152 | The Movies That Made Us Writers

Every writer can point to a movie that made them say: "THIS. This is what I want to do." And today, Meg, Lorien, and Jeff share the movies that turned THEM into writers. Yep, we're movie nerds too.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Meg LeFauve: Hey everyone, welcome back to The Screenwriting Life, I'm Meg LeFauve.

Lorien McKenna: And I'm from Lorien McKenna and today we're going to be talking about the movies that turned us into writers or the movies that inspired us to believe that we could be writers.

Meg LeFauve: We're going to be talking about the stories behind watching the movies we loved and why specifically they inspired us to pursue a career in writing or unspecifically.

But first we're going to talk about our weeks or what we like to call adventures in screenwriting. Lorian, how was your week?

Lorien McKenna: My week was very exciting and exhausting. My daughter was in a play this last weekend, all month. She went to this month long summer camp that was putting on a play and rehearsals all day.

And it was you know, eight hours she was there and it was really hard for me because it's the first time she's been in an, An environment where she didn't have a nurse for her type one and I got there the first day and I have all her kits and there's a woman there. She's Oh, I'm a T1D mom. I have two kids with T1D.

So immediately I felt ah, okay, so she's safe. She managed herself really well and I felt very proud of her. And then. This weekend they put on Bye Bye Birdie, it was middle schoolers doing Bye Bye Birdie, and you know, the, the play has its things, but Quincy loved every second of it, and they had four performances, and I am absolutely exhausted because of the, she didn't want to wear her pump during the shows, and I'm like, backstage, and you know, it, it, and you know, I'm a theater person, and so I really didn't want to push her into this, and she sort of came at it by herself, and she wants to do the next show, and the next show, and So I feel excited that she's going to do this thing that I love, but at the same time, you know, she's going to do this thing that I love.

So I know what it is. Then, you know, there's a lot of heartbreak in it, but it's also so fun. So that was really fun. And then in terms of writing, I am not writing and I am currently in the middle of an existential crisis about my career as one does during a strike. And I am struggling to figure out what is sustainable for myself and that sort of, what is my big want?

Right? We ask this of our characters what is it that you want? So I'm trying to figure out what, what I want. Big picture. Like when I close my eyes and I imagine what I want, what is it? So yeah, I don't know. And I think it's circumstantial and situational. And once I get a job, I'll be like, okay, I'm back in at gung ho, but it's really tough right now to focus.

I have a story I love and I pecked out a little scene a while ago and I was like, yeah, I just don't feel connected to my writing self right now in a way that I find really sad. And I'm. I'm trying not to go full morning, right, because I don't want to give it up and I don't want to lose it. But I'm struggling with that writer self right now.

And I know I'm not the only writer feeling this right now, or artist and actor and all the professionals in our industry, but it's rough. And I'm trying to fill all my time as much as I can with other things, you know, reading other people's scripts and. Coaching and going to plays and doing all the things, but I'm struggling a bit about my identity as a writer in the world.

So that's how my week is. Meg, how's your week?

Meg LeFauve: Well, first, let's ask Jeff, how is your week?

Jeffrey Crane Graham: I feel the same way, Lorien, and I I think like the way I'm kind of feeling is it's like I know we need to write for ourselves, but it's a little easier when it feels like the world has any interest in you as a writer.

And it's like right now, the messaging that we're getting from the leaders of our industry is fuck you. Which is really hard and you can't be motivated by external things. But I just got off a call with our distributor. My movie was supposed to come out tomorrow and like we're pushing it, which is fine.

Because we can't like promote it. And I was like pitching a little bit before the strike and getting some notes with producers and now that's. Gone and I don't know it is like really scary and I yeah, it's just hard it we shouldn't write because we feel like the world wants our stories because we should just write for ourselves, but it is hard when it's like objectively right now.

It kind of feels like just a middle finger to everyone in town. So that's kind of where I am, which is, I don't know. It's just, it does feel a little

Lorien McKenna: feel good week here on TSM. You're

Meg LeFauve: adjacent. You're adjacent.

Jeffrey Crane Graham: Yeah, it's just kind of bleak right now. It's like a little bit how it feels. I'm also trying to just kind of, I don't know.

I know the solution is to get back to the page. I was working on a pilot that I liked, but I'm kind of like, who do I send it to right now? Does anyone give a shit? I don't know. So that's kind of how I feel.

Meg LeFauve: I'm approaching it like you know, projects take a while. They take many, many drafts. Passion projects always have to take a back seat to money and, you know, everything else and suddenly they get their day right now, right now they get their day, the sun is shining on them and it never shines on them because we never look back at our passion project.

So. I'm trying to concentrate on that and you know, I'm only honestly, I'm only doing it like half a day because for the same reasons that you guys are feeling to the voices creep in about what's the point or will this ever happen and all that kind of stuff. But keeps me sane to stay to put that energy in those.

All those thoughts and all those worries and ener and, and energetic chomping into something and, and put it, get it out of my head and onto the page through a character. And because the space has opened up I'm trying to fill it with that and, but because it's opened up the passion project I'm working on and I'm writing it with my husband, it's something I wrote a long time ago and we're coming, I'm coming back to it with him and Let me just say, there's a lot of lava in there.

And so the space is, you know, allows that lava because again, I can't be, I can't throw it away because there's no excuse right now to not let the lava come up. And I didn't quite realize how much until we had to take my son to a appointment and we dropped him off. And it was one of those things of we'll just hang out for an hour.

Cause otherwise, by the time you drive home and come back. So we went to a coffee shop nearby and we started talking about this project. And. It was the simplest thing that he said, and he said something like Well, I mean, couldn't she just stay with her? Just move in? And I was like, No! And he was like, Wow, okay.

Why? Why not? Because she can't? No! She was like, thank God he's my husband because he knows me so well. He was like, oh, we're right. We're right on it because that was a very big reaction. Now, it takes 30 years of marriage for him not to be like, you can't talk to me that way. I just asked a simple question and trolling it to you know, collaboration nightmare.

He was able to hold the space. We're in a public place, by the way. And this thing started to rise in me like a leviathan in this coffee shop as he just started saying, well, I mean, you know, it is, you know, this person is used to care for doesn't care for anymore and she never let her come back. She never let her come back.

Okay. But maybe, just, what, what,

Lorien McKenna: why

Meg LeFauve: won't she let her come back? And the more he just kept asking questions, the, I just started to really lose my mind. So much lava, you guys, that it literally felt like a comet had smashed into the coffee shop. And everything was going flat. I can't explain it. It's like all of a sudden you're out of time and that's when you're like, Oh my God, this lava is so big and so up and just came right into this coffee shop.

And it's good that

Lorien McKenna: you're with your husband because that sounds a little bit like PTSD.

Meg LeFauve: Well, whatever it is, it's attached to nothing. Like it's, it's not Oh, he said that. And then memories came back or, but there's nothing happened. I can't, I have no conscious awareness of what this is attached to.

Right. Nothing. And and he doesn't either. Obviously, he's I'm just going to hang out here with you. And I was like, OK. And I was able to say, OK, this is clearly something. This is lava. Let's just I don't want to run away from it, but I don't want to damage myself either. Let's keep talking about the story.

Right. I don't want to start therapy and dig into me. Let's just keep talking about the story. Let's use it for the story.

Lorien McKenna: Because people ask us all the time, how do you keep yourself safe from the lava? And I think it's that, which is focusing on the

Meg LeFauve: story. Yeah, I'm not like, oh, let's go talk about my childhood, because that's And I don't even, I've been in a lot of therapy.

I don't need to. And I was like, okay, let's just, so why I go, and I cannot even tell you what shifted that I think he said the word home. He said, well, do you think she wants to go home? And I was like, yes, of course she wants to go home. She's not allowed to go home. And he's but is there any universe in which she could be allowed in the door and be stay.

And it was so big that I, I got tears in my eyes. Again, I'm not thinking about anything but the story. I'm literally seeing her standing in the doorway with her aunt. I'm seeing the aunt's rage at her and hurt because she's done something to the aunt. And I'm just, and I was like, and I said, maybe, because what would happen if the aunt took a step backwards and let her step into the house?

And so I just imagined that, right? Okay, let's see. It's just a story. It's not happening. And I just let her step back, and let my character step into the house, and I just felt this shift. Internally. Like electricity around me. It just shifted. And I was like, yeah, that's what, cause we were stuck on something.

We were stuck on the engine of the show. In terms of all the pieces that we wanted. But they wouldn't go together, right? In terms of a show. They went together if I was writing a novel. But as a show, it didn't work. It just didn't work. I couldn't get the engine to go. And as soon as she stepped into the house, and I realized that she's gonna live between this house and the other house.

That's the show trying to create that balance. And because I wouldn't let her in the other in this house, there was no show. It was all this fractured pieces, right? Like kind of parallel story storylines happening that weren't converging in the pilot because I kept them all separate. But as soon as I allowed her to step in the house, I was like, oh.

And by the way, now I can say because I can say without lava, without PTSD, I grew up next door. I grew up. My mom had five kids, she couldn't handle it. And I pretty much slept, ate, everything next door. So this is very old. It's preverbal. And it really was again. I didn't talk about that. Then the coffee shop, I didn't.

It's literally right now talking to you that I realized. Oh, my God. I just said there's two houses. Like it's OK. It's a week ago, people. I just doesn't matter. Right, right. But I didn't the lava wasn't up there. It was there to service the story, if that makes sense. It wasn't there for my therapy.

It wasn't there. It was just there to say your character. Needs to stay in this house. It doesn't mean that she's a hundred percent welcome. She is not a hundred percent welcome. All of that stuff. I'm being true to how I felt. I'm not shifting that deep emotional response I had. I'm not changing my story to make it work.

I'm just allowing the story to take a step ahead of me of what I've done before. Cause I've gotten her always up to the door and then been told to leave. And then she always turns around and walks away. Flipping the bird, right? Mm-hmm. . But this time, sitting in that coffee shop with my husband, I, I just let her it step in the door and suddenly I was like, that's the show.

Now I understand the show and I can have the show I want. 'cause it started to really twerk into something I didn't want trying to make it work, you know what I mean? Because I'm like, well then all of these fractured pieces, I just have to cut them all out because they don't go, they're gonna be like parallel storylines.

They don't intersect the a storyline. So I guess we just have to do. This a storyline, it's totally going to change. And and I was feeling so sad, right? That wasn't the show I set out to write. It was a show. It was probably a good show. Honestly, it's probably a show we could have sold. To be honest with you, it's the show that would sell.

But I don't want to write that show. But I couldn't get the pieces to go together because my psychology, my lava needed to come up. And risk. So I'm not the lava was not about going back in time or getting stuck. The lava was actually trying to make me move a little bit forward. It was trying to say.

You're not that kid anymore. You're an adult and you do have experiences of going home. Of course you do. Remember those? Remember when somebody opened their arms to you? Remember when somebody was mad at you, but they still loved you? Remember all these other times? Give her some of that, not just this singular.

Wound. Give her a little bit more of that. And it wasn't so it was even more authentically me, even though I would have thought it wouldn't be. So I just bring this up because people talk a lot about lava and how do I work it? You know, often when you have this kind of like fracture, like moment, you're very tired for the rest of the day because your psyche, it takes a lot of like energy in your body to actually do this.

And my husband was very cool about it. So we're not going to talk about anymore. We've got that. We've come to this. That's the show and we're gonna talk about it tomorrow now because you're exhausted clearly, you know to him he's like It's just a choice. It was just like, there was no tangles on that.

And that's why you have to be careful, I think, in a big writer's room because sometimes those tangles can come up, right? And you gotta be, you know, respectful of that. There's a lot of tangle over there. Now, that's not maybe the showrunner's show. But that's your tangles, right? And you're trying to be brave and bring it here.

You know, I I've seen that in the, not TV writers rooms, obviously, but in, in rooms with people. So that's something that I did. That was a pretty extraordinary. And then

Lorien McKenna: go ahead. I want to add something just listening to you, which is why I love doing this podcast, because I learned so much on the show and I've been working on this pilot and I've written it several different ways.

It's very high concept. I love it. What I realized recently, so I got all these notes on it and they're all kind of. You know, move this around, do this. It's, you know, structural stuff that would fix it, but I haven't quite been able to figure out how to approach it. And I realized, I think last week that I didn't have a main character relationship.

Duh, right? It was just this woman alone moving through this really cool world and this really cool experience. And I know what the end scene of the pilot is. And then listening to you talk, Meg, I wonder if my fatigue around writing. And the fear of the industry is less that and more, listen to you. I got kind of emotional, I have to find the main relationship and the one I've created isn't true and I'm really scared of what it could be because I'm afraid I will get stuck in the lava because I feel that welling up, you know, the pain, the pressure behind my eyes and I just kind of lose my breath like, Oh, I have to, she has to take a step out of her comfort zone right now.

Everywhere I have her is. She's where she seems off kilter, but she is still very much in a position of power. And what I haven't done is take her to the upside down world. Really? I've take, cause I, I thought I had, what was the upside down world in act two of this pilot, but I realized I have to put that at the beginning of them.

Pilot. So then I'm like, and then where do I go? I realize I have to get her to that other world that I know who she has to confront. And I was saving that for like episode five, which I was never going to write, because this was just going to be a sample and not a show. I was going to pitch. Oh my God.

That's so

Meg LeFauve: funny. I do that too. I'll do that in episode three. No, I

Lorien McKenna: don't want to know. Right. So I'm realizing now that I have to have her go there. To this place that I know exactly what it is. Like I created a look book for this thing a long time ago, but I, I've makes me feel so vulnerable and it's not an existential crisis about my career.

It is not that it is, it is this particular piece that I'm writing. I mean, it is that, of course, like

Meg LeFauve: that is part of the fire. I mean, I think I just wonder, and again, I'm just voicing stuff as I experienced it too. So, but I wonder if. The love, of course, could come from a wound that you suffered. You know, absolutely.

It could be coming from that. And by you, I mean, any of us. But I don't think that the character is stuck in that. Your characters don't have to be. Even if they have that exact wound, they don't they're not stuck in it. I wonder as writers, we're connected to the highest, I believe, consciousness of the universe moving through us.

Right. That we are there. It's conduit. It knows it's fine. It. It is here to evolve and move things, not get stuck in them. That's not what it wants. It doesn't want to come here and pool inside of you like a dirty swamp. It wants to move through you. And so let it start writing her, not just the wounds. That makes sense.

Which is what I

Lorien McKenna: teach in my class. You're just observing. You're not creating or generating. You're just there in the world witnessing what she's doing. Where is she going? What's behind that door? I'm an amazing writing workshop instructor.

Meg LeFauve: I'm a I know, easy to say, harder to do.

Lorien McKenna: But then I sit with my own work.

I'm like, there's no door there. There's no door. Why? There's gotta be a door. I don't even know what that is, right? It's, there's no door, literally. And I, And it's funny, I've been thinking about this a lot too, like what my lava is, like my lava is not literal lava, mine is the ocean. And I try to think about it like when I'm standing on the edge of that ocean where the water is barely touching my feet and I can't imagine drowning so I back way away and I have my characters rise up from that and meet me in a safer place.

But what that does, I realized, is it creates such a distance. Between me and them that I brought them so far away from the lava that there's no door and I have to actually stand in that water with it on my bare feet so that I can see the door. And I know this all sounds kind of spooky, wiki, whatever, but just in terms of,

Meg LeFauve: they're just metaphors.

Like again, all I had to do, I didn't have to have her be accepted and be hugged and be all that stuff and the wound healed and none of that. All she had to do was step into the threshold. And the other woman didn't push her out. That's it! No more! And we'll see as we go, and as this develops, and what new things come up now that she stepped in the door.

I'm sure it's gonna go. But it's going, it's activating the story, because the, the, the storyteller in me... is using the lava to get to something different. It's not wallowing in the lava, it's using it to get to the next step, right? Oh no, does this have to get in the

Lorien McKenna: water?

Meg LeFauve: Yes darling, the story's out in the water.

Yes, it's out in the water.

Lorien McKenna: There's spooky monsters in there. Literally my thing is a water thing too, like I'm literally writing about the ocean.

Meg LeFauve: But you know the monsters are just part of her. But the monsters are just part of her. Absolutely.

Lorien McKenna: You know that. She is the ocean, but and I, I think to right now where I am in the world with the strike and my career, everything, it's I, I feel stuck.

I feel like I'm trapped and stuck and I'm realizing I have to go through the door.

Meg LeFauve: Yes. Right. If he needs to get in the water, she's a fish. No wonder she's stuck. Yeah, well, she is a fish in

Lorien McKenna: the sci

Meg LeFauve: fi, but lots of metaphors happening. But the other thing that made me think of Laurie is on our Patreon, we were taking a story from a woman who was writing a series.

And I just thought it's worth bringing up here in terms of, oh yeah, I know, but your pilot is the first act of your. And so many of us do that, right? And then we help spitball ideas for her of what, where she could go and what else could be happening. But even you just said, you know, sometimes I'm like, it's in the third episode.

And you're like, nope, that is act two of your pilot shit. Or the other thing, remember she did another woman in the patron. Had really done this incredible backstory and I just kept saying that's not the same show. Like it's not even the same tone so they don't know what show they're buying because are they buying this pilot or are they buying episode two, right?

What is the tone of the show? It has to hit immediately. Go! So that's just stuff that came on the Patreon that I thought was worth bringing up into this discussion because that's what

Jeffrey Crane Graham: we're talking about. Meg, thanks for mentioning the Patreon. I will say just quickly, I love our Patreon. We have such a good time over there.

And I think like it allows us to dig in a little bit and the way that you're hearing Megan Laurie and talk about. So if you've been curious, I'd recommend you check it out. Speaking of our community, I do want to quickly read some Apple podcast reviews. We just adore our community. And getting feedback from you all on Apple podcasts is such a great way for us to feel like we're connecting with you.

So just to shout out a couple of our listeners, I'm going to pull up some reviews. I'm going to start with Michaela who said I'm so glad I found a screenwriting podcast hosted primarily by women I've been craving these conversations in the deep dive into the female perspective for years There are a few good screenwriting podcasts out there and they do give useful tools and tricks But so far none of them have managed to keep my whole being as captivated as you have You have inspired me and given me the vocabulary to define patterns in my writing that I did not have names for That's exactly what we were just saying everything we talked about is kind of a metaphor for the experience of writing, which I love She says I soak up every word you say like a sponge.

I've never felt more seen Appreciated and inspired, please dedicate an entire episode into the matriarchal storytelling structure. That's good advice. Jessica Bettinger mentioned that on the show. We should bring her back to dive into that. So thank you so much, Michaela, for that review. I'm going to quickly read a review from Hank as well, who says I could ramble on forever about this show, but I'll try to keep it short and sweet.

Meg, Lorien and Jeff seem love seem like lovely people who just want to help those of us who have a dream to make movies, regardless of what point in that journey around this podcast will be an informative and fun weekly listen. Thank you so much, Hank. We really appreciate it. And if you haven't dropped us a review it really is helpful for our show because it helps other listeners find the show.

So that's on Apple podcasts. We're at seven 50 and I think we can get to a thousand by the end of the year. I'm putting that out in the universe. So let's make it happen.

Meg LeFauve: Thank you. He says, yes, thank you so much. Those are amazing. Helps us keep going.

Jeffrey Crane Graham: Yeah. Well, should we jump into our topic y'all?

Meg LeFauve: Yeah.

Who wants to go first, Jeff, it was your idea. You have to go first.

Jeffrey Crane Graham: I can start with one of my movies and then I can go into my second one later, but it was kind of a fun assignment. We have two amazing interns, Patti and Nick, and they've both just been so wonderful on our show. So thanks to both of them.

Patti had this idea to kind of talk about the movies and TV shows that inspired us to become writers. I think all of us can point to at least one movie that was kind of like the movie that like did something. I think there are certain movies that we can point to that kind of. Do something visceral in us.

So I'll start with a movie by friend of the show, John August, actually. He wrote this movie called big fish. I'm sure most of us in the chat have seen this. If you haven't seen big fish, it's a wonderful, wonderful movie. But I always say that big fish, I watched it when I was about. Eleven, I would say, and it kind of felt like the first movie that showed me what movies can do.

It just has this like amazing imagination and story logic about it that I found really deeply inspiring and I just couldn't shake it out of my head. For anyone who hasn't seen Big Fish, the movie is really about storytelling and about the purpose of stories and what they do to our relationships.

The main relationship is between Billy Crudup's character and Albert Finney's character who play a father and son. And Billy Crudup's character has kind of become estranged from his father because he resents these kind of overblown, tall tale stories that his dad used to tell as the two of them were growing up.

But when Billy Crudup's character learns that his dad is dying, he goes back to try to reconcile their relationships and put together the pieces of the life that his dad... Told Billy Crudup's character he lived and the life that his dad actually lived and the whole movie becomes this meditation on What's true?

Kind of what what's lowercase t true and what's capital T true and It's really just worth watching, but I think just a couple takeaways from that movie that really spoke to me are that for a movie to be about storytelling, John August's writing and Tim Burton's direction are doing so much just with the idea of stories.

And as an audience, we're questioning kind of if what we're seeing is true or what we're seeing is kind of fantasy. But we start to understand as we watch the movie that something can be true in a way that's not necessarily factual, but True in a deeper way so I find that to be really interesting that the form of the movie is sort of dictating the themes of the movie in such a powerful way, and I'm going to give away the final scene of big fish.

So if you haven't seen it. Go ahead and skip forward a little bit, because it's just like one of those beautiful endings to a movie ever, but this whole time Billy Crudup's character is kind of resenting his dad for the stories that seem overblown and dramatic, and at the very end, it becomes his job to actually tell his dad a story and kind of utilize all of those exaggerate, exaggerative and kind of big idea storytelling that his dad has done his whole life.

And it becomes his job to have to do it as he says goodbye to his father. And it's, it was really an intangible way for me to understand this character pulls thing that Meg has put language around. That movie just kind of in an invisible way communicated to me that the thing that the protagonist of your film is so afraid of and so scared of, they're going to have to do at the end of the movie.

Like they're going to have to face that mountain themself and find that power in themself. And of course, like I'm learning all this subconsciously as I'm watching the movie, but it's cool now how I understand writing more and I have a better idea of structure to see how that movie taught all of this to me just by watching it.

So I will say that scene I'm talking about. That is John August's favorite scene that he's ever wrote as well. So it's kind of cool to hear the creator of a movie say that the thing that made me want to become a storyteller is one of his favorite parts of his own career. I joked on the episode. I said, I know it's not my place to tell you, but that's definitely the correct answer that you just said about, about your favorite scene.

So I adore big fish and those are just some of the big takeaways for me. It really made me fall in love with movies. So that's one of the movies that I'm bringing to the table today. Definitely worth a watch. Love it.

Meg LeFauve: So mine, of course, is a

Lorien McKenna: story about me. So everybody buckle up. So, and mine isn't really so much movies that turned me into a writer, but plays and movies that inspired me to think. To imagine that I could write for the screen and sort of make that transition from theater to film and TV. So I, my family loves theater.

I've gone to theater my whole life. You know, I was, I worked at the Ukiah Players Theater in my little hometown and we'd go to Oregon Shakespeare Festival. And on Broadway, I would go to a lot of Broadway in New York. My grandparents lived in New York. And the very first play I was in was a murder mystery.

I was so terrified to be on stage that they had to rewrite the part so all I was was like an arm that came out from behind a curtain and grab somebody and I shook the whole time. All I remember is being terrified. Of course, now you see the gorgeous dramatist in front of you but I had very humble beginnings in the theater.

And then in high school, I did plays and monologues and improv competitions. And I sort of found my identity in that place being on stage and telling stories. So I always saw theater as about words and me telling stories. In college, I went to New York to visit my grandparents and I got to see angels in America and Perestroika on stage in one day which was like a full day of Tony Kushner, and it was sort of.

Like a mystical experience for me and, you know, the, when I remember the, right before the lights go down, you know, the shaft of light shoots across and the dust particles sort of float in the air. And I just remember that feeling of, this is my temple. I am theater. This is where I belong. And that's sort of way that any 21 year old feels about something they carry about passionately, you know, and, and that I was special somehow because I got the play.

And then I signed up for a playwriting class. The next semester and I really loved it and then eventually I pursued my MFA and I got to study with wonderful playwrights and wrote some really terrible plays and I really figured out though what I loved and what I didn't love. And so that when I wasn't liking something, I didn't have to stay and watch it.

So I remember very aggressively standing up in the middle of a play at intermission that I didn't like and leaving, right? It was a sort of this. Again, a very young person's idea of how to assert yourself. I wasn't rude about it. I didn't throw popcorn or whatever you eat at a theater. I don't remember haven't been in so long, but that I got to understand what I liked and didn't like.

And then it just, because it was on stage and theater, I didn't have to love it. And then in 1999 when I was in grad school studying my M F A, I got to go to Sundance as part of my, part of my grant grad school program. And I saw 14 movies in 13 days. And I met amazing people like Peter Bogdanovich and I got to see Cookies Fortune and Robert Altman was there.

And I got to go to the midnight premiere of the Blair Witch Project. And it was the first time I ever was exposed to, in a. Real way improvisational filmmaking, you know, I got to talk to the actors after, and it was so cool that you could combine improv and actors and writing and filmmaking all together.

And it was sort of reminded me of Carol Churchill, who was a British writer in the sixties who would bring unfinished work, sort of like animation, unfinished work and have the actors improv. And then she would go home that night and rewrite it according to. help and input from the actors and the directors.

And when I got back from Sundance, my husband was like, let's go see Shakespeare in love. And I was like, how dare you? I am a Shakespeare purist. I love Tom Stoppard. He's mine. You know, Arcadia and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. Like he's the theater. How dare movies try to take him and pervert his work and Shakespeare.

And I had this whole thing, but I agreed to go. And I made a sit in the last row in the corner by the exit because I had to just get up and leave. But I said, I loved it. I mean, I loved it. And it was really, for me, all these things came together, right? The theater, my love of theater, and dialogue, and the sort of multi views of Shakespeare's life and the real life in that world.

And it was the first time I really looked at it and was like, Oh, it's all part of a beast. You can do all the things. You don't have to pick. I don't have to be a Shakespeare purist or only theater. And that seeing a play. Up and so much more than just a play on its feet. I got to be in the world of the play and I thought I want that it took me a long time then figure out how to do that because playwriting format is so different than screenwriting format and thinking visually.

And it was It was those three experiences, right, which seems so disparate, right? Angels in America, and Blair Witch, and Shakespeare in Love, but for me, they added up to owning all the things I love, right? I love All About Eve, which is a play about theater, and You're a movie about a play and theater and so many of my favorite movies are based on plays and I love dialogue and I think that's why I gravitated more towards tv ultimately because I felt like I could play more in the dialogue space for me it was like this story this long journey of Finally realizing that I had a place that didn't have to be in a box.

It didn't have to pick that I could take a little bit of all these things that I learned about. And that I had to get over myself in order to embrace other possibilities, right? I don't have to be just theater and just dialogue and a purist. Like I can love. All these things, which I was probably just growing up, but that's how I grew up in the theater and on movies and I still encounter those moments like when I saw Fleabag, I was like, I wish I had done that right just her mastery of the performance and the structure and the, the words, you know, so, yeah, I still have those moments where I'm like I'm inspired to get back to the page.

Anyway, that's my story. Those are my movies and plays. Meg?

Meg LeFauve: Before I talk about mine, my son had, is just home from a trip he went on with his class and college. And he said to me, you know, he's a directing student, as I've mentioned on the show. And he said to me, mom, I found out that Paul Thomas Anderson did not go to film school, but what he did is he picked out his five favorite directors and then he researched what were their five influences.

And then he took those five influences and researched what were their five influences. And he did that enough times watching, he's watching all the movies, right? So, he's every five influence, he watches those movies and then he watches what influenced those and influenced those and influenced those.

And then you start to see it coming together. Then you start to see, they're all talking about John Ford. They're all talking about this. Then he started, so in essence, he's giving him some film school, right? He's going all the way down. in terms of inspiration to the kind of core tenants of it. And so my son said, this is a great use of chat GPT.

Chat, chat, GPT gets a little bit overwhelmed by it because it, the branches go so far out that and Aiden had to teach it how to do it and what he wanted it to do. But it can quickly tell you, you know, this director's five influences are these movies, and then it can take it and break it and break it and break it.

And I thought that was such a great way if you're looking, we could do it for writers, right? If you pick your favorite writers and see what their influences were. And my sense of the cool thing is if you, within three generations, now the influences are plays and art and because there's no, it's just starting.

So you're actually going to see the origin roots of the entire art form starting to move up through, right? So I thought that was a great suggestion in terms of inspiration. And I'm going to try it with. With writing and see what we can get and what influence I'd love to know what Aaron Sorkin's let's say three, cause five's a lot in terms of the branching three influences were, and then look at their three influences and see if we can see the train of the inspiration and the tenants of writing being born in essence through all of these people and coming up.

So I thought that was pretty cool. In terms of thinking about this and what inspired me, the first thing I thought of was. When CineStory was just beginning you would go and every mentor started, opened up the CineStory with going up on stage and showing a clip of the movie that made them want to do what they do.

And every year I picked the same movie until I got in trouble for picking it, which is I would always pick Sophie's Choice. And I would show the choice. And after I, and I would talk about why, and I, again, this is a little side funny thing, I came off the stage, and now you're supposed to go to a cocktail party, and a novelist, screenwriter, Richard Price, who wrote The Color of Money, just comes storming over to me.

And he was like, What the f was that? He goes, why don't you just take a puppy up on stage and shoot it in the head? I'll never forget that for the rest of my life. It's like Richard Price. I so admire him. He's so mad at me because I so upset him with this clip. But I, inside, I was like, yeah, that's, that's the clip.

That's why I picked that clip. Because look what happened to you. And it's not, because It's so human, and it's so devastating. And it is the reason this whole story exists, because this is the secret, which is why I won't tell you in case you haven't seen the movie. This is the secret that she's been carrying because it flips back and forth in time, and why she is struggling.

to stay alive because of this secret. And she's carrying this secret. And what in the in the filmmakers and the and it comes from a book and the author and the writer exploring what those heavy secrets do to us, both as persons, as people, but as societies and as cultures and what we do to each other and the inhumanity and the humanity and what creates those secrets is inhumanity to man and women.

And I just loved all that, like to watch that and see all of that. And this beautiful long movie, but to still down into a single moment of a person's life, that is literally one word, three words is so powerful. And That I, I just love, I had always been a storyteller in terms of writing little stories and things, but to watch it on film and how much of that moment is visual how much of it is the acting and where the camera is.

And I don't even know, I don't understand that when I'm, so when I'm watching this movie I was in high school I understood it somewhere inside of me. I understood that this they had created this thing with the incredible Meryl Streep, of course. I mean, I could literally, if for today's show, just name every Meryl Streep movie and be like those.

Right. I mean, come on. Right. Let's just let's just do Meryl Streep members. Kramer versus Kramer, the French lieutenant's woman. Silkwood out of Africa. Cry in the dark. All of them. All of them have deeply impacted me in terms of stories and the stories I want to tell. Death becomes her. Yes. Well, she does fun things, too.

Postcards from the Edge. I love that movie. Postcards from the Edge. Why not? Right. Carrie Fisher telling the story of her and her mother. It's Meryl Streep. You know, and Meryl Streep's choices are always very attuned to me and why I like to tell stories, all the humanity she's bringing up inside of people and their their complexity.

And plus, let's talk about Sophie's Choice. It's an adaptation. I love books. I love adaptations. It's history. I love history. You know, it's a third person telling her story because he's trying to figure out what is happened to this woman. What happened? It's like this mystery. What happened to her? What happened?

Who's drawing you through with all these threads? What happened? What happened? And then you find out and you're like, I kind of wish I didn't know, which is the point. Do you really want to know what happened? Because most of us don't, most of us turn a blind eye and we want to forget what happened. In World War II.

We want to forget, right? Oh, now Florida's rewriting history. Sorry, but I'm going to say it. But this movie is all about, yes, you can't forget. She's carrying it for everybody because it happened to her. You carry, you know, let, let her be by all of us, you know, confronting what happened to her. So it's really about, to me, it's not about, there are terrible bad guys in Sophie's Choice.

Terrible, terrible bad guys, but it is still about humanity, right? And for me, it really became about point of view. And, you know, this movie made me want to go into film. I no way was ready to say I want to be a writer, right? What that film accomplished is beyond my comprehension of ever accomplishing still honestly today, but it's worth, but I never would have thought I could have written, but I wanted to be part of it somehow, some way, could I hold somebody's purse while they go do something like, what can I do?

To, in order to be part of this. And it kind of started to draw me towards that direction. I became a screenwriting major in college, but then I. But eventually went back because eventually in the late 80s and early 90s, there are these movies that are coming that really started to make me go back to my first love, which is film.

I was in advertising, but suddenly Steel Magnolias, Dead Poets Society, Field of Dreams. Comes out in one year. The next year, Awakenings comes out and Ghost and Dances with Wolves, which I, some people hate, I love, and Jacob's Ladder all come out in the same year. Signs of the Lambs and Thelma and Louise come out in the same year.

Like they are just this juggernaut of human stories. Told in all different tones, ensemble, you know, all, all different ways. Broad, for Genron's like Field of Dreams or Ghost, right? Dance of the Wolves or really beautiful, tiny movies that I don't know if people have seen and they should see, like Awakenings, I Will Cry, just thinking about that movie.

But they're all asking questions about the humanity and who we are. And all of them, from Sophie's Choice to all the movies I just named are about connection, right? And can we get back to connection? And almost all of them that I just named, not all of them, but they're fleeting connections. It doesn't mean you're going to connect forever and it's not going to make everything better.

But even if you can just have the, a moment of deep connection and seeing each other and recognizing and appreciating and respecting and being with each other in the most sacred way, that's worth it. Even if then that connection moves on. And to me, that's what movies can do to an audience. Right. Like we as writers can create that feeling of connection and that if you are not alone, right, that feeling of you are not alone, that human feeling of you are not alone.

People feel what you feel. You're not the first person to be here. That gives you such a sense of relief. Right. And and so that's what I wanted to do. Right. I wanted to help create. Those movies, and I first did it by being a producer with Jodi, and I think the movie that switched me over to, I might need to be a writer which is funny, because then when I was on the press tour for Inside Out, I did the Hollywood Roundtable, and they asked this question, and this is the movie I used then, right, because I've shifted, you're shifting, right, and you're getting braver, and okay, now I'm going to step out even further we, Jodi, I, and Stuart Kleiman, and I think Julie Bergman was still there, and some executives from her company.

There was a new filmmaker coming out of Australia. They had an early print for us to see. I remember we all drove over to Century City to sit in this little tiny theater, and they were going to show it to us because we want, they want us to get to know this new director coming. And it's the piano, which it's Jane Campion's piano, the piano.

And I, I couldn't even stand up at the end of that movie. I, the lights went up and we all just sat there what just happened to us? What just happened to us? It was so profound. Talk about an early, for me, I'm sure in terms of feminist terms, there's many more movies before that. But for me, for a female director to tell that story was.

You know, in a weird way, a precursor to Barbie. It's, it's, it's the filmmaker. It's the, it's the dramatic version of it, right? It's the and just, you know, the scene now there's a spoiler. So jump 30 seconds if you don't want to know, but you know, the scene, it's the movie is so amazing in the way that it takes.

And this is what I'm honest, you guys, it's what I'm trying to do with this passion project. It takes these what seemingly disparate storylines and stories. They're all put together, all these people, but given what they all want, who they are, the context of the world and the time that they're in that just that whole context around them, there is this sense of inevitable tragedy that's coming, that this isn't going to end well because none of them are going to get off the train they're on, right?

If any one of them just stopped at any minute and said, No, I'm going to shift. I'm not. But they're not going to. And the imagery that she's doing to forewarn you of what's coming. And so that moment where, you know, he cuts her finger off, it's so feels so inevitable. And it's such it's such a violation, obviously, of her body.

But it's her voice. She doesn't talk. She only plays the piano. That's and he's trying to own her and take her. It's just and just Sam kneels. Horribleness and heartbreak, even as he does it, right? Because he's such a great actor. The pain that he's in, the the horribleness of what he's doing, all coming together in that moment.

It's funny because in the Hollywood Roundtable, I mentioned this scene and I said, it's really hard for you to say what words are on the page, because. Everything has to come together for that to work. Right. But somebody did write they wrote that. Right. They wrote the plotting to that moment. They know what they're writing.

They know this is the moment. This is the worst thing you could do to her. And she is culpable some part of herself for because she didn't get off her track either. Right. Again, I'm not saying she's culpable for him picking, you know, chopping her finger off, but all of them are part of it. They're all part of it.

So I just I love the inevitability of it. What the filmmaker was talking about, how she was using every aspect of that film. To say what she wanted to say, the culmination of it and that, after that movie, I, I couldn't say I walked out of there saying, I want to be a writer, but if I try to now look back when it started to move, I think it started to move there because again, there I am, history, women, voices, blah, blah, blah, that I wanted to be closer to that.

Right. I wanted to be more of a creator. I was a creator and that I was producing. I was helping other people tell their stories. But I wanted to have my own voice. That is a movie about voice. Right. And wanting to live. You know, the penultimate action she takes. Right. Is it this choice to live? Right. It's funny because now that I'm saying this right now today, Sophie's choice is not that choice, right?

So it's wanting to tell those stories, specifically women's stories and and what it, the experience of that, but just the experience of being human. And that somehow when we tell the authentic story of being human, we can touch other people and connect to them and let them feel not alone, right?

That is what I wanted to do. Right. And these are some of the movies that did that for me and helped move me into trying it myself. So as

Lorien McKenna: you were talking, I was like, Oh wait, my three stories must have some connection like that. Right. And I was like, Oh, at the end of angels in America, Harper leaves Joe to start his new life in San Francisco with a little bit of hope, right?

He walks away from love. At the end of Shakespeare in Love, she doesn't walk away from love, but he does. I mean, they, they don't get to be together and she starts a new life and, but walks away, moves away from love to start a new life. And then Blair Witch is, they're just dead in a corner somewhere, presumably, right?

So I'm like, Oh, okay. What is my fear?

Meg LeFauve: That's the darkest, bleakest version of your, of what could happen.

Lorien McKenna: Yeah, but, but they, but they set themselves up to do that, right? They go on that trip, they go into the woods, they get themselves stuck in that trap and it's all through their own fear and terror, you know, like they're terrorizing each other about what could happen essentially.

I mean, this is how they shot the movie, right? They were literally being terrorized by the film crew. And I'm thinking, oh, that's. That's the piece that I'm missing in what I'm writing right now is the choice. I write a lot about what if it's like being stuck. Should I stay? Should I go? Do I love him? Do I not love him?

And I was like, Oh, it's not quite there sometimes because I haven't made them make the choice. of walking away from love to start a new life. And I'm like, maybe I've been driving towards that. That'll be the end of the season one. But I'm like, oh, what if I start there? Jesus. Right. I'm not going to go back and rewrite anything.

Meg LeFauve: But no, but this is a writing exercise. Have her start there and see what happens. But just

Lorien McKenna: as a sort of where I've been, the things I've done in my life, these huge leaps I've made. Right. I'm going to walk away from teaching. I'm going to go work at Pixar. I'm going to walk away from Pixar, which I loved. I loved teaching.

Walked away from it for this new thing. Loved Pixar. Walked away from it to move to LA. Right. So, it's It's this thing I do and I, and it's terrifying because I feel like I'm, it's more about that I'm walking away from instead of to, and which is why right now I'm probably like, I'm just going to move to Italy.

Meg LeFauve: Right? You are walking to, but you are walking to. Right. But hear what you said. It's not about walking away. It's about walking to.

Lorien McKenna: Right. Right. But my point of view right now, because I'm stuck is I'm walking. away, escape, instead of taking the powerful narrative choice of I'm walking towards the problem is that I don't that big want I was talking about is I don't know what I'm walking toward.

So I'm in that terrible, terrified fork in the road, right? But I'm realizing it's in those movies. And that's maybe speaks to more what I connected to. And then the other stuff blossomed out of like language and theater and my own ridiculous snobbery, which you don't have to have, you know, and, but it also, it was walking, being able to walk something I love, but not walking away from plays in order to love and embrace screenwriting, right.

That I can bring my love of theater to my love of.

Meg LeFauve: They didn't have to fully walk away. Right. You thought you had to walk away, but you didn't have to walk away, walking

Lorien McKenna: away. It's bringing it with you. Right.

Meg LeFauve: Because you were gathering. You were gathering. Viola gets to

Lorien McKenna: be in love and now she's going to go have this new adventure where, but she's going to take that with her as horrible as her new life is probably going to be.

But like I, I, I, yeah. And I'm just realizing, oh my God, I learned so much on the show about myself and my own writing and then I have to hold onto it somehow. Right. Like how so. But it's about that. That I'm in the bottom of the second act, I feel like, you know, so I, I instead of running from post midpoint, I have to figure out what it is I'm going to and act three and feels real sticky right now, but Okay, here I am.

And in that. Storytelling space again, right? And Meg, you're yours is so lovely and beautiful about the human condition. I'm like, I'm going to run away. I'm a runner.

Meg LeFauve: Well, we're all runners. Believe me, we all run. We all run. It took a lot for me not to run out of the out of the deli or to say, you know, let's talk about, you know, that new stove that we need instead of this story.

You know, we really need a stove, right? I mean, we can't be

Lorien McKenna: vulnerable, right? I mean, it's being vulnerable. It's being vulnerable to these movies and these stories. Right. And sometimes they hit. Sometimes they hit and sometimes they don't and then you go back years later and you watch it and you're like, oh, I just wasn't ready to appreciate this movie, you know, so I think too I mean, it's what we talk about all the time, being vulnerable, making yourself available for your issue, pain and lava and other people's too, right?

Meg LeFauve: And maybe sometimes you meaning a person, a writer is down inside and you're starting to feel that lava rise and you don't know what to do, do 10 things and we'll see which one you resist the most. Yeah. You know, not the one that you're like, Oh, like that's all rump, comforting, cozy. No. Which one like made you like, I literally, when my husband was like, or what if she stayed?

I was like, Oh, Oh, wow. We have to do

Lorien McKenna: that. That's been said. I always used to joke that that was a lot of my career at Pixar. People would come over and be like, Oh, we want to give you this promotion. No. I'm happy where I am, right? Oh, you should do this. No. And I've been doing this thing about directing my whole, no.

No, I'm never going to direct. I had a rant about it this weekend. Oh, well now. Oh my gosh, you guys. And I was on the phone call with someone today and I was like, I'll direct that. Shit.

Meg LeFauve: Shit. What am I talking about? Now we know.

Lorien McKenna: But I, but I sort of like have been resisting

Meg LeFauve: this. Oh, but I don't know what I want to run towards.

I don't know. I don't know. Hmm. What could it be? What could it be? You literally just told us. I don't know. It's all sticky and I don't know what I want to run towards. I mean, this week I said I might direct something, but oh my God.

Lorien McKenna: I'm not, I'm just not bossy enough to be a non kidding. I know directors

Meg LeFauve: are bossy.

I do. I do. I protest. No, that's not

Lorien McKenna: true at all. Oh, I'm 100% kidding. I'm too bossy as a director. So, okay, fine. Fine. I'll send you my copay . No, you've said it. I'm gonna take it back and I'm going to direct the movie I wrote. How about that? There

Meg LeFauve: you go. I love that. I love that. There you go. Yeah,

Lorien McKenna: that sounds super easy.

Jess directing your own movie that you wrote is easy, right?

Jeffrey Crane Graham: If you No, but I, I'm joking. It's interesting. Well, it is interesting because I had the exact same thing and I was. So resistant to it because of fear. Yeah. And, I don't know, I've, I've always felt like you'd make an amazing Director, Lorien. I mean, you also understand actors, that's a huge part of it, because you were one, you know?

That's a huge part of directing, is just having empathy for the people in front of the camera. I'm

Lorien McKenna: gonna direct my movie. There we go. See? If I'm sure our listeners are having similar experiences, and I wish they could come on and talk with us in the same way oh,

Meg LeFauve: they can on the Patreon, you know,

Jeffrey Crane Graham: on the page.

Come check us out over there if you want to talk back. Yes. Yeah.

Lorien McKenna: Well, I thought this was a great episode of skeptical at first, I have to say no offense, potty, but I, I feel like it has transformed my life. So thank you. Thank you, buddy. Oh, yay.

Jeffrey Crane Graham: It was really fun to get to hear. It's fun when you get to hear writers you really respect talk about what they love.

You know, there's something humanizing about remembering that whoever you have on whatever pedestal you may have, they nerd out and dork out about movies too. You know, that's kind of what we do and that's the, that's like the juice of our business, right? That's the magic of it. So it's a good reminder that even if someone seems unattainably far in terms of what they've built in terms of their career They were like a nerdy film dork, just like you are listening one one time, and they probably still are, you know, and that's it's important to remind ourselves of that, I think.

I hope you're

Meg LeFauve: a film dork or a TV dork, because that's what you're going to be doing. And you need to know

Lorien McKenna: what you're doing, but you're going to be in TV. You must go watch old and classic TV shows, because when you dig into what inspired TV shows, it's a lot of other TV shows that

Meg LeFauve: You got to go watch.

All right. So, yeah, let's do that. Let's take your three favorite TV shows. Look at the showrunners. Ask Chat GPT what inspired, you know, what TV shows inspired that showrunner and just start looking at the influences coming up through time. You know, nobody's nobody's creating in a vacuum like we're not.

We're all watching things and they're amalgamating and coming together and, and reforming and reaching and changing and evolving. Right. So, yeah, it's not like we, you know, people drop out of the sky and they're like, ta da, genius. Right. Everybody's, everybody's. Speak for yourself, Megalophones. Sorry.

Other than Lorraine McKenna, of course. All right. Thanks so much for joining us on today's show. Let us know your biggest inspirations on the Facebook group. That would be super fun. Oh yeah.

Lorien McKenna: It would. And if you haven't joined, you should check into the Facebook group. We're having lots of conversations about craft and emotional writing.

And occasionally I pop in and admit something really embarrassing about myself. So look for

Meg LeFauve: that. And I like to post crazy memes. About writing. We've also got our Patreon going on as we mentioned in the show. We are, I mean, I thought the last Patreon was amazing in terms of I got so much out of it for my own show.

Just of us trying to figure out what is going on. Why isn't this working? What is TV? What is TV? But I thought the three ideas were all really great and they were very inspiring in terms of really fun to work on and. So, come on over because it's really, really fun and we're really getting, you know, cooking over there.

For us. Do it for

Lorien McKenna: us so we can learn more. How about that? Yeah, exactly. How about that? And remember, you are not alone and keep writing.