I think you’ve misunderstood me. I’m referring to the industry standard in which a script is physically laid out on the page.
Oh, I see. When I give the script to the typist, she has a program in her computer that makes the script come out in its finished form. I don’t do it. I send it out to a typist.
Screenwriters are often treated with disdain, aren’t they? They provide the blueprint for the movie, but their work is routinely rewritten by other screenwriters. Then a director is attached to the project and brings his or her own writer onboard, who then proceeds to deliver yet another draft or polish.
Screenwriters are never treated with the respect they deserve. It’s hard for any writer to maintain his or her dignity and enthusiasm when you are faced with such ruthlessness and duplicity. Writers are often shut out of the production — when their input can not only be valuable but crucial to the success of a movie. It’s always the final film that ends up suffering in terms of the overall quality and consistency. A lot of times, these movies turn out to be absolute pieces of junk! I mean, look at the pictures I’ve written that have been made in the last ten years. One has been worse than the other. Oh, they are just absolutely awful! Messages Deleted turned out to be terrible; Captivity was a nightmare it was so bad; the ones that were directed by Mark Lester, The Ex and Misbegotten, were also very poor. All of those scripts were infinitely superior to what was eventually realized on screen. And, of course, your name is on the film as the writer. You are then associated with them in perpetuity and you are blamed for these things: “Yeah, it’s his fault this is a shallow, irredeemable piece of trash!” You know, I almost feel sorry for these guys — the Mark Lesters of the world — because they get a good piece of material and they simply don’t have the ability to bring it to the screen without fucking it up. Nearly every single picture has just been a total subversion and perversion of my original script. On every project, they took a great screenplay and systemically made a lousy movie out of it. What can you do? You write these things — and I can be perfectly honest with you and say I did them all for the money. As soon as I sell these scripts, I know that my authority and control over them is finished. I can then only hope and pray that they will make a good movie out of it. Unfortunately, in most cases, that’s yet to really happen.
Is the secret to completely disassociate emotionally as a means of protecting yourself? To understand that this is simply the way the machinery works?
I don’t know. It can be extremely painful watching something you’ve created be transformed into a steaming turd. When you have a whole succession of movies that have been ruined — like I have — it can be tough. Knowing how the business works certainly doesn’t lessen that anguish. In fact, it only increases it. But you know what? I don’t get dispirited. I just keep cashing the cheques, one after the other, and I try to forget about it. If perchance the picture gets made, then I can lament how poorly it was done. I do have the freedom to condemn them. Things like Captivity, which, as I keep telling you, is a piece of shit, have been totally ruined. You just have to try and put that disappointment in its place. It’s not always easy, but you do it.
One thing that has been most welcome is the publishing of screenplays as books for readers to enjoy. This can sometimes allow people to see what a script was in its original form, particularly if it’s been greatly altered for better or for worse.
Yes, that is something I like very much — the fact that people can read an original screenplay and still get a lot of enjoyment out of it. In fact, some of my unpublished screenplays, like The Man Who Loved Hitchcock, are available on my website, larrycohenfilmmaker.com. There is something on there I call “Movies for Your Imagination.” I have this idea that movies are basically dreaming with your eyes open, and I invite people to share in my dreams. “Movies For Your Imagination” basically informs people that there are ten wonderful screenplays available on the website for free that they can enjoy. You can read them and imagine your favorite actors playing the characters. You can even play your favorite movie music as you go through the scenes. You can read the pages aloud with your friends playing the various characters and have a lot of fun imagining the locations and special effects. In fact, you can do everything with these scripts but publish and produce them! But those ten screenplays are works that I’m extremely proud of. I would even say that the scripts featured on my website are far better than any movie you will currently see in the theater.
Do you think by making those screenplays available on the Internet you’ve made it difficult for them to ever get made?
I don’t understand why it would be harder to get them made. I mean, there’s a big difference between reading a script and going to the theater to see a movie. Those are two entirely different experiences. It’s like saying that if a book is published, you wouldn’t be able to make a movie out of it later on. Of course, publishing a book very often incites interest in making the movie. People already know the story, but they want to see it realized on the big screen. How many times have you heard the words: “You’ve read the book — now see the movie!” That was the old saying they used to have emblazoned on the advertisements. In my case, maybe it should be: “You’ve read the script — now why wouldn’t you want to go see the movie?”
Earlier, you said that you enjoy “all kinds of writing.” I suppose this is as good a time as any to discuss the theater plays that you have written throughout your career. What was the first play you had performed on stage?
The first play I did was in 1970 and that was The Nature of the Crime. It had Tony Lo Bianco, Robert F. Simon, and a lot of other very good actors in it and was directed by Lonny Chapman, who wasn’t a very good director. It was about a nuclear physicist, who refuses to give up his ideas and discoveries to the government. The government then puts him on trial, claiming that his mind is government property. That was the one I told you about which was based on an earlier television show I had written called “The Secret.” The play was adapted directly from that episode after I had bought the rights back from Herbert Brodkin. It’s interesting but when I was casting The Nature of the Crime, I originally tried to get a young actor named Al Pack-i-no for the role. When I called Mr. Pack-i-no up to discuss it, he actually corrected me and said his name was Al Pacino! Anyway, he was doing Panic in Needle Park at the time and couldn’t commit, so my next choice was Tony Lo Bianco. The Nature of the Crime then became the second-longest off-Broadway play — serious play — of the year, but it didn’t do that well. It played something like eight weeks, but even then it was still the second-longest off-Broadway play. I do recall that the first-longest off-Broadway play that year was [The Effect of Gamma Rays on] Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds. [1]
Was Motive then your second play?
Yes, I believe it was. I wrote Motive after The Nature of the Crime. That play was mounted over in England during the time I lived there in the mid-1970s. It starred Honor Blackman, George Cole, and Ian Hendry. Motive was first performed at Guilford’s Yvonne Arnaud Theatre. We then went on tour with it around England and it played at a number of different theaters. That production had an excellent cast, but I do remember that Ian Hendry was drinking all the time. He was a nice fellow, but he always had a bottle in his pocket. George Cole was also nice. At the beginning of the show, the actors weren’t too friendly. They were all being directed by Val May, who was the manager of the Guildford Theater. When the play went out on tour, Val remained in Guilford and didn’t go with us. So, I said to the actors, “Would you mind if I redirected some of the scenes?” They said they didn’t mind at all. I then came in and started having rehearsals and began redirecting the play. The cast all responded favourably, and Motive got better as we toured around with it. Later on, Honor Blackman didn’t perform the play in Ireland and some other areas, and her part was done by Carroll Baker. Carroll had famously appeared in Baby Doll. [2] She’d been a Hollywood star, playing Jean Harlow and things like that. Then, we toured the United States with Motive
and once again had a very nice cast. The American version starred Craig Stevens, who had played Peter Gun in the popular television series, Elizabeth Allen, and John Randolph. Another excellent group of people.
Was the American incarnation of Motive more successful than the British one?
No, it was about the same. It toured for a few months before closing.
You then did Motive on Broadway as Trick, which I understand was performed in February 1979.
Trick was a thriller that starred Tammy Grimes. Tammy was quite a formidable lady — very intelligent and dedicated — and a wonderful actress. She had a very studious and meticulous approach to her work, which I respected. The overriding memory I have of Tammy from those days is the amount of questions she would constantly ask me. She seemed to have a question for every page we turned and every piece of dialogue. I remember on the first day of rehearsals, she was stopping on every line and asking me a question about this and that. I wasn’t exactly used to that level of scrutiny, but I answered every single question she threw at me. By the time that first day was over, Tammy had a fix on her character and the story and she never once asked me another question. She was incredibly attentive and co-operative, and I never had a single problem with her. What Tammy had been doing that first day was probing me and testing me. She wanted to know if I was as smart as I thought I was. What she didn’t realize is that whenever I was incapable of answering one of her questions, I simply made an answer up! [Chuckles] But that was another good cast right there.
Trick co-starred Donald Madden and Lee Richardson and you famously joined a performance of the play one night after Richardson took ill. You must have often been asked about that night?
Well, it’s one of those incredible evenings in my life. It was Tammy’s idea that I should play Lee Richardson’s part. I would never have dreamed of such a thing happening, but there I was, making my Broadway debut. If I’d have gotten a chance to think about it, I probably wouldn’t have done it. As it was, I had the script in my hand as I performed, but I didn’t look at it all that much. I knew the lines because I had written and rehearsed them. I managed to struggle my way through the performance and even got a few laughs, but I had no desire to repeat the experience. I do remember that at one point my character was killed by Donald Madden’s character and I accidentally dropped the script on the stage. As we played the scene, Donald then had to drag my corpse behind the couch so Tammy’s character wouldn’t see it. As he did this, I whispered, “Donald, get the script! Get the script!” So, he went back, scooped up the script, and hid it behind the couch. Well, the audience saw all this and just roared with laughter. It was a wonderful moment, actually. It could have been disastrous, but it turned out to be the highlight of the evening. Trick got some pretty good reviews, I must say. It was all set to have a decent run but, unfortunately, we then we ran into the winter — heavy snowing and vicious blizzards every single day. It was very hard for the audience to get to the theater, so we eventually decided that we’d had enough, and Trick closed. I then went back to Hollywood because I had other things to do. I wanted to make some real money.
Washington Heights was your next play, which was first performed in 1987.
Yeah, that was several years after Motive. Washington Heights played in New York at what they call The Jewish Repertory Theater. That was a semi-autobiographical play about growing up during World War II in Washington Heights. That played for about eight weeks and got a good audience because they sold the production out in advance to subscribers. The Jewish Repertory was a subscription theater and whenever Washington Heights was playing, they came to see it because they had bought group tickets, things like that. We did very well with that play. Although I don’t really have a favorite of the plays I’ve written — as I think all the plays had something good in them — I do feel Washington Heights is the closest to my heart because it was about me as a child. It was a nice play, and I wish we had gotten more performances of it. There was some talk of doing it out here in Los Angeles. We’ll see what happens.
More recently, you wrote a play called Fallen Eagle. Is that the Charles Lindbergh project you once planned to do as a movie?
Yeah. We did Fallen Eagle at The Sanford Meisner Theater in Burbank around 2009, I think, after also doing the stage play of Captivity here in Los Angeles. It was a biographical play about Charles Lindbergh, the famous American aviator and explorer. Fallen Eagle was received alright and ran for about five weeks, but I had to cast it out of The Sanford Meisner Acting School. As a result of that, some of the casting wasn’t very good, so it wasn’t the best possible production. I did direct Fallen Eagle, but I wasn’t happy with many of the performances. I’m afraid we kind of just went through the motions on that one, but I am happy that we did it. I once talked to Oliver Stone about the possibility of his directing the Lindbergh movie, but nothing ever came of it. Of course, it would have been a period film, and they can be difficult to make — and very expensive! It could be done now by recreating the backgrounds digitally with digital effects, but it’s not quite the same as photographing the real environment. You just don’t get that tactile reality when you use digital effects. But Fallen Eagle is another script that is available to read on my website.
Can you talk about the differences, challenges, and benefits of writing theater plays as opposed to writing teleplays and screenplays?
Well, one of the rewards of the theater is you can go there and see the audience reaction every night, and then, afterwards, make revisions and adjustments to the play. You can write new scenes, makes cuts, and change the dialogue, so the play is essentially a living, breathing, functioning entity. A play allows you to gauge the audience reaction directly and intimately; and by integrating that reaction into the actual production you are doing something that is nearly impossible in movies — not unless you make a sequel. That’s kind of fun and uniquely challenging in its own way, because the theater offers a writer a continuous and evolving process. I should also say that directing a play is much easier than directing a film because you don’t have to deal with the camera, the lighting, the microphones, and all the other technical problems you encounter. You don’t have to deal with planes flying overhead and other disruptive background noise; the actors all know their lines as you go through it and the only difficult time for me on a play is the tech day. That’s the day when you first put the lighting in and the scene changes, etc. On a two-hour play, it probably takes twelve hours to do that day because the technical requirements have to be done. You have to stop and go, stop and go, stop and go, so the tech day is very much like working on a movie. A movie literally consists of eighteen or twenty or thirty days of tech days, which are even more exhausting. So, making a play is a lot easier.
Do you plan on writing any more plays in the near future?
You never know. Actually, that’s not a bad idea. There’s not much money in doing these plays, so writing them is really just a matter of personal satisfaction.
As opposed to the big bucks you can earn writing screenplays.
Absolutely. I mean, it’s an entirely different ballgame. Right now, I’m writing scripts that people pay me a million dollars for. So, if you can get somebody to give you a million dollars for a script, I’d say you might as well sell it to them and go ahead and write another one, and another one, and another one. It’s a much easier and profitable life being a screenwriter than it is being a playwright. Actually, it’s a much easier life being a writer than it is being a director — or a writer-director. The rewards are better and your stress levels are not quite so high. After I wrote Phone Booth, I got a great number of screenplay assignments and sold a great number of scripts. Some of them have been made and some of them were bought, but they never made the picture because they ran out of money. I’m hoping that some of these scripts I’ve written recently do eventually get made because they are very good scripts. I just keep on writing more and more of them. I actually sold two scripts last year, and neither of them
has been made, but they sold, and I was paid, and the money is in the bank. So far this year, I’ve turned out at least three new scripts. They are out there in the marketplace and we’re still only in May. I think we’ll sell one or two of them, so there’s a certain satisfaction in selling your scripts and knowing that people are still buying my material. I will continue to write screenplays, and if something else arouses my interest, like a play, then I’ll write a new play. It’s as simple as that.
Methodology, Movies & Madness
You are a fiercely independent director, but do you see yourself as belonging to or coming from any particular tradition or movement of American filmmaking?
I don’t really understand what that means. Yes, there was an era back in the late 1960s and early ‘70s, when a lot of young filmmakers were coming up and they were the so-called “Movie Brats.” I don’t include myself with them because they did a lot of big studio work. I suppose that would be the likes of Spielberg, Scorsese, Coppola, and Lucas, some of whom went to film school and were familiar with the history of movies both in Hollywood and in Europe. Then there are the “horror guys” — another group I’m sometimes included with by some people. You know, directors like John Carpenter and Tobe Hooper, all the usual suspects. Speaking for myself, I’ve never been part of any movement whatsoever. I am my own movement. I just did my own thing and that was it. That’s probably the best thing about me. I never once thought that I belonged to any tradition or school of filmmaking.
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