year?
SB: Yes.
DRE: I loved that movie and I love the comic book as well. But what I liked about Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, is that it wasnt about the huge government takeover of the city. It was about this small time schmuck and what an asshole this small time rich guy was. Was it always going to be such a small-scale private eye story?
SB: Yeah, I think so. The template on which this was based exists to tell stories that are hard-boiled puzzles but not necessarily epic. The 50s/60s private eye stories had this sort of formula. In Raymond Chandler stories, a guy walks in and hires him for a case and another guy walks in hires him for another case and they end up being connected. One is a very small thing and the other is a swindle of some sort, but not necessarily huge. The Rockford Files was a great example. With that it was just some white collar asshole trying to make a corporate bundle or trying to get a lawsuit withdrawn. Its very crass and everyday sort of crimes. Theres a period where the mob came in and then it was all about the private eye against the various gangsters and mobsters. I never liked that as much. I always liked the more classical structure of just someone whos fighting one guy whos committing a crime while executing this elaborate swindle or hoax.
DRE: I always knew that a film like The Last Boy Scout was really a film noir. But in the hands of Tony Scott, thats probably not going to happen. Rewatching Lethal Weapon I realized thats very much a noir as well. Were you always writing in this style, but it was other directors changing it?
SB: Yeah. I think this is the first time this style has emerged sort of unscathed from the development process because the only guy developing the script with me was Joel Silver who also enjoys the same sort of material. I like a lot of what Tony did with Last Boy Scout and I like Lethal Weapon a lot but there is a darker side to the more melancholy quality. But I realized that people would rather just cut that out and make it more action with less noir. Look at Lethal Weapon 2. He has a girl who is brutally murdered. Hes crazy. By number three and four its just a Wild West show. Theres not a touch of noir in it.
DRE: Four was bizarre because hes just walking into that Chinese guys restaurant and just smashing things.
SB: Hes not even a hero anymore. Hes just an annoying guy. Hes an asshole.
DRE: And a lunatic too on top of that.
SB: Yeah, but at least you had the sense before that this wasnt just Freebie and the Bean. They were just going around beating people up and being assholes and thats what I tried to avoid. Let them be a pragmatic asshole. I dont even care if he has to do something really horrible, but make it for a reason, not just because hes a dick.
DRE: What was the process on the Kiss Kiss script?
SB: I started out to write something that I didnt want to be an action picture. So it was going to be a very dark LA romance movie. As it turned out, it was getting to be so dark that people Id show it to said, Well, the scenes are okay. We sort of like it. Its a little too dark to be a romantic comedy. It feels like youre sort of floundering a bit.
DRE: Wow.
SB: One of the people telling me that was James L. Brooks, who I trust. Also I was really trying to emulate Brooks in a way. He said, Instead of jumping so far away from action movies in that youre trying to do romantic comedy. What if you do something more like Chinatown which is still very suspenseful, with a lot of twists and turns but its just not an action movie. I thought to myself, That sounds about right. Why not do something and make it a murder mystery with romance in it and stylize it and make it classy? But I didnt have to go so far away from what I do in my desperate attempt to get away from action that I actually overcompensated and ended up in Tacoma.
DRE: Were you always going to direct this script?
SB: Yes, that was the idea.
DRE: When did you sit down and say, You know what? Im going to direct now.?
SB: I didnt realize until probably after Id made The Long Kiss Goodnight that those experiences were less satisfying to me than I needed. I wasnt getting as much of a kick out of writing something because I dont like writing. Its really torturous. When its done, its great. When its going well, its great. But for the most part, its just like pulling teeth. Finally getting to that place where I said I want to direct was a wake up call. I always thought directing was the fun part and Ive just been doing the bad part and it turns out that I was right. It is the reward for all the hard work and in my case directing on paper because I tend to do that anyway. So getting it up on its feet and seeing it come to life is the gravy. I just realized that around the millennium so I set out to write something for me to direct. I felt stale and that I needed to reinvent and start over. Id written a bunch of scripts in the action genre and made a lot of money and I felt like Okay. Thats good. Now what? Make more money? Write more action movies? No. Try something. Hopefully my next picture will even be farther away from action movies. I want to try to keep pushing to something that challenges me a little more each time. But not something so far off my sensibility that Im dooming myself. For instance, I couldnt do a period drama about some Spanish queen.
DRE: Oh please dont.
SB: Or some historical romance. Id be floundering and totally insane.
DRE: Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer are two of my favorite actors. What was their different energies like and how did that contribute to the chemistry?
SB: I think they both have their own process. There was this mutual respect when they encountered each other. I think each one was very aware of the lofty pedigree that they were going up against her. It wasnt like Val said, Oh. Ill just get up, go to the set and hang out. Hed be like, Shit. Im acting with Robert Downey Jr. I better put on my game face. Robert similarly thought, Val Kilmer. Jesus. They were very aware that the other guy was going to come to play the game. I think there was even a little bit of competition where they were going at each other and making some sparks just because they really respected the fact that there was a great actor working opposite them. You cant really find two more acclaimed actors just for their pure craftsmanship or talent. Its always everything else that people talk about in the bad sense.
DRE: Right, when theyre good, theres almost no one better. .
SB: I think that together as one, theyre almost the star of the movie. Its not that Robert Downey Jr. is in it and Val Kilmer is in it. The star of the movie is the fact that these two guys, who have never worked together, are now doing a picture together. That is exciting enough to get me out of my chair and go to the movies.
DRE: How was your confidence level with directing for the first time?
SB: I didnt have time to worry about it or be afraid. I just had to get the job done. We had 35 days which is such a small amount of time. So I just put my head down and stayed relentlessly on track. I tried to be as flexible as I could to incorporate changes and the problems that would come up. I also wanted time enough for new ideas during a scene to emerge in the staging of it and the execution. At the same time, I had done a six month preparation where I ate, slept, breathed nothing but film. So I came in feeling pretty competent that I had at least a working knowledge of what I was doing. Couple that with 20 years spent on movie sets.
DRE: With this being your first movie and your lead actress has a nude scene, how was directing Michelle Monaghan?
SB: Thats the one good thing about my acting training back at UC. I dont get shocked. Nothing like that bothers me especially if youre as open and kind as Michelle is. Also Im steeped in the history of theater and acting. That sounds pretentious, huh?
DRE: [laughs] Yeah it did.
SB: I dont get shocked by the things actors do or want. Im comfortable on a set. Ive been on sets for 20 years. Im not going to get freaked out because theres a woman there. In fact, Im going to try to make her feel as safe as possible and encourage her. Give her permission to do her best work by doing my best work and showing her that it's okay.
DRE: Speaking of acting, when I told a friend of mine that I was going to be interviewing you, he immediately went into the big vagina joke from Predator.
SB: Oh yeah. Once again nearly 20 years ago.
DRE: Im not going to bug you too much about this old stuff. But thats probably your biggest acting role.
SB: I was an actor in college. I directed plays and I would act in plays in college. Im a better actor now than I was then because I understand more. But I hate the auditioning and the standing in line. I dont particularly like writing roles for myself. If someone came to me and said, Heres a role. You dont have to stand in line. We want you to do it. Well pay for a coach if you want a coach. Id say, Fine. Thanks. I just dont like all the bullshit to get there. But it feels almost unfair to those poor actors who have to stand in line and fight if I go into the process and Im half-assed.
DRE: Just a couple of weeks ago I got to speak with Joss Whedon about his movie Serenity.
SB: Yes, hes a really talented guy.
DRE: Like you, not only is he a successful screenwriter turned director but he also was a big time rewriter on movies. Im sure you guys even rewrote some of the same scripts at some point.
SB: Weve never shared a rewrite, but probably.
DRE: Some of his scripts have been treated like hell by other rewriters, directors and producers. I asked Joss if after finally directing a feature did it make him understand why those directors and producers might have been so harsh on his screenplays. Im asking you the same question.
SB: The answer is no. Sometimes what they did was better than what I had on paper. But in the instances where people really just went off in a new direction entirely and didnt adhere to what I wanted, without mentioning names, I thought, Well, that wasnt a budgetary decision. Thats just temperament. Thats just sensibility. My sensibility is different than some peoples. I think the tendency has been to buy my scripts because they have some wisecracks in them and say, Yeah. Its got some great, funny wisecracks. Lets just keep those. Just get rid of the dark stuff. Thats been the sin of omission that I have regretted through the years. Its not like they say, You cant write. But the minute they buy it, they go about sanitizing it to some extent. Thats okay because sometimes they even make it better than what I had intended. Other times it becomes worse. Now Im just happy to take the blame, if it couldve been better in the hands of a Tony Scott, but I managed to screw it up instead, then at least its my fault. Tony wouldve actually been a great director for this piece because I think his sensibility is very good. Hes also been the kindest to me in print about Last Boy Scout. He always talks about the script and he says that he likes the movie, but it couldve been better. Hes a real sweet guy.
DRE: From what I read about you and the story behind writing Lethal Weapon, were you ever surprised that youve made it as far as you have?
SB: Yeah, back in 1996 I was really shocked. By that time, I had done Long Kiss Goodnight and I kept getting more and more money and all this stuff. Since then Ive come to think that its not important to really get as far as you can go in terms of the business, I just would rather find a niche that makes me happy. Im not pushing to do a $100 million picture. If I directed low budget movies that were constantly challenging to me and each one cost $15 to 20 million dollars I would be perfectly happy. I dont have to push to get all the way to the top of the business heap because Ill leave that for the people who are more ambitious. Im ambitious but insofar as storytelling is concerned, not about acquiring more power.
DRE: In the past year Ive gotten to speak to Zak Penn and hear a bit about what went down around The Last Action Hero and all that. Hes now become a big script rewriter and he tries to get in touch with the original writers of the screenplays hes working on, did you ever do that?
SB: I tried with Zak and he was an asshole. I invited him into the office. I sat down and said, Ive got a new take on this, but I wanted to let you know because this is your script. I changed a lot of things. The movie is not one Im fond of. Theres a script thats good that I liked a lot and Zak hated. I had a couple of choices. I could change the entire script back to the way Zak wanted it or I could do what my job was, which is writing as good a script as I was capable of writing.
Zak for years afterwards has been all over me in the press about what an asshole I am. I have no idea why he continues to badmouth me years later. He wont leave it alone.
DRE: Do you rewrite scripts anymore?
SB: No, not anymore. Im thinking more in terms of directing projects now. Discovering directing really was discovering dessert. Fuck the vegetables.
DRE: So you dont think youll be writing screenplays for other people anymore?
SB: I dont see it. Theres too little time. A screenplay is such an investment for me of effort and time. Its not just six weeks I put in. I know people who do that. I know Joss has done that. Hes good at it. He can come in for six weeks and walk away and there will be a script thats really better. But, for me, unless I take the whole thing apart and start over, its difficult for me to do polishes and things like that. Id rather work on my own stuff.
DRE: What are you writing right now?
SB: Im trying to write an elegant horror thriller. When I say elegant, I mean theres no slasher or chainsaw or anything like that. I want to do something thats a bit more freakish, but not in that kind of 80s way. Im trying to go back to my favorite horror films, which tended to be more in the 70s like The Exorcist and Rosemarys Baby.
DRE: Are you going for a religious horror story?
SB: Im not sure yet. Theres no character whos a priest, but I may in fact end up looking at it and saying, The message of this is almost religious. I dont know. Certainly good and evil.
DRE: Are you going to be breaking clichs again like you did with Kiss Kiss?
SB: I think if I did it the way that I did in Kiss Kiss, then it would be a clich because Id be doing it again. Ive got to figure out a brand new way to get juice out of the horror genre. Not even new juice, just capture the things that I like and leave behind the things that I dont. Im curious to see how I would do a horror film because I love horror films so much, but I only like specific things. It would be like a banquet where you get to pick the stuff you like and leave the rest.
DRE: What do you do for fun now?
SB: I just travel for fun. Im doing a vacation, which is also disguised as sort of a promotional tour for the film. I just got back for Turkey. Ill be going to London and Madrid. Thats what I do for fun. I dont like LA What do you do for fun here? I cant find anything.
DRE: In LA? Im in New York. I cant stand LA.
SB: I used to go out in LA a lot and then it lost its luster. I cant figure out what to do anymore here that seems remotely interesting.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Really good interview though, he's involved in a few more films than I realised I think.. And it is interesting to hear what he intended for Lethal Weapon.
[Edited on Oct 18, 2005 by WesB]