Go Into The Story Interview: Anthony Grieco

My conversation with the 2015 Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting winner.

Anthony Grieco wrote the original screenplay “Best Sellers” which won the 2015 Nicholl Fellowship in screenwriting. Anthony and I had an excellent hour long conversation about his background and the craft.

Scott Myers: I really enjoyed your script Best Sellers. It’s terrific.

Anthony Grieco: Thanks. I’m not sure which version you got. There’s the current version and the one I sent into the Nicholl Fellowship months ago. I continued to work on it long after it was submitted. I’m glad that you enjoyed the script.

Scott: The draft I read has 108 pages.

Anthony: They’re both 108. Nothing has changed in terms of the story. I tightened and tweaked a few things, but specifically I raised some stakes before the end of Act I.

Lucy’s ready to sign off on selling the catalog when Harris shows up. It’s one of those moments where she’s about to give up when Harris storms into the office. It changes the dynamic and makes the stakes more prominent.

I also have her and Harris working more in tandem before the midpoint of the script, because I felt there should be some growth before she buys into what he’s selling her.

It’s stuff like that — that only comes to you after putting it down for a week or two. The spirit, and the idea, and the story doesn’t change.

Scott: The draft I read, Harris does show up and slams a door in that guy’s nose.

Anthony: That’s gone.

Scott: Gone?

Anthony: I tried to trim out some of the farcical moments early on in the script to balance it out with its ending. When I sent it to the Nicholl Fellowship it was on a whim.

At the time it was submitted, my wife read it and said, “This is one of the best things you’ve written. This feels like a Nicholl script, you should submit it.” So, I did. And here we are.

To a certain extent what’s interesting about that experience is that it reinforced for me the belief that the spirit of the story, what it’s trying to say, carries a lot of weight with readers. I was told by someone that the Nicholl Fellowship is not necessarily about choosing the best scripts, but rather it’s about choosing the writer — a writer they feel is trying to say something. I always felt the script had that element. The spirit of it was there. I kind of always felt that because I was writing something that I cared about, even though I knew I was going to be up against it, because the idea of selling a script like that to the studios is ridiculous these days, really.

Scott: I do want to talk about the point you were making, because when Billy Ray introduced you at the Nicholl ceremony, he talked about how this story is character driven and set in the world of book publishing. This is in direct contrast to Hollywood’s obsession with pre-branded content, prequels, sequels, remakes, reboots. Your script Best Sellers demonstrates — and this is Billy Ray’s exact word — “courage” on your part.

I was wondering, were you at all thinking like that when you were writing the script, writing against, as Billy Ray called it, “Hollywood’s timidity” when it comes to taking on original stories?

Anthony: I wrote from an emotional place and part of that emotion was definitely fueled by a big “fuck you” to style versus content, which I feel Hollywood is guilty of.

Lucy’s trying to get this book sold, and she’s getting all these Twitter followers, and she’s this big sensation, but there’s nothing behind it. It’s still not driving the sales, and it’s like all of us falling into this situation where we’re led to believe that this is what we need to be fed in order to survive artistically.

Yeah, maybe there’s an element of thumbing my nose at the system, but I decided a while ago to write things that make me happy — that I want to express. When I wake up in the morning, what’s important is that the first thing I think about is what I’m writing.

If that’s not the case, then I’m writing the wrong thing. I really wanted to say some things with this piece, but not be too heavy-handed. The story’s ultimately about the fear of being a fraud, but I guess that ties into doing things for profit instead of art.

Scott: Let’s put all this in context a little bit, by going over your background. I believe you attended University of Toronto?

Anthony: Correct, yeah.

Scott: And you majored in English and minored in Film. What was your thinking there?

Anthony: My thinking there was that a friend told me there was an Italian neo-realism film class available, and so I was suddenly immersed in watching all things De Sica. It complemented my love of books and acting.

I was what you would call a commercial TV actor at the time. I was always drawn to acting, and I thought, “I may as well take an academic route towards this…” I was taking acting classes of course but, “…Why not try and incorporate it into my education?”

I started taking the few film courses that were available at the University of Toronto. Following that, I did a summer at Circle in the Square Theater School. I was always interested in the sides I was being given by instructors — playwrights, like Sam Shepard, David Mamet, and John Patrick Shanley.

I found myself more enamored with the words and the stories than the exercise of playing them out. That’s when I started thinking about trying my hand at writing screenplays.

So, like most, I began to write a bunch of shitty screenplays and started soliciting agents and managers in Los Angeles with handwritten letters though the Hollywood Creative Directory. [laughs]

Scott: How did you go about learning screenwriting?

Anthony: I think a lot of storytelling is intuitive but the execution of it is completely something that’s craft. Something you must learn. Structure became a big deal for me. I began to read some of the primary screenwriting books that were available at the time — Syd Field’s book, etc.

I started hacking my way through screenplays in Toronto, while ordering materials and books from The Writers Store in Los Angeles. What happened was, I had a bit of a rapport with these people.

When I came out to L.A., I had representation for one of my scripts. One of my agent’s assistants left assisting and became the manager of The Writers Store, which I thought was completely serendipitous.

She said, “Would you like to work there?” I thought, “Oh my God, yes!” I didn’t want to bartend, I wanted to try and put myself within the sphere of this world. At the very least, I knew everybody who worked there was working on a screenplay.

We were surrounded by the idea of writing. You were constantly on the phone with screenwriters. A lot of the time, you were helping people download Final Draft but in the same breath, you had actual screenwriters who were calling the store and coming in. It was like the video store version of the screenwriting world.

Some of the writers were very chatty and very helpful. And because I was low man on the totem pole there, on weekends I got to open the store for all these screenwriting gurus that would come in to give seminars.

I’d meet the likes of Syd Field, Blake Snyder, Michael Hauge, and Dara Marks. Because I had to stay to close the door at the end of the seminars, I got to take all these seminars for free and things started to click. When it comes to writing books on how to, everyone’s saying the same thing, however some people say it in a way that strikes your gray matter more profoundly.

Like, “Oh, wow, I get that. Why didn’t anyone else ever put it that way?” I was learning screenwriting as I was working and sharing pages with my co-workers and then my screenwriting partner at the time took a screenwriting extension course at UCLA and introduced me to the man who is now my screenwriting mentor. He has a class on his own in Sherman Oaks every Tuesday night.

I’ve been going to that private writers’ group for close to five years now. I’ve learned so much from him. I’ve been very lucky. I’m surrounded by a very rich community of resources in terms of sharing my work with people and getting feedback.

That’s how I got to where I am now. I’m workshopping scripts as I’m writing them. It’s been very helpful.

Scott: You had a funny comment when you stepped up to the podium at the Nicholl ceremony after Billy Ray made that wonderful introduction. You said something like, “Wow, I’ve never heard anything that good come out of my writers’ group.”

Anthony: For the most part, they’re terrible actors. One of my best friends in the group is Mario Moreno, and he is the worst of the lot. Everything he reads lands with a thud and I’m like, “Really, is it that bad?” If Mario can make it sing, you’re probably onto something. But, all exaggerations aside, the group has been essential to my growth as a writer. It’s creating this perpetual deadline for me. Every Tuesday I’m trying to bring in 10 to 15 pages. The best version of those shitty pages. You’re allowed to fail, you’re allowed to experiment, see if it works, see if it resonates.

Scott: Circling back to Billy Ray again. He had that great quote from Paddy Chayefsky, which is “I’d like to tell young writers not to think about writing as art but to think about it as work.”

Anthony: It is. He was right about that. His whole analogy of how a mechanic doesn’t go to Starbucks to wait for his muse. I thought that’s very interesting. I’m not a very big believer in writer’s block.

If I’m stuck, I look for different ways to conquer what might be stumping me. I basically have a set list of questions that bump me into moving forward. Am I emotionally tracking my lead correctly? Is a scene lying properly on the spine of the story? Does it have any DNA that’s connected to the theme I’m trying to explore? Etc., etc.

Scott: Let’s jump back to the script that got you into the position where you’re in that whole Nicholl universe. The script, of course, is called Best Sellers. For readers who don’t know it, here’s a synopsis.

“Best Sellers tracks an editor, a young editor, Lucy, joining a veteran, drunkard author, Harris, on his book tour in an effort to save the publishing house bequeathed by her father.”

What was the inspiration for the story?

Anthony: It was pretty simple. I’ve always loved the literary world. I’ve always loved movies like Dead Poets Society and Wonder Boys. They’re my cozies. One day, I was reading an article about John Hughes in “Vanity Fair” magazine and how it’s rumored that he had all these screenplays in a vault that Hollywood could never get their hands on. Then I started thinking about Salinger and how he’s rumored to have manuscripts stashed away. I thought there was probably an agent or publisher pulling their hair out going, “I could really use some of those right now.” That sparked a “what if?” moment. What if someone like Salinger needed money and the great recluse was forced to come out of hiding and go on a book tour? And what if he was more like Hunter Thompson or Charles Bukowski? That seemed ripe for potential conflict.

Then I started thinking about it from the perspective of the possible publisher/editor and I thought, “How do I put these two forces at odds with each other?”

What I always do, before I start writing, I ask myself, “What is this about? Why do I want to explore this? What do I want to say with this story?” I start guessing that my “Salinger” is probably afraid that he’s never going to live up to Catcher in the Rye.

That he’s never going to be able to do that again. It’s so amazing, so big, it can’t be reproduced or trumped. I thought maybe there’s an element of, am I a fraud? Did I get lucky once? Then I’m thinking to myself, if Lucy’s my lead, how does her greatest fear tie into that?

I read a book during the course of this thought process called Max Perkins, Editor of Genius, by A. Scott Berg.

It was interesting to learn about the relationships Max Perkins had with all his writers. Many were insecure and terrified and he had to help shape their stories, their visions, and even their personal lives in order to get results.

I wondered, what if Lucy’s father was a Max Perkins type and she had to live in his shadow once he left her the publishing house? This was the connective tissue I was looking for. Both my characters feel like frauds.

Lastly, I always ask myself, does this theme tap into something everybody can identify with?

Is this theme true for a lawyer? A plumber? A screenwriter? You know, when someone phones you and says, “Congratulations, you’re a Nicholl fellow,” you’re excited and then your next thought is, “Shit, now I have to write good screenplays all the time.”

There’s that initial wave of, can you live up to other people’s expectations? Or do you feel like you got lucky? I feel most of us can identify with that.

Scott: To try and tap into that universal point of emotional connection. The idea of, can you live up to expectations?

Which really, you talk about the shared background between Harris, who’s this late 60s, as you described him, this ferocious alpha male, now moving into the winter of his discontent.

He’s a writer who wrote this book 40 years ago that caused quite a stir but since then has not been heard from and then the person who’s inherited this publishing company, Lucy, who’s a young woman, let’s see how you described her.

“She was standing in a lectern right below Joseph’s image. Her father’s image. This lionized character in terms of editors and whatnot. Late 20s, whip smart, elegant and ambitious.”

These two quite different people and yet you talk about the shared background.

Both of them have this thing going on. Can I live up to the expectations? Am I a fraud? The universality of that. We all have that. We all wear these masks. We all put on this persona like, “Yeah, we can do that.” But can we?

Anthony: I think this is one of the reasons people enjoy reading the script or have given me favorable feedback.

There is something that they connect to emotionally. I think that’s what we’re in the business of doing. I do script consulting on the side. Through The Writers Store primarily, and I keep stressing that to the writers I work with. Some write really smart scripts, but if I’m left doing more thinking than feeling, then it has failed to do its job.

Scott: That reminds me. I was reading about Christopher Nolan and Inception, how he started that project because he wanted to do a heist movie and he came up with this idea of going inside some person’s mind, that whole inception idea.

But he was never satisfied and then he set it aside and it wasn’t until he came up with this idea of Cobb wanting to get back to his children.

He saw the emotional core of it, that he finally found his way into it emotionally so he could write that script. He set it aside. It took him ten years to write it. He didn’t work on it constantly. He set it aside. I think that speaks to what you’re talking about.

Anthony: It’s absolutely true. We’re all entitled to opinions, of course but I’m a big believer in story over plot. I feel like the plot is simply an obstacle course that a character must maneuver through in order to tell us their story — their inner journey.

It’s about tapping into a universal truth. Something we identify with emotionally.

I’m trying to catch up on all these films that are nominated and the ones that resonate with me, that stay with me for days, are the ones that stir something within. They feel like these onions, where you can continue to pull back the layers days after you’ve seen them.

For instance, the film Room connected with me and forced me to consider its message.

Was there some strange level of comfort the mother had in controlling her child’s environment that she lost when forced to share him with the outside world? You think to yourself, “She thought she was the child’s lifeline but really the child was her lifeline.”

It’s all these interesting thoughts, and when I watch Spotlight, I don’t have those kind of provoking thoughts or emotions. It’s a really well-made film but it leaves me somewhat empty. I’m not walking away asking questions about the human condition.

Scott: Tom McCarthy made a conscious choice to really limit the level of what we know about the characters.

Anthony: There was a moment in that movie where one of the characters realizes that one of the priests is a neighbor. He runs and he sees the house and he comes back and he puts that note on the fridge door. That was really the only moment when I thought, “I’m connected to this movie.” It was primal and personal. I got that.

Scott: That’s about 75 minutes into the movie.

Anthony: I thought, how much more interesting would a movie like that have been if Ruffalo was abused as a child by a priest and now he’s forced to investigate this story. Now, I know it’s a true story, and you can only take so many liberties, but I always ask myself when I get to act two, “How is this the worst thing that could happen to my character?”

Scott: Circling back to Best Sellers, you can see that at work. You’ve got two characters. You’ve got to get them to that lockbox. Get them on the road, on the tour, the book tour.

Anthony: I believe that your lead character has to look up at you from page 25 and say, “You know what, Anthony? Fuck you for making me go to page 30, I hate your guts.”

Now you’ve got a movie. If your character looks up at you on page 25 and says, “I could go back and live a happy life on page 10, it’s OK.” Then you don’t have a movie. That’s the way I see it.

Scott: You’ve got the plot. You’ve got that covered because unless he goes on this book tour and make some money, he’s going to lose his house and unless she gets this book tour and is able to generate some book sales, she’s going to have to sell the business.

Anthony: To me, the A story and B story need to run parallel to each other at all times and there has to be stakes in both camps. For both characters.

Your external journey, there’s stakes. You might lose this publishing house. Internally it’s like, “The last thing I want to do is deal with this man who reminds me of a father who never paid attention to me. The person who continues to tell me I’m not good enough. That’s the last thing I want to do.”

It’s easy to talk about this stuff. Executing it is different, difficult. I sit here with new scripts and even though I’m a little more capable than I used to be, I still mull over those same questions with every new project.

It’s like, “How do I lock this person in? Are those stakes great enough? Would she be motivated to do this? Is this action true to the character I’ve created? Oh, man, I need to go back to page five and tweak this character trait because that doesn’t align.”

Scott: Don’t you find that it’s almost always about the characters? You become so engrossed by them and so compelled by them that you lose yourself?

Anthony: Yeah. I always start with characters. I try to start with characters that have the worst attributes that I carry with me. My knee-jerk reactions to the world are usually where my characters start. When I get to the end of the story, I feel like that that’s the best version of me. I didn’t even see it coming.

Scott: Like Harris, who at points, he’s got the Wild Turkey and shotgun thing going on a la Hunter Thompson. Then early on in the tour, he takes on this Howard Beale, “The Mad Prophet of the Airwaves,” going with…

Anthony: My number one movie of all time is Network.

Scott: He’s got this, “It’s all bullshit” line.

Anthony: Unlike Howard Beale, who believes what he’s saying, Harris does not. It’s a smoke screen. He’s really talking about himself. He’s thinks he’s bullshit.

When I construct my characters, I start by asking myself, “What is the thematic value of my story?” Then I go, “OK. Let’s meet someone at the beginning of this story who doesn’t believe in that value.” To me, a screenplay or a book, they’re like a thesis. You’re trying to either prove or disprove a value.

The theme leads me to the character’s flaw, but I remove the word “flaw” and I replace it with the word “armor.” Giving them a flaw makes me inherently judgmental of my characters. It’s hard not to do that. You judge them. You shouldn’t judge them. When you replace the word “flaw” with the word “armor,” you instantly have more empathy for them. It’s like, “This isn’t necessarily a bad person, it’s simply someone who is protecting herself from something terrifying.”

That helps me into act two, which is like, “How do I throw rocks at this armor?”

Scott: In Best Sellers, you’ve got an interesting twist there. At first, it’s like Lucy thinks she can ride Harris’s YouTube notoriety because instead of reading from thehis pages of his book on his public appearances, he’s doing outrageous things like urinating on books.

She’s trying to ride that, but there’s no book sales going on or generated from that, which suggests that there’s no authenticity there. It’s a ruse. The title of his new book is “A Stiff Prick Has No Conscience.” What’s the derivation of that? I’m thinking that’s got to have some metaphorical self-reference to Harris?

Anthony: For me, it was not only a fun choice, but it was inherent of how he might think about things, but it comes down to impotence.

Scott: Yeah, because he does have urinary problems.

Anthony: The world I tried to create within the fictional book is that the last man on earth is impotent and the last woman on earth is barren. I thought, “Wow! Can things be any more miserable?” From his perspective, yeah, it’s impotence. Ironically, Harris does have a conscience.

To me, there’s a certain degree of symbolism there. I don’t expect people to dig too deep into that, but you asked me a question. That’s where my thinking goes with it. That’s where it went. Again, those things don’t have to be on the page, but it’s more important that the writer is aware of them.

Scott: Like Tarantino says, “The audience doesn’t need to know everything about the characters, but they need to know that I know everything about them.”

Anthony: It’s true. I mean, “Can I answer your question as to why Harris named his book that?” It’s like, “Yeah, I pretty much think I can. One of the reasons is he doesn’t think he’s good enough. A great metaphor for that is you can’t screw.”

Scott: It’s interesting because you do a reversal. There’s a dual mantra thing going on. “It’s all bullshit.” It’s interesting to tie it to this idea of armor. That’s like his defensive stance.

The best defense is a good offense. It’s all bullshit. Meanwhile, she has her own little mantra, “You’re the best. You’re the best.” There’s a reversal that goes on there because she’s concerned that she’s got the shadow of her father looming over her.

Yet, over time, because she digs into his book and makes these editorial comments, two things happen. One, he comes to see her in a new way, and eventually she does, too, that she is good at this. Then also, the bullshit thing goes away, too. It’s spun away when he realizes that, “You know what? No, she’s right. There is some merit to this book.” Right?

Anthony: Yeah. I have nothing to say to that. You nailed it. [laughter] That’s exactly right. That’s what I was aiming for. So much of this is like, “What do you bring to this script?” I’m an only child whose father expected nothing but excellence. He worked 70-hour weeks. He’d come through the door. He’d walk past me and ask, “How are you doing in school?” I’d go, “I got an A.” He’d muss my hair up, and he’d say, “You’re the best!”

That stuff sticks with you. “OK, I’m the best, now what?” It creates this fear of not doing just as well the next time. “I better do well because that’s what matters to him.” You bring those fears to your work. It’s your emotional truth.

Another truth is that because my father worked so much, I was much closer to my mother. In many ways, I’m the daughter she never had. [laughs] Believe it or not, this made it easier for me to imagine a female protagonist and I had a blast writing her. Quite frankly, I didn’t feel like it mattered. Character motivations and wants aren’t exclusive to any gender.

Mind you, it was amazing how many people asked, “Why isn’t there a love interest in this story?” I’d tell them is a love story. All stories are love stories, but this is also about reconciliation. These two become surrogate father and daughter to each other. It doesn’t have to always be about physical love.

Scott: Billy Ray said Best Sellers is a love story but not the kissing kind.

Anthony: No, it’s not. Along the way, some people suggested that it should be, but it was not about that kind of love. When people talk about your voice, it really is an all-encompassing voice. It’s also about staying true to the story you wanted to write.

Scott: The script I read has got these wonderful little grace notes. For example, he calls her Silver Spoon.

Anthony: Yeah. That’s a reference to the fact she’s the daughter of this guy that Harris has this real antipathy toward.

Scott: But then at some point, he calls her Lucy. He doesn’t even realize it, but she does.

Anthony: Where he has a Starbucks coffee ready for her with her name on it.

Scott: In fact, that Silver Spoon thing, you even have a little bit of a subplot there, a nice resolve, the script I read, the last two words in the script are “Silver Spoon.” The name of her new publishing company…

Anthony: …it goes through its own little arc. She’s now got her own publishing house. Now she’s given Harris his due. There’s an irony in it.

I believe most of the stories we enjoy have an interesting sense of irony. I always search for that, “Wow! What are the chances that a person with this particular armor must endure these particular slings and arrows?

With the Silver Spoon payoff at the end, those moments come once you’ve done the heavy lifting. They are the details that come to you when you’re driving, when you’re in the shower, or when you’re going for a walk. They suddenly strike like lightening because your brain’s been marinating in this world for so long. It’s like, “Wow, that ties it together. I’m going to celebrate with a glass of bourbon because I just earned it, dammit…”

You can write five shitty pages and feel you’ve earned nothing. Then you can go, “Of course, it’s called ‘Silver Spoon Publishing!,’” and think you’ve done something amazing.

It’s what makes writing so cathartic and rewarding. It may sound like another cliche, but it really is about the process. I sometimes compare it to people doing crossword puzzles and you go, “What’s in it for you? What’s the reward?” It’s similar to screenwriting. It’s problem solving. A lot of it becomes problem solving and there’s a rush in making something work.

Scott: That is another thing Billy Ray said: 95 percent of what you do in your career as a writer is problem solving. He mentioned the words “grace” and “efficiency” as being critical to how you handle these problems.

Anthony: Absolutely. One of the things you start to realize when you get into the world where you’re hired to do something is that there’s no more of, “I’ll work on this when I feel like it.” There’s no more of that.

People expect you to deliver on deadlines. It’s what’s important for any writer, even an amateur. You must create deadlines for yourself, which is why I said earlier how beneficial my writers’ group has been to me.

Scott: Let’s jump to the whole winning the Nicholl Award phenomenon. How did that play out?

Anthony: Well, you get these notifications. These emails that show up. You’re like, “Hey! I’m a quarterfinalist. That’s cool.” Then my wife and I went to Italy for a short time this summer on a family trip.

I couldn’t sleep because of the jet lag. I would look at my phone for whatever reasons. Then I saw an email come in saying I’m a semifinalist. I thought, “Interesting…” And then you really start thinking about it.

Once they tell you you’re a finalist it’s surreal, because very seldom do amateur screenwriters get celebrated by the industry.

It’s very different than having your wife, your mom, or your best friend read something and like it. When you submit these scripts, your name isn’t on it. They don’t know your race, religion, gender. They don’t know anything. The work gets to stand on its own.

You’re always looking for those moments of validation, some level of achievement that continues to put gas in the tank. Winning the Nicholl is certainly one of those moments — one of those achievements. You’re thinking, “Wow! Maybe I’m OK at this. Maybe I’m moving in the right direction.”

That’s been the greatest reward. You definitely sit about an inch taller at your desk and go, “OK. Let’s see if I can write something like that again.”

As far as the fun part of winning goes, my mom flew in from Toronto to attend the award ceremony. Many of my older Italian relatives back home think I’ve won an Oscar, and who am I to tell them otherwise? [laughter]

I’ve met some wonderful people — the other winners, past winners, and the very generous members on the committee. My Facebook profile picture is now a photo of my wife and I standing in front of one of those big gold Academy statues. And of course there’s the prize money, which is great, because I’m now essentially being paid to write my next spec. As much as I enjoy consulting, it’s great to take some time away from that and spend a few more hours a week on my own work. It’s all a blessing. I feel very lucky.

Scott: Let’s jump to some craft questions. How do you come up with story ideas?

Anthony: Again, I default to writing cliches. I see things and go “what if?” I have a bunch of what ifs in a note book. The next question I ask is, “Can I spend six months to a year with that “what if”?

Is there a theme that I feel is worth exploring, and can I create memorable characters that will guide me on that journey? Am I interested in hanging out with them for this amount of time?

I may come up with a lot of interesting story ideas over time, but if I don’t feel like living in that space right now, they fall by the wayside. Because you change not only as a writer, but first and foremost as a person. What you might have wanted to explore five years ago may not be the case today.

There’s also this internal antenna that goes up and goes, “I feel like that’s relevant and might be relevant for years to come.” Is it grounded in a question that has an all-encompassing human universal theme? I try to tap into making sure that they are rooted in very basic human emotions. It could be something that I’m personally exploring. Ultimately, what I find interesting about writing itself is that it’s you are your own therapist. Like I mentioned with Lucy and her relationship with her father.

I guess I’m looking for stories that tap into something I would like to explore about the world and my place in it. It must reflect that attitude.

And finally, you ask yourself, would you want to watch this?

I often encounter young writers who are trying to serve the marketplace. I’ve gone down that road a couple of times, and you just end up with a voiceless material that doesn’t resonate with anyone and a lot of wasted time.

Again, if it’s not the first thing you’re thinking about when you wake up in the morning you’re probably writing the wrong idea.

Best Sellers is very much where I live as a person who enjoys movies.

Scott: How do you go about prep writing? What aspects do you tend to focus on most?

Anthony: I focus and start with theme. I create a thesis statement. Let me give you a simple example. Say I’m going to write a rom-com and I’m going to set out to prove that true love conquers all. That’s my thesis statement.

Now I’m going to begin creating a character who doesn’t believe that. That leads me to their armor and/or flaw. Their armor might be, “No, money conquers all.” I start thinking to myself, “Why does this guy think that way? What happened to him before this movie started that has created this device, this armor that I have to poke holes in?”

This ultimately starts to send me down that road of plot, which is like, what jungle gym do I have to create? That when I begin to explore my secondary character, who I call my B story character.

Because that’s a character my hero needs to accomplish his external goal but is primarily there to inform the internal transformation that will help him achieve that external goal. It’s kind of like, “If you had a little bit more of my attitude in you, and I had a little bit more of your attitude in me, then we might solve this problem.”

Scott: You talk about characters. How do you go about developing them?

Anthony: Again, I pit them against my theme. From there I begin to formulate the virtues and flaws that will best serve the transformation that will either prove or disprove that very theme.

Within the first few page I show my lead character in their “ordinary world.” I show them at home, at work, and at play.

That doesn’t mean it’s three scenes. It could be 20 scenes, it could be 10 scenes but I try to fit them into that ordinary world sequence. I say, “OK, what is it about the armor they wear that makes this a second-choice life?”

Work isn’t working, home isn’t working, and play isn’t working because of their belief system, which is the opposite of what I’m trying to prove with the story. Then I start seeing things take shape. What job would a person like this gravitate toward? What kind of parents possibly nurture a child like this, etc. What caused this armor to form?

These things start coming to me and I write it all out on a legal pad. Once I’m done with creating a rough sketch of characters, I start outlining, again on a legal pad.

I know what neighborhoods I need to be in with regards to traditional story structure, but it’s basically this long-hand version of what should happen next. A glorified beat sheet, really.

I once had the pleasure of meeting Steve Zaillian a couple of years back. I couldn’t help but geek out and I asked him about his outlining process.

He said something very interesting. About halfway through writing most scripts, the outline goes out the window because the characters take over. Although the outline still informs you, it doesn’t replace what should ultimately become organic storytelling.

The script should start telling you what it wants. At some point, when you get to the second and third draft, it’s this organism that’s trying to push out all the infection.

I tend to overdo my outline as I know it’s for a first draft. A lot of it isn’t likely to survive, but I know it will inform the story in many ways. When I’m comfortable with a general outline, I start writing scenes. My ambition now is to make the first draft I write on par with the fifth draft I was writing two years ago.

Scott: You’re one of those people who rewrites as you go along, you’re not one of those vomit draft types?

Anthony: I’m trying really hard to be a vomit draft guy, and I still think I am. But my primary draft is a lot of scaffolding. Getting the foundation down and putting the walls and the roof on. The detailing comes later. I will make notes to myself along the way. “Give them some business here,” or I will ask a question, “What’s the axe in the room?”

That’s the object in the scene that is an extension of how the character feels about what’s happening. Does someone incessantly click a pen, chop onions, make their bed, etc… Basically behavioral subtext. That often says more than dialogue.

Scott: How about dialogue? How do you go about writing dialogue in your characters?

Anthony: I have some simple rules to start…if it’s wider than your index finger and your middle finger put together horizontally, it’s probably a mouthful. On a more complex level, all the dialogue that passes my character’s lips in the first half of the script usually comes through the filter of my hero’s armor.

In the first half of a movie, your lead character lies a lot. That’s her filter. Her attitude. This is where structure also informs me a lot. When I think about moving into act two, the first thing a character does to solve her problem is take the path of least resistance. The dialogue often reflects that attitude.

Scott: Lucy does that in the script.

Anthony: Here’s the thing. I’m freestyling here when I’m answering this question but if you get me talking, I come to what I probably should have said in the first place. Dialogue is a character’s attitude. How does she feel about the world?

For the first half of the script, her attitude is her defense mechanism. That’s what we hear. When she opens her mouth, she’s always lying, but she doesn’t know she’s lying. Only the writer knows that.

She’s trying to make sure you don’t reveal her greatest fears.

Scott: Right. Robert Towne has that thing. It’s like, “The best question you can ask is ‘what do they fear the most?’”

Anthony: Yes. Again, this plays to irony. For instance, if you’re going to write a movie about a germophobe who is forced to live in a garbage dump, you already know you’re going to set yourself up for some interesting dynamics.

Dialogue is reflective of attitude. Attitude is reflective of the character’s greatest fear.

Scott: To me, I resonate with that so much. Everything you’ve said in the setup is about character. You’ve established the character stuff, as opposed to, not necessarily what the screenwriter gurus are preaching but the way that it gets articulated it seems like in the online screenwriting world, is going outside in, plug these things into certain things, happen at certain pages.

Anthony: Well, I definitely believe in structure informing you, but more as an emotional roadmap. You want people experience a story, not plot. There’s a big difference between the two. You won’t notice structure and page counts when you’re lost in good storytelling.

The plot is a canvas. The story is rooted in emotions, the internal.

For instance, I recently watched Brooklyn. I was so engrossed. But because I connected to her internal journey. Sure, on the surface it’s a love story, but it’s really about her love affair with the future, and that future was America. As someone who moved from Toronto to pursue my dreams her in L.A., I identified with that. I identified with her internal need to chase her future. And for their own reasons, it’s apparent that a lot of other people identified with that as well.

Scott: Yep. That’s really the blanket it’s wrapped in.

Anthony: As writers, it’s not easy to execute. It’s hard to do. I feel like sometimes I sound preachy, but I really believe in that fundamental principle of “make me care.” That’s all anybody can do. Make me care.

Someone can come in and give you notes on this and that, but if you’ve made the story about something, that usually survives those changes. I equate screenplays to the blueprint for a house. That house happens to be a movie. Once a director comes in and says, “I love your house, but to hell with the granite countertops. I hate granite countertops.” You can rip them out and it’s not going to change the principal foundation that house was built on. “I hate this wall.” “OK. Knock it out.”

The roof’s not going to cave in because you’ve created a story that’s about something. No one can change the fact that it’s about something.

Movies never go as you imagined them. The casting will be different. The director’s vision will be different. But a certain incarnation, however executed, will still play to that sentiment you were trying to get across.

I’m sure my script, if it finds its way, it’s going to morph into something I didn’t imagine, but I’m sure it’s still going to circle the idea about being a fraud.

Scott: One last question for you: What advice do you have for aspiring writers?

Anthony: Do not write to the market. Write the script that expresses something about your attitude toward the world. I was always confused when people would say, “Wow. That writer. What a voice.” I’d be like, “What does that mean? Are they writing fragmented sentences that are really cool? Are they using double dashes? What’s going on there? What’s voice?” Then I realized your voice is your attitude about the world.

It’s best to sit down and write a story that captures your attitude toward the world. That story’s got to have personal elements to it. It’s got to be a story you love to write.

Your screenplay is your calling card. If it doesn’t get made it still gets you meetings. It can still get you jobs. Write what you love. What does that mean? It means write what you think best expresses you and your attitude toward the world.

The only screenplays that have ever rewarded me in my time here in L.A., came from that place. Best Sellers came from that place.

For my interviews with every Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting winners since 2012, go here.