Go Into The Story Interview: Bill Holderman and Erin Simms

My in-depth conversation with the co-writers (Holderman and Simms) and director (Holderman) of the comedy Book Club.

Here are links to the five installments of the entire interview:

Part 1: “I ended up getting a job at Redford’s company in 2001 as an assistant to his producer. You go through a series of interviews. In the last interview, they asked me, “Will you give us a one year commitment?” I said, ‘Absolutely not. There’s no way I will be here for a year. Being an assistant is not my ambition.’”

Part 2: “Somehow, miraculously, we made the movie, sold it to Paramount, and they rushed our trailer to get on the final Fifty Shades release, which we thought was pretty poetic.”

Part 3: “Making a movie is so hard that, for me, it always has to have some deeper meaning or relevance, the thing that makes you want to have started writing it and then go through the torture of making it. It just has to be more than what it is.”

Part 4: “You also find yourself sometimes getting notes that you don’t agree with, and it’s a very tricky balance, because there has to be a give and take. Sometimes you have to address notes that may not make sense to you, but make sense to them.”

Part 5: “Writing is a solitary craft, but the way that the film business works is there’s a solitary part of it, then there’s a very collaborative part of it. You have to fine‑tune the skills in both of those arenas because, ultimately, you want people to want to work with you.”

Erin and Bill are repped by WME.

Twitter: @200bill, @Erinsimms9.

Book Club movie website

For nearly 200 Go Into The Story interviews with screenwriters, filmmakers, and Hollywood insiders, go here.