Got a spec that was picked up recently for tomorrow’s review. I have a script from an Oscar winner that’s gone unmade for seven years which some people have called “amazing.” I have a recently sold thriller that’s landed one of Hollywood’s newest stars. I also have a script that’s reuniting some Hollywood legends. Gear up and get ready. It should be a fun week. Now here’s Roger with a script from Johnathan Lemkin.
Genre: Thriller
Premise: Jane Whitefield is a one-woman witness protection program who engineers the disappearance of people who are in danger. When the Las Vegas mafia hires a psychotic couple who use everything from sex games to attack dogs to track her down, she’s forced to leave her fiancé not only to protect her client, but to protect her new family.
About: From the Hollywood Reporter: “The project originated from a series of novels by author Thomas Perry that trace the fictional life and experiences of [Jane] Whitefield. Those novels include ‘Shadow Woman’ –- understood to be the basis for the film –- ‘Vanishing Act’, ‘Dance for the Dead’, ‘A Taste of Strawberries’, ‘The Face-Changers’ and ‘Blood Money’. Several writers have had their hand in the adaptation, including Jonathan Lemkin, Graham Yost, Ron Koslow, Elizabeth Chandler and Cynthia Mort.” Producer Mark Gordon and Paramount Pictures were courting Halle Berry for the role of Whitefield. You may recognize Lemkin as the writer of “The Devil’s Advocate.”
Writer(s): Jonathan Lemkin, based on the novel “Shadow Woman” by Thomas Perry
Details: Revised Second Draft dated November 26, 1997.
Man, I love me some Lemkin.
I went to the wayback machine and chose this script not because I had read the novels by Thomas Perry, but because the screenwriter was Jonathan Lemkin. Previously, I reviewed his excellent specs $$$$$$ and Howl. Both are great reads, one a Die Hard-esque actioner with a cool concept, and the other is probably the best werewolf script I’ve ever read. They’re both page turners, they’re both fun, and you walk away from both knowing that you just might have learned something from both a born storyteller and a craftsman.
The question is, Rog, is The Guide a page-turner and does it work as well as those other two scripts?
Indeed, it is a page-turner. I blasted through it pretty fast, and although I don’t think it’s as great as those specs I referenced, it is a prime example how deft plotting and fast pacing can create a narrative drive that will carry a reader to ‘The End’, whether they feel lukewarm about the protagonist or not.
To be honest, it felt like there was something missing from the protagonist, Jane Whitefield. It’s not that she felt underdeveloped, but, rather, she wasn’t nearly as interesting as the villains. In fact, it even feels like the villains have more page-time than the hero, and that’s not really a complaint but more like an observation. Hell, maybe it was even a conscious choice by the producer and Lemkin. I found the psychotic duo fascinating and unique while I found the hero, merely, I dunno, inscrutable.
In that way, it’s kinda like The Silence of the Lambs, where the villain is a monster so intriguing every other character seems to pale in comparison.
If you approach this script from that perspective, that this thing is really about the monsters, then you’ll definitely enjoy the read. If not, you won’t really discover anything new, especially if you’ve read a lot of thrillers. However, it’s still a solid read and there are lessons to be learned, especially if you’re interested in that magical thing we call ‘narrative drive’.
Who is Jane Whitefield?
She calls herself a “guide”, a one woman witness protection program. She helps people in perilous situations and uses her resources to extricate them from danger, assisting them with documentation and credentials so they can start new lives.
While her strength may be engineering these escapes and eluding the bad people who put her clients in danger, her flaw is her overbearing need to protect these people at all costs, including her own life. She’s a fierce chica with Seneca Indian roots, and much of her wisdom in the matters of evasion is woven with her knowledge Indian legend, folklore and history.
Pete Hatcher is an accountant for a Las Vegas casino who suddenly finds himself in the deep-end of the mafia hit-man pool. Seems like his bosses no longer trust him, and no matter what Hatcher does, his former employers see him as a loose end to their operation. When we meet him, he’s running from two goons and escapes into a theater inside Caesar’s.
Inside the theater, he rendezvous with Jane, who has set-up his disappearing act. After he exits the theater, he’ll find a black Ford in a reserved space. He’s supposed to drive to Cedar City, Utah, leave the car a couple blocks away from the airport, hop a rental to get there and he’ll find a prepaid ticket in the name of David Keller. He should get to Denver by dawn, where he can live safely under a new identity she’s arranged for him.
Hatcher literally becomes part of the sexy magician’s disappearing act on stage, and he vanishes right in front of the mafia goons in the audience and he finds himself on his way to Denver, all thanks to Jane.
Turns out Jane’s no push-over either. When cornered by the mafia muscle, she uses brains to bait them, and deceptive brawn to break bone and shatter cartilage to forge her own escape.
She makes it back to her headquarters in Deganawida, New York, where she accepts a marriage proposal from her old highschool beau, Dr. Carey McKinnon, with her client safe and sound in Colorado.
Or, so she thinks.
If Jane’s the escape artist, who are the hunters?
The hook here is having the ultimate guide and escape artist hunted by the ultimate serial killers. They’re eerie, uncanny. Super criminals who are so good at what they do you can’t help but wonder if they’re supernatural shape-shifters, an idea that comes into play towards the end when Jane and Hatcher are being hunted on foot in the Canadian wilderness.
Earl Bliss and Linda Thompson live in a gated community with security walls around their house, and when we meet them, Earl is feeding a bloodhound to his two rottweilers, “Halt! Aufhoren mit!”
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“I wanted to see how the two of them work when they’ve got something cornered. I think it could come in handy some time. I think I could beat two of them.”
Linda is naked in the kennel, a well-muscled machine, and she tells Earl, a big Okie of a guy, that he’s going to have to bury the thousand-dollar bloodhound. Inside their immaculate house that’s all stainless steel, Nautilus equipment and armory, they begin to make violent love when they get a call from Vegas.
Seems like they’re being hired, at the all expense-covered cost of seven hundred thousand dollars, to find Hatcher and make him really disappear. They pack handguns, tranquilizers, cuffs, listening devices, linesman’s phones, kevlars vests and a British Arctic Warfare suppressed rifle and head to Hatcher’s old Vegas condo, where they CSI the place and find very little.
They agree that Jane is good, and they sit on the balcony and begin to coldly deduce where Hatcher went. They break out a map, and go back and forth with possible theories and scenarios. I’m not gonna lie, it’s a bit chilling how quickly they solve how and where Hatcher went, and it’s at this point in the script where you realize that Jane is going to be hunted by Sherlock Holmesian serial killers.
In Denver, through clever subterfuge, they manage to get Hatcher into the trunk of a car, but thanks to local law enforcement, they’re forced to give up their bounty, but not without killing a police officer first.
Hatcher escapes and calls Jane, and that’s when our geography-trotting cat-and-mouse game begins.
So, what happens?
Jane leaves her concerned fiancé, who has just learned about her mysterious “consulting” business, and meets up with Hatcher in Wyoming.
At Hatcher’s apartment in Denver, our villains trace calls made on Hatcher’s landline and discover that whoever is helping him lives in New York. Earl and Linda split up. Linda heads to New York to investigate this elusive guide, and Earl stays on Hatcher’s trail.
While Earl hunts Jane and Hatcher with his big rifle, attack dogs, and roided-lackey Lenny, Linda, through social engineering, disguises and computer hacking, discovers who Jane is and that she has a fiancé.
She purchases a house in Carey’s neighborhood and befriends Jane’s fiancé. The plan? Well, Jane’s client list is going to be worth serious money to our two hired killers, and she’s going to twist him to find Jane’s whereabouts so they can torture her, get the list, then dispose of her. The fiancé is Linda’s card in the hole, in case things get dicey.
And they most certainly do, as Jane and Hatcher learn that these two will never stop until they’re both found, so the hunted must make the decision to become the hunters. What follows is a tense game of survivor as Jane, on foot in the Wyoming-Canadian wilderness, has to figure out how to best Earl, his weapons, his dogs and his man-servant, Lenny.
If she’s able to do that, she has to make it back to New York so she can save her fiancé from the other half of the psychotic duo who has discovered all her secrets.
Does it work?
It’s a fun little thriller that kept me reading till the end, mostly because I wanted to see if Jane was going to survive this whole Earl and Linda ordeal. I was more interested in seeing if she would save her fiancé rather than Hatcher, because those were the emotional stakes of the story.
While there seemed to be impossible odds and Linda and Earl set-up some tense traps and scenarios, some of the escapes seemed pretty circumstantial or pat, a little too easy for the fast-paced plot. These include police arriving to mess everything up, mistaken targets and, yes, bear attacks. Well, the bear attack thing is pretty cool and its woven into some character stuff with Jane and Native American legends, but still, what can you do?
All in all, a solid thriller for those who enjoy crime and detective stories, but this is a tale where the monsters outshine the heroes.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Heroes are sometimes only as interesting as their villains. I wasn’t that intrigued by Jane Whitefield. A character that can escort people to safety like Arnold in “Eraser”? Perhaps she has a caretaker and God-complex, but it’s nothing that gets me excited. However, psychotic trackers that are as good at finding and killing people as Sherlock Holmes is at solving crimes? Suddenly, I’m interested. In this case, it seems like a wise move to give the antagonists just as much screen and page-time as the protagonist. For your own scripts, ask yourself who’s more interesting? The hero or the villains? How do you find balance between them? Sometimes, you have to make your story as much about the bad guys as you do about the good guys.
Why a star (almost) chose to play this role: Jane Whitefield is a gal that shepherds people out of impossible danger and situations to havens of safety. She’s playing God. But, I think the movie-stealing roles here are for Earl and Linda. They’re psychotic villains in the vein of Hannibal Lector, Chigurh and The Joker. They genuinely scare and unsettle.
We don’t usually discuss TV on this site but when Scorsese creates an HBO series, I think it’s worthy of our attention. So, did you watch Boardwalk Empire tonight? And if so, what did you think?
Genre: Heist/Action
Premise: A group of famous magicians combine their talents to perform a trio of heists.
About: This is a spec sale picked up by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. See Me is written by Edward Ricourt and Boaz Yakin. Yakin wrote the 1989 version of The Punisher, The Rookie, and directed Remember the Titans. Ricourt’s career has been a little shorter. He was a member of Marvel Studios’ writing program and wrote last year’s Black List script, Year 12, about earth 12 years after of an alien invasion.
Writer: Boaz Yakin & Edwart Ricourt
Details: 117 pages – May 2009 Draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).
In the world of screenwriting, it’s becoming harder and harder to come up with a truly original high concept. “Aliens invade earth” can only be used so many times. Now You See Me is the most original high concept I’ve heard in awhile. I know this because I’m far from a “bank heist” guy, but boy did I get excited when I heard about this bank heist. Unfortunately the problem with these great-sounding premises is the writers usually screw it up within the first 20 pages by giving us the most obvious version of the story. Well I’m happy to announce that that’s not the case with Now You See Me. They don’t just come up with the concept – they execute it.
See Me opens up with a great scene. Our four protagonists are up on a Vegas stage performing their first of three limited engagements. There’s Michael Atlas, our illustrious leader, Roderigo, a master craftsman of magical devices, London Osborne, a testy hypnotist, and young Alex Hero, a sleight-of-hand master. They name themselves the “Four Horsemen” and because each has become the most popular magician in their field, the fact that they’re teaming up has the world buzzing.
After Atlas works the crowd with his disappointment over the fading economy, he invites a random audience member up on stage. Wouldn’t it be nice, he ponders, if they could get back some of that money that’s been taken from them? Behind them are a series of video screens displaying security camera feeds of a bank. But not just any bank, a bank in Paris, the very bank this audience member belongs to. Atlas’ cohorts perform some vanishing trickery, and the audience watches in shock as Atlas and the audience member APPEAR in the video feeds. In the bank. IN PARIS!
They march their way into the vault, take all the money inside, and the next thing you know, money is RAINING FROM THE CEILINGS of the auditorium. REAL MONEY. The audience scrambles about, grabbing as much as they can, and our magicians walk off stage amidst an air of mystery.
But it gets better. The authorities call up the bank in Paris. Indeed, their vault has been robbed of the same amount of money stolen in those security videos. The cops are flabbergasted. How can that have possibly happened?
Dylan Hobbes, an FBI agent who’s overworked his way right out of a marriage, is tasked with figuring that out. He’s dead set on booking these guys but that’s not going to be easy when our heroes have a couple of thousand alibis. I mean you can’t keep people in custody for teleporting to Paris, robbing a bank, and teleporting back, can you? So after a lot of strong-arming, he’s forced to let them go.
That’s when we meet Thaddeus Bradley, a broken down old curmudgeon who’s seen more magic than Harry Potter’s underwear. Thaddeus is a magician’s mortal enemy – one of those “exposer” types who peels back the curtain on magicians’ secrets to make a quick buck. It turns out he taught Atlas everything he knows. And he knows how he pulled off his robbery. The trick is catching him in the act of the other two. He offers his services and even though Hobbes hates him, he has no choice but to let him join the team.
We then follow the Four Horseman to Atlantic City, where they expose a greedy insurance scammer, and finally Los Angeles, where they try and pull off the biggest robbery ever.
Now You See Me has the kind of spirit summer movies used to have. There’s no sex-starved vampires, rushed sequels, or superheroes here. It’s big, it’s fun, and – gasp – even attempts to make you think a little. That’s not to say the script doesn’t have problems (it’s noticeably top-heavy) but the fun-factor helps it overcome them.
The strongest aspect to me is how they approached the story. If I told you I had a script about magicians who were bank robbers, the first thing you’d probably imagine is a group of magicians, some caped, some with masks, breaking into banks, throwing down smoke bombs, disappearing and reappearing inside vaults – in other words the most straightforward interpretation of the idea. The fact that the writers approach this in a completely different way – where the characters create a spectacle of their heists, performing them in front of hundreds, makes this way more interesting than anything I could’ve imagined. It’s a good reminder that whenever you have an idea, you want to sit down and look at all the ways you could execute it. The most obvious way is not always the best way, and that little extra effort you put into figuring that out, is going to pay huge dividends in the months (and maybe years) you spend on the script.
I also thought all the magicians were great. They’re not particularly deep but the mastery each has over their respective crafts gives them this heroic quality that really makes you want to root for them. Audiences like characters who are really good at what they do. I don’t know why but that’s always been the case. And to solidify the love-fest, it was a clever coup to not only have them steal the money, but give it back to the public. I mean who doesn’t like Robin Hood (unless, of course, Russell Crowe is playing him)?
Now You See Me does most of its character exploration with Dylan Hobbes, the workaholic FBI agent who never received the memo about ‘family time.’ This is probably the only character that fell flat. Dylan’s problems are generic and uninteresting and there don’t seem to be any stakes attached to them. There are all these scenes with him and his wife/ex-wife (I’m still not sure what she is), talking about how he works too much, but there’s never that ultimatum. He never gets that “It’s either your family or your work.” If you’re not going to challenge your protagonist’s flaw, then why have it in the first place?
I suppose the only concerning issue here is the progression (or I should say “degression”) of the performances themselves. The opening performance in Vegas is awesome. So much so that the other two can’t possibly live up to it. And they don’t. The second performance, in particular, which exposes a shady insurance magnate, doesn’t even set up the magnate ahead of time. So when he’s exposed, a mere 1 minute after we meet him, we don’t care. Had they set him up earlier as a true bad guy, that would’ve helped. I like that the third robbery takes place at a unique location, but that location is so cold and grey and dead, it doesn’t feel right. These guys are putting on a show. The final performance needs to be visual and cinematic and exciting. Not some ugly brick warehouse out in the middle of nowhere. Also, the order of the cities seems off. Vegas is the crown jewel. Shouldn’t it be saved for last?
But these problems are the equivalent of having bad food at a wedding reception. Who the hell cares about the food? You just wanna get drunk and have a blast. And “See Me” gets you wasted.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Be careful starting your script out too big. True, you want to rope in the reader right away. But if your opening scene is the best scene in the script that means it’s all downhill from there. Spielberg has said that his only problem with Hereafter is that it starts with a bang and ends with a whimper. I couldn’t agree more. The movie starts with this awesome tsunami sequence and then doesn’t have a single scene that comes close afterwards. Now You See Me is not in that category, but I think it’ll have to raise the level of its second and final performances if it truly wants to be a great movie.
Genre: Drama
Premise: (from IMDB) A master forger falls for a mysterious woman.
About: I can’t say I’ve ever read The Contortionist’s Handbook, the Craig Clevenger novel, but that’s okay because now it’s being turned into a movie starring Hollywood’s new bad boy, Channing Tatum. Robin Shushan, the writer who adapted the book, is probably best known for working on Taylor Hackford’s upcoming project, a biopic about the life of Tennessee Williams. Contortionist’s Handbook is apparently being shot on the cheap, as the producers are responsible for such films as Lars And The Real Girl, Charlie Bartlett, United 93, Adventureland, etc. Knock Channing Tatum all you want, but the man is putting movies into production left and right.
Writer: Robin Shushan
Details: 121 pages – May 23, 2008 Draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).
If Channing Tatum is trying to be the next James Dean, he’s certainly picked the right project. The Contortionist’s Handbook isn’t so much a movie as it is a commercial for Tatum’s bad boy appeal. He gets to play dangerous, rebellious, unpredictable, all those things young actors gravitate towards. The only problem is there’s no show surrounding this commercial. Tatum might be “tearing you apart” but he’s doing it without a story.
Handbook (which is what I’ll call it now because “Contortionist’s” is a weird word to write) starts out with our hero, John Dolan Vincent, being rolled out of a cheap motel by paramedics with a 40 year old hooker watching on. We’re guided by Vincent’s thick weathered voice over, as he tells us, “Rule number one, blend in. Rule number two, don’t stand out. Rule number three. See rules one and two.”
Vincent is a rules type of guy and he has many more observations about how to live that he’ll be filling us in on. But that’s not the only thing going on with Vincent. You see Vincent, right out of a page from Ellen Pompeo’s book, has a sixth finger. It’s not a freaky stub or anything but an actual moving operable finger. Imagine the possibilities.
Now experience tells me that wherever there’s a voice over, a flashback isn’t far behind, and indeed we jump back to Vincent’s childhood where we meet his no-nonsense dick of a father. As soon as daddy sees his freak son born, he gives up on him right there and then. 16 years of contentious childhood follow, and Vincent’s desperate bid to nab his father’s approval never pans out.
For reasons that still aren’t completely clear to me, Vincent sets off in a desperate bid to be anyone but himself. As a teenager, he learns how to make fake IDs, fake backgrounds. It’s intoxicating stuff for a young man who’s known nothing but disappointment. And so instead of just making these fake personas, he starts *becoming* these fake personas. This allows him to play a role other than himself, and that becomes addictive.
Strangely, these identities don’t seem to benefit Vincent in any way. True he’s always getting into trouble and being sent off to jail, and I suppose the changing identities clear his rap sheet, but he never uses any identity to, say, infiltrate the city’s upper crust or get a job he wouldn’t have otherwise been able to get. He just does it cause he doesn’t like being anyone for too long, which is kinda boring, don’t you think?
The good news is that Vincenet meets Keara, a stripper who doesn’t quite have a heart of gold, but she’s nice enough. Vincent saves her from a stripper breakdown and the two immediately fall in love. After some QT together, Vincent finally admits to Keara his true identity, something he hasn’t admitted to anyone since he was a teenager, which, in a way, forces him to come to terms with who he really is.
Along the way there are some nasty criminals who force Vincent into making identities for them. Vincent gets himself committed to a mental hospital in order to find the missing Keara, who’s also at that hospital (hence why he overdoses in the opening scene), but the changing of identities and the Vincent-Keara love story are the main thread.
Probably the most difficult thing about this read is that when I read it, I didn’t know what the premise was. I only checked afterwards, where the summary stated it was a story “about a forger who changed his identity to cover up his past.” I went, “Oh, *that’s* what this was about the whole time?” I thought the forger aspect was his *character*. I didn’t know it was the entire story! And that’s where Handbook failed for me. Yeah it did a good job detailing the fake identity world, but sixty pages in I was still going, “Uhhh, what is this supposed to be about again?”
I guess you could say the hospital storyline, where Vincent is desperately trying to find and be with Keara is the central story question. “Will he find her or not?” But the reason it didn’t hold my interest was because there were no stakes attached to it. At no time did I think, “This is his only chance to be with her! This is it!” It was more like, “Well if he doesn’t find her here he can just wait outside the hospital until she’s released.”
This left the heavy lifting to the cool-factor of the screenplay. The deep philosophizing voice overs (“Maybe you were slow to walk because you had nowhere to go”). The bravado male posturing. The angsty looks we’re sure to see from Tatum’s character. The stylistic flourishes (such as a flashback into a fetus! Yes, we get one of those). I think that can work with a young edgy male demo who likes to think they’re Channing Tatum, and the girlies content with staring at Tatum’s muscles for two hours, but I’m telling you, whenever you completely abandon story, you’re severely lowering the chances that we’re going to stay tuned for the whole show.
One other minor thing that bothered me was the sixth finger. I didn’t really understand why it was there in the first place other than as an odd character quirk. And just from a story perspective, it didn’t make any sense. We’re repeatedly told how often Vincent’s gone to jail and how many times he’s gotten in trouble with the law. When you book someone with six fingers, isn’t that something you remember? Don’t you mark down in a book, “six fingered man.” I mean everyone’s seen Princess Bride, right? So doesn’t that make it impossible to be an identity-changer? It’s not like they’re going to say, “Oh hey look, it’s *another* six-fingered man. That’s the fifth one this month! What are the odds??” I don’t know. It seemed like a strange choice.
No surprises here. I prefer a good story and this is more of a vanity project. Nothing wrong with that though. Clooney just had The American. Why can’t Tatum have The Contortionist?
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: While it’s probably best to avoid voice over, the device does allow you to do some things you can’t do without it. The biggest thing is that we can get inside a character’s head and know EXACTLY what he’s thinking. This creates an intimate connection between the audience and the character that isn’t possible otherwise. I don’t know if the device was successful in Handbook though because Vincent speaks more in sound bites than actual thoughts (“Rule number one, blend in.”) but I’ve seen it work in other places, most notably Morgan Freeman’s voice over in The Shawshank Redemption.
Why a star chose to play this role: This is a simple one. Again, the actor gets to play multiple characters (the different identities he takes on). He also gets to play by his own rules, which is something we discussed with Damon and Green Zone. Actors love characters who shun authority and live by their own code of conduct.
A question I always like to ask people in the know is, “What kind of character should you write to give yourself the best chance to attract an A-List actor?” The reason I ask is because there’s no quicker way to get your script sold or made into a movie than to attach a star. Chances are that manager, agent, or producer who’s reading your script right now is wondering, “Who can I get to play this part?” Unfortunately, so far, nobody’s given me a clear-cut answer. Maybe that’s because actors, like anybody, are all different. They have different interests, different needs, different tastes. But that doesn’t mean we can’t find commonalities in their choices. Maybe, if we can identify these common factors, we can write scripts that have a better chance of selling.
Now there’s no perfect way to go about this so this is how I’m gonna do it. First, we need to agree on what an A-List actor is. An A-list actor is someone who can open a movie to at least 20 million dollars on his name alone. People go to see the latest Denzel movie. People go to see the latest Will Ferrell movie. These are actors who get you to open your wallet. Shia LaBoeuf’s name can certainly scrounge up enough money to make a low-rent thriller, but no one out there says, “Man, I gotta go see the latest Shia LaBoeuf movie,” so he and other actors of his ilk are out.
I also needed a systematic way to choose the roles I’m going to break down. So what I’m going to do is take eleven A-list actors and dissect their last starring role. I know some of you are going to whine about the actors I left out but with 25 A-List Actors, I had to cut a few folks. These eleven represent the actors whose roles I know best and therefore can give the best breakdowns of.
Also, I am quite aware that actors sign onto movies for reasons other than the character itself. I think it’s a safe bet that Leo wanted to work with Christopher Nolan bad enough that he would’ve made a movie with him as a deaf librarian trapped in a meat locker. But even in cases such as these, it’s likely that the actor shaped the character into a part he wanted to play. So that character is still relevant to this discussion. Let’s not waste any more time. Here are ten stars, plus one, with the last role they chose to play and why.
Actor: Will Smith
The movie: Seven Pounds.
The part: A gritty role where a man wants to commit suicide to donate his organs to seven needy individuals.
Why he likely chose it: At first glance, this part simply seems like an opportunity for an actor to emote. He gets to cry, he gets to look depressed. It’s a serious role that on the surface gets an actor some street cred. But if we dig a little deeper we find something interesting: Smith is playing a role where he sacrifices himself to save others. Can you think of a more heroic act than sacrificing your own life to save other people? This may sound crazy but actors have big egos and what better way to massage that ego than to play God, which is what Will Smith is doing here.
Actor: Denzel Washington
The movie: Book of Eli
The part: A loner delivering the last bible in a dangerous post-apocalyptic world.
Why he likely chose it: Actors like to be the badass. They like to kick ass. And they like to look cool doing it. What’s cooler than a loner who cuts down his attackers in samurai-like stylistic flourishes? But that’s not the only thing going on here. Denzel’s character rarely speaks. Now younger actors always want a lot of lines. They equate more lines with more screen time. Older actors, particularly A-listers, like to occasionally tackle roles where they have very few lines, the reason being that it stretches their acting muscles. They have to act with their eyes and their bodies, which is much harder to do. Oh, and not to be outdone by Will Smith, did you notice that Denzel is also playing God? He’s delivering the bible in order to save the world. How much more heroic can you get?
Actor: Tom Cruise
The movie: Knight and Day
The part: A mysterious super-agent who must include a woman on his mission when he mistakenly involves her.
Why he likely chose it: First of all, actors love to play spies. The reason for this is that spies are inherently conflicted. They’re always lying to everyone. They’re always having to keep secrets from the people closest to them. That inner struggle is very appealing to an actor. On top of that, Cruise’s character is a cape short of a superhero. He’s capable of superhuman feats – jumping on cars, leaping out of planes, killing dozens of enemies without breaking a sweat – What actor wouldn’t want to play someone so badass? And the cherry on top? The role allows Cruise to be charming and funny, creating the ultimate movie star role.
Actor: Brad Pitt
The movie: Benjamin Button
The part: A man who ages backwards.
Why he likely chose it. Well in this case, we know exactly why Brad Pitt chose this role, as he’s talked on record about it numerous times. He chose the role under the stipulation that he get to play every single part, from Benjamin in his 80s to Benjamin as a baby. In the end, Fincher didn’t let him do this – but you can bet he told him he’d be able to. Out of all the characters I’m covering here, this one is probably the most unique, but it’s clear why Pitt chose it. It’s the ultimate acting challenge – playing a person at every age of their life. What actor wouldn’t be interested in that?
Actor: Angelina Jolie
The movie: Salt
The part: A CIA officer who’s accused of being a Russian spy.
Why she likely chose it: Again, we have another spy role. So the reasons for choosing it are similar to Knight and Day. The conflict of lying to those closest to you. The fun of performing superhuman acts of heroism. Indeed, it’s not surprising that Cruise was once attached to this role. It’s also of note that the actress gets to play a female part that isn’t typically cast for females (and in this case, was actually written for a man). I think that appealed to Jolie in an “I can do that too” way. The one difference between this and the Knight and Day role is that there’s no humor here. But that’s because Jolie doesn’t have a sense of humor. :)
Actor: Johnny Depp
The movie: Alice in Wonderland
The part: The Mad Hatter
Why he likely chose it: First off, you’re playing an iconic character. Every actor wants to play an iconic character. But outside of that, Depp’s reasoning was probably similar to Pitt’s. It’s another “ultimate acting challenge.” In general, actors like to play characters who are mad/insane because it allows them to go crazy with the character. Well The Mad Hatter’s the ultimate version of this. He’s got “mad” right there in his name! So to be able to have the latitude to go batshit crazy and challenge every fiber of your acting muscles is, indeed, the ultimate challenge. Also, a character this wacky and different doesn’t usually present itself in mainstream fare, so when it does, actors want to snatch it up. (see also: The Joker)
Actor: Leonardo Dicaprio
The movie: Inception
The part: A criminal who builds dream worlds in order to steal from others.
Why he likely chose it: More than most actors out there, Leo values the character arc. He wants to dig into a character and resolve some internal problem just as much as he wants to resolve the outer one. Indeed, it can be argued that the inner journey here is more important than the external journey. Cobb must come to terms with the loss of his wife before he can achieve his goal. Huge portions of Inception are given to his character battling this problem – most of which were ordered by Leo himself. Also of note is just how tortured Cobb is. Tortured characters always appeal to serious-minded actors as a lot of actors are tortured in some way themselves.
Actress: Sandra Bullock
The movie: The Blind Side
The part: A well-off wife who takes in a troubled homeless teenager.
Why she likely chose it: To this day, I don’t know why people liked this movie. I also have no idea how the role won Bullock an Oscar. The character isn’t a particularly complex one other than that she speaks with a southern accent. What I can gather is this. Women are more inclined to help those in need than men. For that reason, I can see why this role would appeal to Bullock. She gets to save someone who otherwise wouldn’t have been saved. Ahhh, wait a minute. Maybe there’s more to this than meets the eye. Not unlike our friend Will Smith in Seven Pounds, Bullock is *saving* another human being. Maybe roles really are a chance for actors and actresses to massage their egos and play God. Before I get hit with a blind side myself, it should be noted that women rarely get offered roles where they’re not dependent on a man in some capacity. So actresses are going to jump on these roles when they pop up.
Actor: Steve Carrel
The movie: Dinner for Schmucks
The part: An obsessive clingy mouse taxidermist.
Why he likely chose it: In most comedies, there’s the straight guy and there’s the crazy guy. The more innovative you make your crazy guy – the more likely an A-list comedian is going to want to play it. Remember, there’s not as much range in comedy as there is in other genres, so comedians often play the same role over and over again. They yearn for something different. This role is different in that it’s not a character who’s overtly funny (a la Jim Carrey in Liar Liar) but more weird. Getting to play someone strange and “off” is probably a big draw to a comedic actor, because the character has more going on than the typical “Look at how funny I am!” character.
Actor: Matt Damon
The movie: Green Zone
The part: An officer in Iraq looking for WMD’s.
Why he likely chose it: It’s no secret that Matt Damon is a political guy. He forces it down your throat whenever he opens his mouth. So I’m guessing that was a big factor in why he chose this role. He basically gets to live out his dream – being the guy who *literally* discovers that there are no WMDs in Iraq. But that’s not all that’s going on here. There’s another trait that A-listers love in a character: The “My way or the highway” character. Characters that stand up to authority or refuse to follow orders will always appeal to actors because most actors are rebels themselves (they all rebelled against more conventional career choices when they gave acting a shot). You’ll notice that a lot of Matt Damon characters are like this, starting all the way back with Good Will Hunting.
Actor: Ben Stiller
The movie: Greenberg
The Part: A formally suicidal man who moves into his brother’s house.
Why he likely chose it: A lot of our funniest actors are also the most tortured. Judging by the roles Stiller plays outside the comedic arena, I’m guessing he’s one of these people. Greenberg is all about a character who hates the world around him, hates the people around him, hates his own life. He complains and whines about the most mundane of societal etiquettes. My guess is that Stiller is using this character as a surrogate to deal with similar feelings and frustrations. Indeed, a lot of actors use their roles as therapy, as a way to tackle things that they haven’t been able to resolve in their personal lives.
CONCLUSIONS
One of my biggest weaknesses as a writer is not seeing my story through an actor’s eyes. I just try to write the best story possible. That’s a problem because your script usually doesn’t get sold or made unless it has an A-List attachment. So you have to ask yourself when writing a script: Is this a role an actor would want to play? I’m not sure we can make any universal conclusions here, but I did pick up on some trends that might help us answer this question.
First of all, the role has to be challenging in some capacity. True, many of these actors are slapping down product in the middle of the summer where mediocrity reigns supreme, but that doesn’t mean they want neutered down roles. These thespians have gotten to the top of the heap by playing dozens if not hundreds of characters. They’re looking for something new and different. Brad Pitt plays a character not only at many different ages in his life, but plays those ages on a reverse timeframe. That’s challenging stuff. Denzel Washington plays a character who rarely speaks, who emotes only with his eyes and his actions. That’s a challenge. DiCaprio operates in a dreamworld where he’s imprisoned his wife. Every time he then goes into that dreamworld, he’s faced with a sea of conflicting emotions.
Next up, I think your character needs to be heroic. A lot of these characters are saving other people. I hate to state the obvious but actors are very egotistical. They want to play God and save others. There’s nothing more heroic than that. Just remember, heroism doesn’t always mean stopping an asteroid from hitting earth. It can mean delivering the last bible across a post-apocalyptic U.S. It can mean committing suicide to have your organs save seven other people. Whether you’re saving a nation or saving others, look for ways to make your characters heroic.
The last thing I noticed was that characters should have something going on inside of them as well as outside. Running around shooting people is fun but it’s not stretching any acting muscles. You gotta give’em some toys to play with upstairs. Benjamin Button has an ongoing physical transformation as well as having to deal with the realities of being different from everyone else. Denzel Washington gets to shred people into sushi yet must learn to open himself up to others. Tom Cruise gets to fly around on cars but still must learn to be selfless before he can find happiness. Note how in two of these cases (Cruise and Washington’s) the internal stuff is tied to the character arc and in Benjamin’s case, it’s more of a general internal battle that never arcs. That’s fine. Whether you’re arcing your character or not, at the very least, give them some kind of issue they’re struggling with internally.
Now by no means is this a conclusive study. The sampling is too small. I encourage you to look at some of your own favorite actors, the ones you envision playing heroes in your scripts, and break down their last ten roles like I did here. See if you can find any patterns in their choices. That could be the key to making them say yes to you.
The most important thing I take away from this is, before you write a single word in your next screenplay, ask yourself if an A-List actor would be interested in playing the hero. I believe this is such an important element to a saleable screenplay that from now on, I’m adding a new feature to my reviews. If the script I’m reviewing has an A-List attachment, I’m going to discuss why that A-Lister probably took the role. Now what are you waiting for? Get back to writing.
