As we come closer to the Academy Awards, THR has released their newest roundtable, this week focusing on the screenwriters. Included in the discussion are Oscar nominees Paul Schrader (“First Reformed”), Peter Farrelly (“Green Book”), and Eric Roth (“A Star is Born”), in addition to John Krasinski (“A Quiet Place”), Tamara Jenkins (“Private Life”), and Bo Burnham (“Eighth Grade”).
READ MORE: Watch: 2.5 Hour DGA Conversation With 2019’s Best Director Oscar Nominees
The roundtable, of course, moves through a number of topics, including why many got into directing, advice for other writers, their influences and the worst notes they’ve ever gotten, with Schrader being the most open and revealing the ups and downs that go along with the process.
While discussing that writing process, however, Jenkins and Roth agree in the solitude needed to be a successful writer. For Roth, “I write from a place of loneliness and a little bit of depression. So my things would necessarily have a tragic element, even if I don’t want that.” Jenkins feels the same way as she, “feel[s] connected to depression, and it’s always driving me into sitting there by myself and writing.”
Schrader, who just received his first Oscar nomination ever and became famous off of his scripts for Scorsese films, realized, “I did four scripts with Scorsese and on the fourth one I could tell this would be the last because I was thinking like a director now – there were two directors in the room, and one was calling himself a writer. I realized, I’m going to retain my friendship with Marty – I’ve known him all my life – but I could feel the friction.
For influences, Burnham cites “A Woman Under the Influence‘ and John Cassavetes. The way that people speak to each other feels like they are not only surprising the view, they are surprising themselves.”
For Krasinki, “The Verdict’ for me is the seminal movie. I grew up very Catholic, and there was this idea of redemption that felt more spiritual than actual religious teaching.”
The worst note that Jenkins ever got was for her first film, as she says, “I was at the Sundance Lab when I wrote my first movie, ‘The Slums of Beverly Hills,’ and you do a mentor session where they tell you what they think. And this man, a male screenwriter, incredibly successful, sat me down and said: ‘You can’t start a movie with a girl getting fitted for a bra. You can’t waste five pages with a girl getting her first bra.” She, of course, kept the scene in.
In regards to advice for other writers, Farrelly notes, “In grad school, we had a master class with John Irving. I remember him telling me this one thing that stuck with me. He writes 900-page novels and he says he’ll never bring a novel until he knows the last sentence. Exactly the opposite way that I write.”
Schrader, on the other hand, tells “young writers, ‘Don’t confuse screenwriting with writing. Screenwriting is part of the oral tradition, it’s not part of the literary tradition.”
Roth agrees, saying, “It’s really a bastardized form, screenwriting. You’re not a novelist.” Check out the entire discussion below.