I've been very fortunate with my three spec scripts - which is sort of my thematic trilogy of the American Frontier. With 'Sicario', 'Hell or High Water' and then 'Wind River' - which is the third - there were no rewrites. It was the first draft for all three.
A lot of scripts that I was given I didn't feel were right for me, because I didn't feel anything for them - I didn't feel like I was going to change in life and start directing.
I never learned to be a writer. I never took screenwriting courses. I never read anyone's scripts. As a writer, my only guiding principle has been to write about things that scare me, write about things that make me feel vulnerable, write about things that will expose my deepest fears, so that's how I write.
Work harder than everybody. Read scripts, watch movies. Help other writers, it makes you better. And probably move to L.A.
My screenwriting credits in my career are probably not dissimilar to some other ones in the sense that a lot of the scripts you write don't get made, and the ones that do get made are certainly - as a writer, they're not your vision.
I look at scripts, and sometimes I apply theory to them. For 'Antiviral,' for example, I was reading Laura Mulvey's 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,' and it was all about the psychological process by which we fetishize the female image. It's all about scopophilia.
I'd get scripts and think: 'What's the point of this?'
Hundreds of people who've never written before send in 'Dr. Who' scripts. They may have good ideas, but what they fail to realise is that writing for TV is incredibly complicated. They have no idea how difficult it is and what the financial commitment is.
Reading scripts or commercial copy isn't a problem for me, so I can really focus on the acting instead of it being secondary.
I read a lot of bad scripts and weird television shows. I don't know. There's a lot of work out there I was reading at 14 years old and noticing this lack of thought. And then, reading 'Afterschool,' that's full of thought. It was bursting with ideas.
I really like questions. I like people who write scripts because they're asking questions, not because they're giving answers. It's something that I look for.
I've got a room full of scripts. They go to the ceiling. I can't even hardly walk into it anymore. Most are original, and there are some adaptations like 'Man's Fate.'
People are calling a lot, sending scripts my way. Yes, it's wonderful because, let's face it, there aren't many wonderful scripts for women over the age of 10.
I most enjoyed doing 'Whites,' a show BBC2 cancelled after one series. It had some beautiful, witty, charming scripts and was one of the most positive ensemble pieces I've done. I thought the end result was really special. I'm still confused about why it didn't last longer.
I was always writing scripts, and I had made several shorts, before and after film school. But I worked a variety of temp positions over the years.
Sometimes I feel like doing smaller budget stuff. When I did 'Young Adam', for instance, I'd come out of 'Black Hawk Down' and 'The Island', and I really wanted to be on a small film set. I wanted to be on something intimate and small again, and then 'Young Adam' cropped up in a pile of scripts I was sent.
I like scripts. I spend a lot of time writing them.
It is a difficult one, as you get scripts where women are just objects.
I really respond to human scripts, scripts that are raw and real and risky. I love playing scary characters - not horror film scary, but vulnerable scary.
I feel like I work on scripts for comedy as well as dramatic stuff the same.
The problem with independent films is that they can be hit or miss. I've seen scripts that have blown me away. But there have to be all the right ingredients in place to make them work: the director, cast, publicity, distribution.
I have an idealistic approach to acting. I want to be great at it, but you can't be great if the scripts are not there and the director doesn't know what he's doing.
For me, movies and television are interesting because they are the dominant storytelling form of our time. My first love will always be fiction, and especially novels, but I'm a writer... I write poetry and essays and criticism and I'd love to write a whole play, and sometimes I even write scripts.
'Carrie Diaries' was one of the scripts that was sent my way, and it was instantly something I wanted to work on. It was very charming, and there's a lot of heart to it. It was touching and nostalgic and relatable, and it validates so many coming-of-age issues in an open and honest way. I think it speaks to real life.
'Justified' had such dead-on beautiful scripts that you didn't want to mess with it.
Females want other females to be really strong, so there are a whole lot of scripts that are basically just male parts renamed as a girl.
I was reading scripts, doing coverage, for CAA. Reading hundreds and hundreds of scripts across the board, from blind submissions to 'Brokeback Mountain'. It was not always a pleasant task but something, in hindsight, I'm glad I did.
The Hollywood model is to develop scripts for 10 years, sell them, transfer them, attach this actor, then attach a director. This isn't what I'm about. I'm much more of a creator and a doer.
I think sometimes soap acting gets an unfair label for being bad and over the top. The lessons I learned there were so valuable. Seeing yourself every day on television, you learned what worked and didn't work, what was bad acting and what wasn't. Memorizing scripts became second nature.
'Criminal Intent' scripts are very good. Like others involved in 'Law & Order' stuff, I've come to appreciate the lack of 'soap,' if you will. The story dominates. You don't spend a lot of time with the psychological underpinnings of the police.
For the moment, whenever I read, it is normally scripts. You start a book and then you think, 'I should be reading these five scripts.'
There are a lot of considerations that come into play when you craft one of these 'Saw' scripts, and there's only so much you can put into them.
In 1998, the acting roles suddenly bottomed out. I was no longer getting scripts; even my agent stopped calling. When I finally got him on the phone to ask him what was going on, he paused, then said: 'Well, Christine, you're 45.' I got rid of him.
I read as many scripts as I can and just find stuff that I think is interesting, find stories that I think are worth telling.
I have always been attracted to good scripts and try hard to make characters as believable as possible. That means trying to figure out how they would react to situations, what they eat, think, and feel.
Out of every 10 scripts I get sent, seven are fairly generic about an American guy who gets the girl and is involved in underground espionage activity.
