Joe Eszterhaus enjoyed a significant run as the number one screenwriter in Hollywood. He worked on popular films like Flashdance, Jagged Edge, and Basic Instinct, but by the mid-90s he had suffered a couple of major misfires (Showgirls, Jade) and was dealing with some health issues. Eszterhaus stopped working for Hollywood and began penning books. His latest is The Devil's Guide to Hollywood which is pages of hysterical and insightful anecdotes about screenwriting in Hollywood.
Buy The Devil's Guide to Hollywood: The Screenwriter As God
Daniel Robert Epstein: What made you write this book?
Joe Eszterhaus: The editor that I was working with on Hollywood Animal, which was my last book, said to me that there was very little about the screenwriting process in it. I said to him that it was a 700 some page book and if I started writing that stuff in there no one was going to read it. He laughed and said that I was right. I've been doing screenplays for 30 years and 15 have been made into movies. So I think that I have learned some things about screenwriting both in terms of writing and also how to survive the blitzkrieg that happens to every screenwriter in Hollywood once he actually writes his script. As someone once said once you write a screenplay that's the beginning point for people to try and piss in it. That's the process that can destroy a screenplay and turn what might have been a terrific script into, not only not your own vision, but also something that's considerably less than what you've written. There are lots and lots of screenwriting books out there, but they're for the most part they are written by people who don't sell scripts which makes the advice somewhat suspect to me. In the forefront of this is Robert McKee the great screening writing guru who has had one script turned into a television film. The other kind of screenwriting book out there that Bill Goldman represents to me is the kind of book that says, Okay, it's all about your next job. Don't put your heart and soul into this. There is this particular anecdote in one of Goldman's books where he's sitting with this producer and the producer comes up with an idea that Bill thinks is moronic but he takes notes and makes sure to get every word so that the producer thinks that he's really into it so that he'll hire him for the job. It's my contention, and I realize that I might be a maverick with this, that you really should put your heart and soul and your gut and your experience and everything that you've got into the writing of a screenplay. Only then do you have a chance of writing something really good. The book says to writers that they shouldn't be afraid of putting their hearts into this, that they should fight for it to the best of their abilities, fight the studio and the director and the producer and the stars to maintain what you've written. In that sense it's a guerilla guide to protecting what you've done. In another sense it's what I call an anti-textbook textbook. Most textbooks I've read are boring pieces of shit and I've wanted to write a book that doesn't bore you, that tells you the real skinny of what to watch out for. Someone armed with this book will have less of a chance of getting screwed over.
DRE: Sometimes it feels like the book would be discouraging to writers.
Joe: In terms of what happens to screenwriters screenwriting can be discouraging because there are so many terrible stories out there. But one of the things that I say in this book is that you can win against greater forces. There is a part in the book that says All hail certain screenwriters who defied the system or who defied directors or producers and have won. It is possible to do that. I understand that no one likes fighting including me. But if you're going to be a screenwriter and you believe in what you've done, you really do have to fight because you have such massive egos on the other side trying to change what you've written. So if you don't know how to fight them you're going to lose. I grew up on the west side of Cleveland on and I learned how to fight at a very young age which really helps me.
DRE: A lot of press about the book is focusing on the gossipy aspect, but you must have known that would happen.
Joe: Well, one of the things that I wanted to do is to really show the world where screenwriters work. One of the ways I've done that is by using anecdotes that either I've experienced or other people have experienced. There are chapters in this book about how to deal with actors and directors and producers and critics. I think that I'm pretty truthful in those descriptions and I use names. For people who are looking for gossip there are other books to look at. However I don't shy away from naming names.
DRE: What makes you want to name names?
Joe: In order to present a really honest account of what goes on in Hollywood because there are so many blind accounts of Hollywood where you don't know if someone is making it up or not. I don't do that. If I saw something or if I reliably believed that something happened and I want to use it in the course of anecdote, I will name names.
DRE: Wont Sharon Stone have something to say about what you wrote about her?
Joe: [laughs] I've spoken so often about Sharon Stone and I've gotten so many questions about it that I've simply decided that I'm not going to speak about Sharon. If anyone reads this book they will find some mentions of Sharon anecdotally, but I'm not going to highlight them in this discussion.
DRE: Are you naming names of anyone who has screwed you over?
Joe: I've won most of my fights. I've gotten 15 movies made and most of those Ive got sole credit. I view myself as a very fortunate screenwriter because I've been lucky in the process. I've had movies that I absolutely love that have been up on the screen. I don't think that it behooves screenwriters to lick their wounds and talk about how they've been screwed through the years. They need to get some gumption and backbone and go fight back. I tell people to fight back and not to let themselves get hurt in any way. I say, don't let them take your mojo. Theyll try to beat it out of you and they'll try to depress you, disillusion you, corrupt you, but you can fight back and beat them at their own game.
DRE: Also a lot of the people you mention dont do work as good as they used to, like Robert Towne.
Joe: I think that the work varies. Bob Towne has done some terrific movies over the years. No one can be held to a standard where everything is at the same quality, but he has certainly been one of the premiere screenwriters of our time. I think that he is a better screenwriter than he is a director. That's life. There's an old Hungarian saying that says that not everything can be the priest's cheese. There is the priest's waste as well.
DRE: What will you do if someone confronts you about something you wrote?
Joe: I've written two bestselling books where there has been mention of Hollywood. Hollywood Animal was solely about Hollywood and then American Rhapsody but I was never confronted by anyone in any way who questioned anything in the books.
DRE: Of all the films youve done which one came out the way you most envisioned it?
Joe: Basic Instinct came out almost word for word. I wrote it as a spec script and then sold it for what at the time was a record amount of money. Then the studio brought [director] Paul Verhoeven in. Michael Douglas and Paul wanted to change the script. Michael was especially adamant that he wanted to end the movie with his character shooting Sharon. I was adamant that we use the ending that's was in the script. For a while Paul decided that he was going to agree with Michael and he brought someone else in to rewrite the script, but luckily for me and for the movie he ended up agreeing with me. Then he very publicly apologized. He's a rare director because he said, I didn't really understand the foundations of Joe's script. I didn't understand that it was about evil. The way the movie is up on screen is 99.9% the rough draft because Paul went back to the rough draft and shot it. It's nearly the opposite of my experience with a little movie that I wrote called Nowhere to Run with
Jean-Claude Van Damme which is about eight percent of what was in my script [laughs]. So both things have happened to me, but it's certainly a wonderful feeling when what you wrote in the first draft winds up being onscreen especially when that movie goes on to be the biggest hit of the year and makes over $700 million worldwide.
DRE: Does Zsa Zsa Gabor know about your fetish for her?
Joe: [laughs] She does. The only meeting that we ever had was when I met her at a Beverly Hills function many years ago. I called her sometime afterwards and I said that we should have dinner and that I wanted to spend some time with her. She said, Oh Eszterhas, you're too much of a dangerous man to have dinner with. But ever since I was a kid growing up in the Hungarian community, she had a mythical, God-like status. I think that she's just a terrific human being and a lot of fun.
DRE: You and Shane Black have been mentioned so much together over the years, did you see Kiss Kiss Bang Bang?
Joe: I did. I thought that it was terrific. I think that Shane is a hugely talented guy and I hope that the system gives him the room to put more of his vision up onscreen because I think that he's really good.
DRE: Did you ever want to do direct?
Joe: I don't have the talent for it though Ive been asked several times. I just think that its a very different talent. You have to understand that the only thing that I wanted to do from the age of 13 was write. The guys who are really good at directing have very special talents beginning with a visual talent and then there's the huge coordination of logistics. You've got to have the ability to deal with all of the details and the ability to deal with star egos. I'm not talented in those areas and I don't think that I was meant to do that, and I admire the people who are really good at it. Norman Jewison, who was the first director that I worked with [on F.I.S.T.] was sensational at all of those things and gave me a very up close education about what a director does. From the time I saw him I realized that it was something that I didn't have the talent to do.
DRE: Do you offered work in Hollywood anymore?
Joe: I haven't written a spec script in some time. In 2001 I got throat cancer and it took me about two years to recover from it. I had to stop drinking and smoking. I had a very difficult two years where I hardly wrote anything. Then it gradually got better and I finished Hollywood Animal and then I wrote this book but I haven't sat down to really write a spec since. One of these days I will, but in the course of everything that I've gone through since 2001 my values have been reprioritized and I'm very close to my kids. We treat each day as a treasure and celebrate all the holidays. I'm in remission thank God and my doctor says that my recovery is a victory of lifestyle over disease. It is the kind of cancer that can come back and youll have six months to live so we're very conscious of that. We live very quietly and I don't go to places where they serve alcohol because it's too much of a temptation. So I've become a real expert at Denny's and McDonalds and places like that, but I'm very happy.
DRE: I have to ask about one of my favorite movies as a kid, Big Shots.
Joe: [laughs] Ah, thank you. I love Big Shots. I wrote Big Shots very much from the heart. When my son Steve was about 11, I suddenly envisioned the situation of what would happen to Steve if something happened to me. So the movie is a little adventure between two kids and it begins with Obie's dad dying and Obie runs away and forms a friendship with a black kid named Scam. That leads them to find Scam's dad who had been missing for some time. I loved the movie. A lot of kids saw that movie because it was on HBO all the time. I have had so many kids come up to me and say they thought it was terrific. So thank you for mentioning it.
DRE: Did you see Basic Instinct 2?
Joe: I did. It just misfired on all kinds of levels. I thought it was unfortunate that it was made. They did ask me to write it and I opted not to for several reasons. The main one was that I saw what I wrote as being one story and it was like trying to stretch rope into a rubber band and I felt that I wasn't very good at that. The other reason is that in my contract, they had to pay me a lot of money if they made the sequel even if I didn't write it. But it is what it is and it's probably one of many sequels that shouldn't have been made.
DRE: I read that the original screenplay was excellent.
Joe: I never saw the original script so certainly that is possible because that happens so often.
DRE: I read that you are going to do a Q & A at a Showgirls screening. What makes you want to do that?
Joe: Even though the movie was a disaster and really failed, I have to say that it was almost exactly my script. There are reasons why it failed and I think that one of the reasons may be that I made a couple glaring errors. In the past 11 years since the movie came out I can't tell you the number of times someone has come up to me, glanced around and said, I really loved Showgirls." It has become more than a cult sensation at this point. Last year a producer named Brad Krevoy wanted to do a sequel but there can be no sequels made without me because I have the rights and I didn't like his approach and I didn't like the budget that he was going to do it with. I essentially stopped the project, but now I'm in discussions with some people to put it up on the stage as a musical probably in Vegas. I'm talking about it with Matthew Rego of The Araca Group who produced Urinetown and Wicked. It would be directed by Sergio Trujillo who choreographed Jersey Boys and The Wiz and this would be the first thing he directs.
DRE: Is your next film, Children of Glory, in English?
Joe: First of all I just saw it about a week ago and it is terrific. I wrote the script in English and it was translated and filmed in Hungarian. It stars Kata Dob who is Hungary's best actress. Andy Vajna, who produced it, told me that all the film festivals are after it and that three distributors are after it in the United States because it turned out so well. I'm really proud of the movie. It's an idea that has a big sweeping historical feel. The acting is superb and they were very, very great at paying attention to my script. I was 12 years old during the Hungarian revolution, but I remember as a little boy watching the events there and seeing how happy my parents were and then of course how heart broken they were when the Russians came back in on the fourth of November in 1956 and decimated the country. I take great pride in the fact that I wrote this movie which I think will be the definitive cinematic account of the Hungarian Revolution especially after so many Hungarians were pissed off at me for writing Music Box. So it's really one of those experiences that worked out well.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Buy The Devil's Guide to Hollywood: The Screenwriter As God
Daniel Robert Epstein: What made you write this book?
Joe Eszterhaus: The editor that I was working with on Hollywood Animal, which was my last book, said to me that there was very little about the screenwriting process in it. I said to him that it was a 700 some page book and if I started writing that stuff in there no one was going to read it. He laughed and said that I was right. I've been doing screenplays for 30 years and 15 have been made into movies. So I think that I have learned some things about screenwriting both in terms of writing and also how to survive the blitzkrieg that happens to every screenwriter in Hollywood once he actually writes his script. As someone once said once you write a screenplay that's the beginning point for people to try and piss in it. That's the process that can destroy a screenplay and turn what might have been a terrific script into, not only not your own vision, but also something that's considerably less than what you've written. There are lots and lots of screenwriting books out there, but they're for the most part they are written by people who don't sell scripts which makes the advice somewhat suspect to me. In the forefront of this is Robert McKee the great screening writing guru who has had one script turned into a television film. The other kind of screenwriting book out there that Bill Goldman represents to me is the kind of book that says, Okay, it's all about your next job. Don't put your heart and soul into this. There is this particular anecdote in one of Goldman's books where he's sitting with this producer and the producer comes up with an idea that Bill thinks is moronic but he takes notes and makes sure to get every word so that the producer thinks that he's really into it so that he'll hire him for the job. It's my contention, and I realize that I might be a maverick with this, that you really should put your heart and soul and your gut and your experience and everything that you've got into the writing of a screenplay. Only then do you have a chance of writing something really good. The book says to writers that they shouldn't be afraid of putting their hearts into this, that they should fight for it to the best of their abilities, fight the studio and the director and the producer and the stars to maintain what you've written. In that sense it's a guerilla guide to protecting what you've done. In another sense it's what I call an anti-textbook textbook. Most textbooks I've read are boring pieces of shit and I've wanted to write a book that doesn't bore you, that tells you the real skinny of what to watch out for. Someone armed with this book will have less of a chance of getting screwed over.
DRE: Sometimes it feels like the book would be discouraging to writers.
Joe: In terms of what happens to screenwriters screenwriting can be discouraging because there are so many terrible stories out there. But one of the things that I say in this book is that you can win against greater forces. There is a part in the book that says All hail certain screenwriters who defied the system or who defied directors or producers and have won. It is possible to do that. I understand that no one likes fighting including me. But if you're going to be a screenwriter and you believe in what you've done, you really do have to fight because you have such massive egos on the other side trying to change what you've written. So if you don't know how to fight them you're going to lose. I grew up on the west side of Cleveland on and I learned how to fight at a very young age which really helps me.
DRE: A lot of press about the book is focusing on the gossipy aspect, but you must have known that would happen.
Joe: Well, one of the things that I wanted to do is to really show the world where screenwriters work. One of the ways I've done that is by using anecdotes that either I've experienced or other people have experienced. There are chapters in this book about how to deal with actors and directors and producers and critics. I think that I'm pretty truthful in those descriptions and I use names. For people who are looking for gossip there are other books to look at. However I don't shy away from naming names.
DRE: What makes you want to name names?
Joe: In order to present a really honest account of what goes on in Hollywood because there are so many blind accounts of Hollywood where you don't know if someone is making it up or not. I don't do that. If I saw something or if I reliably believed that something happened and I want to use it in the course of anecdote, I will name names.
DRE: Wont Sharon Stone have something to say about what you wrote about her?
Joe: [laughs] I've spoken so often about Sharon Stone and I've gotten so many questions about it that I've simply decided that I'm not going to speak about Sharon. If anyone reads this book they will find some mentions of Sharon anecdotally, but I'm not going to highlight them in this discussion.
DRE: Are you naming names of anyone who has screwed you over?
Joe: I've won most of my fights. I've gotten 15 movies made and most of those Ive got sole credit. I view myself as a very fortunate screenwriter because I've been lucky in the process. I've had movies that I absolutely love that have been up on the screen. I don't think that it behooves screenwriters to lick their wounds and talk about how they've been screwed through the years. They need to get some gumption and backbone and go fight back. I tell people to fight back and not to let themselves get hurt in any way. I say, don't let them take your mojo. Theyll try to beat it out of you and they'll try to depress you, disillusion you, corrupt you, but you can fight back and beat them at their own game.
DRE: Also a lot of the people you mention dont do work as good as they used to, like Robert Towne.
Joe: I think that the work varies. Bob Towne has done some terrific movies over the years. No one can be held to a standard where everything is at the same quality, but he has certainly been one of the premiere screenwriters of our time. I think that he is a better screenwriter than he is a director. That's life. There's an old Hungarian saying that says that not everything can be the priest's cheese. There is the priest's waste as well.
DRE: What will you do if someone confronts you about something you wrote?
Joe: I've written two bestselling books where there has been mention of Hollywood. Hollywood Animal was solely about Hollywood and then American Rhapsody but I was never confronted by anyone in any way who questioned anything in the books.
DRE: Of all the films youve done which one came out the way you most envisioned it?
Joe: Basic Instinct came out almost word for word. I wrote it as a spec script and then sold it for what at the time was a record amount of money. Then the studio brought [director] Paul Verhoeven in. Michael Douglas and Paul wanted to change the script. Michael was especially adamant that he wanted to end the movie with his character shooting Sharon. I was adamant that we use the ending that's was in the script. For a while Paul decided that he was going to agree with Michael and he brought someone else in to rewrite the script, but luckily for me and for the movie he ended up agreeing with me. Then he very publicly apologized. He's a rare director because he said, I didn't really understand the foundations of Joe's script. I didn't understand that it was about evil. The way the movie is up on screen is 99.9% the rough draft because Paul went back to the rough draft and shot it. It's nearly the opposite of my experience with a little movie that I wrote called Nowhere to Run with
Jean-Claude Van Damme which is about eight percent of what was in my script [laughs]. So both things have happened to me, but it's certainly a wonderful feeling when what you wrote in the first draft winds up being onscreen especially when that movie goes on to be the biggest hit of the year and makes over $700 million worldwide.
DRE: Does Zsa Zsa Gabor know about your fetish for her?
Joe: [laughs] She does. The only meeting that we ever had was when I met her at a Beverly Hills function many years ago. I called her sometime afterwards and I said that we should have dinner and that I wanted to spend some time with her. She said, Oh Eszterhas, you're too much of a dangerous man to have dinner with. But ever since I was a kid growing up in the Hungarian community, she had a mythical, God-like status. I think that she's just a terrific human being and a lot of fun.
DRE: You and Shane Black have been mentioned so much together over the years, did you see Kiss Kiss Bang Bang?
Joe: I did. I thought that it was terrific. I think that Shane is a hugely talented guy and I hope that the system gives him the room to put more of his vision up onscreen because I think that he's really good.
DRE: Did you ever want to do direct?
Joe: I don't have the talent for it though Ive been asked several times. I just think that its a very different talent. You have to understand that the only thing that I wanted to do from the age of 13 was write. The guys who are really good at directing have very special talents beginning with a visual talent and then there's the huge coordination of logistics. You've got to have the ability to deal with all of the details and the ability to deal with star egos. I'm not talented in those areas and I don't think that I was meant to do that, and I admire the people who are really good at it. Norman Jewison, who was the first director that I worked with [on F.I.S.T.] was sensational at all of those things and gave me a very up close education about what a director does. From the time I saw him I realized that it was something that I didn't have the talent to do.
DRE: Do you offered work in Hollywood anymore?
Joe: I haven't written a spec script in some time. In 2001 I got throat cancer and it took me about two years to recover from it. I had to stop drinking and smoking. I had a very difficult two years where I hardly wrote anything. Then it gradually got better and I finished Hollywood Animal and then I wrote this book but I haven't sat down to really write a spec since. One of these days I will, but in the course of everything that I've gone through since 2001 my values have been reprioritized and I'm very close to my kids. We treat each day as a treasure and celebrate all the holidays. I'm in remission thank God and my doctor says that my recovery is a victory of lifestyle over disease. It is the kind of cancer that can come back and youll have six months to live so we're very conscious of that. We live very quietly and I don't go to places where they serve alcohol because it's too much of a temptation. So I've become a real expert at Denny's and McDonalds and places like that, but I'm very happy.
DRE: I have to ask about one of my favorite movies as a kid, Big Shots.
Joe: [laughs] Ah, thank you. I love Big Shots. I wrote Big Shots very much from the heart. When my son Steve was about 11, I suddenly envisioned the situation of what would happen to Steve if something happened to me. So the movie is a little adventure between two kids and it begins with Obie's dad dying and Obie runs away and forms a friendship with a black kid named Scam. That leads them to find Scam's dad who had been missing for some time. I loved the movie. A lot of kids saw that movie because it was on HBO all the time. I have had so many kids come up to me and say they thought it was terrific. So thank you for mentioning it.
DRE: Did you see Basic Instinct 2?
Joe: I did. It just misfired on all kinds of levels. I thought it was unfortunate that it was made. They did ask me to write it and I opted not to for several reasons. The main one was that I saw what I wrote as being one story and it was like trying to stretch rope into a rubber band and I felt that I wasn't very good at that. The other reason is that in my contract, they had to pay me a lot of money if they made the sequel even if I didn't write it. But it is what it is and it's probably one of many sequels that shouldn't have been made.
DRE: I read that the original screenplay was excellent.
Joe: I never saw the original script so certainly that is possible because that happens so often.
DRE: I read that you are going to do a Q & A at a Showgirls screening. What makes you want to do that?
Joe: Even though the movie was a disaster and really failed, I have to say that it was almost exactly my script. There are reasons why it failed and I think that one of the reasons may be that I made a couple glaring errors. In the past 11 years since the movie came out I can't tell you the number of times someone has come up to me, glanced around and said, I really loved Showgirls." It has become more than a cult sensation at this point. Last year a producer named Brad Krevoy wanted to do a sequel but there can be no sequels made without me because I have the rights and I didn't like his approach and I didn't like the budget that he was going to do it with. I essentially stopped the project, but now I'm in discussions with some people to put it up on the stage as a musical probably in Vegas. I'm talking about it with Matthew Rego of The Araca Group who produced Urinetown and Wicked. It would be directed by Sergio Trujillo who choreographed Jersey Boys and The Wiz and this would be the first thing he directs.
DRE: Is your next film, Children of Glory, in English?
Joe: First of all I just saw it about a week ago and it is terrific. I wrote the script in English and it was translated and filmed in Hungarian. It stars Kata Dob who is Hungary's best actress. Andy Vajna, who produced it, told me that all the film festivals are after it and that three distributors are after it in the United States because it turned out so well. I'm really proud of the movie. It's an idea that has a big sweeping historical feel. The acting is superb and they were very, very great at paying attention to my script. I was 12 years old during the Hungarian revolution, but I remember as a little boy watching the events there and seeing how happy my parents were and then of course how heart broken they were when the Russians came back in on the fourth of November in 1956 and decimated the country. I take great pride in the fact that I wrote this movie which I think will be the definitive cinematic account of the Hungarian Revolution especially after so many Hungarians were pissed off at me for writing Music Box. So it's really one of those experiences that worked out well.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
courtneyriot:
Joe Eszterhaus enjoyed a significant run as the number one screenwriter in Hollywood. He worked on popular films like Flashdance, Jagged Edge, and Basic Instinct, but by the mid-90s he had suffered a couple of major misfires (Showgirls, Jade) and was dealing with some health issues. Eszterhaus stopped...