Go Into The Story Interview: Jack Waz

My interview with the 2024 Black List writer for his script Decoys.

Jack Waz wrote the screenplay Decoys which landed on the 2024 Black List. Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with Jack about his creative background, writing multiple Black List scripts, and his approach to the craft of screenwriting.

Here is the complete interview with Jack.

Scott: Congratulations, Jack, on making the Black List. This is your fifth time?

Jack: Yep, correct.

Scott: We need to have that “Saturday Night Live” thing where they bring the frequent hosts…

Jack: The smoking jackets? Yeah. Absolutely I would love to have a green Black List smoking jacket.

Scott: Let’s go back a bit here. When did you develop an interest in writing for TV and film?

Jack: I grew up in Philly. I always knew I wanted to do something funny, something creative. The first of the most formative moments of my life, I went to summer camp when I was a kid. It’s a place called Camp Waziyatah. Actually, the TV show “Bug Juice,” which was a Disney Channel show in the ’90s shot there, which is a weird claim to fame when you’re a kid, “Oh, that’s my summer camp,” is the famous TV one.

My first day there, they had a whole variety show of “here’s what all the activities are.” There are these two genuinely funny, hilarious Canadian dudes named Kurt and Ed. I still remember they were like, hey, this is what improv is. They did an improv scene in front of all of us, and I thought it was just the funniest shit I’d seen in my life. It blew my little 10-year-old mind.

I was like, oh, I want to do that. I started doing that at summer camp. That evolved into, when I was in high school, I did a second city summer program. By the time I was a junior, I was commuting up to New York on the weekends to do UCB classes. Starting at 16, I was going through the whole training program there, did the levels, did a musical improv course with Eliza Skinner, who’s a brilliant writer now.

I knew I liked comedy. I knew comedy was a way. I didn’t always feel happy at home. I didn’t always feel like it fit in. Like most other writers, you always feel like a bit of an outsider. Comedy was my way of breaking through my own mental blocks and introducing myself to others in a fun way. That’s just something that always stuck with me.

The other super formative thing, I went to a Quaker school in Philadelphia. It’s a place called Germantown Friends. Our junior year, they required us during the month of Jan to leave school and get an internship. I had a really tough time in school, but the single best thing that ever happened was this thing called the Junior Project. I left my junior year.

Most kids stayed around Philly, I moved to LA and worked as a PA for a month at this place called G4 which is a video game network that was launched in the mid-2000s. I did four weeks as PA, and boy, did I love it. It was the coolest thing that had ever happened to me, being a 16-year-old kid around a bunch of nerdy videogame-playing 20 somethings.

I looked at them as gods, doing the absolute grunt work of PA, working out their little mascot. They all loved me, had the time of my life. Then I came back being like, I need to do this with my life. I applied to a bunch of schools. My top choice was this place, Emerson College. Got in there early, and that wound up being the best decision I’ve ever made in my life.

Graduated in ’06, went to Emerson where I met the people who are still my best friends to this day. There’s a lot of talk about the Emerson mafia, but it’s absolutely true. For example, my buddy, Dan Perrault, he and I were in a comedy troupe together in college called Chocolate Cake City.

We were really good friends. We lived together. He actually lived in our closet in Boston. He paid rent for a closet, which is the most insane thing any human has ever done. Then we get out to LA, we go our separate ways for years, but come back together because my wife wound up producing this movie, “Strays.”

He, my wife, and I have been friends since 2006, and here we are 16 years later in Atlanta together hanging out, making Dan’s movie. Dan was a show runner on “American Vandal.” He has a “Peabody.” He is, I think, one of the only Peabody award winners to ever have paid $500 a month for a closet in Boston.

I was in a place for the first time in my life where I was amongst my tribe. I found the exact kind of people who I needed to be amongst to feel creative, to feel fulfilled, to become the person I was meant to be.

Scott: You got into reality TV, right, for a while?

Jack: Yeah. I was a PA on “Cougar Town.” Actually, that was my first ever job. There’s this whole thing where the show runners had asked me to play “Santa Claus” at a company Christmas party, and I was like, OK, that’s cool and not at all insulting. Let’s do it. We did the Christmas party, and I’m doing the Santa thing, all the cast is there. The crew is there.

It’s on one of the sound stages at Culver Studios. I’m being Santa. People come sit in my lap, say what they want for Christmas, go in their merry way the fun bit. After about an hour, I was getting bored, and I went to my boss. I was like, “Hey, man, can I go hang out with my PA knucklehead friends? We want to join the party too.” He’s like, “Yeah. Don’t worry about it. Go for it.”

I went and grabbed the quesadilla from a border grill truck, and I sat down at the table with all my buddies. I take off the hat. I pull off the beard. I start eating. Then I just hear screaming, just absolute screeching. I look over, and about 10 feet away, there’s a table full of all the show kids.

It’s the show runner’s kids, the actor’s kids, and they’re all looking at me and they’re screaming because Santa took his face off, and Christmas is ruined. I’m just sitting there with a quesadilla in my mouth, like, oh, I’m fucking fired.

Scott: Those kids are all in therapy now due to the shock, right?

Jack: Oh, God, one of them is a pop star, Bill Lawrence’s daughter. They’re doing fine. That was my last season with “Cougar Town.” I went to work in reality for a couple years for a couple of dudes, Scott Jeffers and George Mull. Scott was one of the co-creators of “Jersey Shore,” memory serves, and we were figured out how to make, like, Jersey Shore style shows when I was working with him.

Then with George, he was a fascinating dude. He was a war reporter for 20 years. He got his start covering the Lebanese civil war in the ’80s. Then he left that line of work and became the EP of Behind the Music. He literally knew dictators and rock stars. I think he disappeared for a week one time Stevie Nicks was in town. He just went to go hang out with her. Fascinating dudes to work for.

While I was doing reality, my mom passed away. My parents were in Paris. My mom wasn’t feeling very well. She went back to the hotel room. She had a brain aneurysm and just dropped dead. There was nothing I could really do about it. I got the call from my dad, hopped on the plane, went to Paris. She was just comatose in a hospital room.

I had to do my best high school French translate, figure out what was going on and how we’re going to handle all this. That was, as you can imagine, the most stressful week of my life. She passed away. I went back to my job, and I was like, I don’t want to do this. I didn’t come here to do this. I don’t want to do this anymore, and had one of those crisis of conscience, what am I going to do with my life?

Scott: Working in Hollywood is all about peaks and valleys. How’d you get out of this particular valley?

Jack: I got a call from a buddy of mine, this guy Grant Gish, who at the time was working at Marvel.

He was like, your old show runner from “Cougar Town” is doing a show for me, would you want to go work for him again? I’m like, yeah, I’d love to meet him. I went out, and it was Kevin Beagle, who was the creator of “Cougar Town.” We walk in, and we’re reminiscing. I’m like do you remember that whole thing with Santa Claus? He laughs his ass off. He’s like, oh, yeah, you were that PA.

It was just a very nice full circle moment. Kevin wound up hiring me. I worked with him on a Marvel show for a season. He’s become a friend and mentor, just a genuinely great human being. We brought a show out together a few years later. I was that knucklehead PA that almost ruined Christmas for his kids. I wound up being his assistant, then friend.

Scott: Oh, wow.

Jack: Yeah. Did the Marvel show, went to work as a writer’s assistant on a show called “Get Shorty” for a couple seasons, worked for this guy, Davey Holmes, who is, I think, the best pure producer I’ve ever worked for. He was a very good show runner. What I learned from Kevin is something that stuck with me forever, which is how to balance heart and comedy.

The stuff I wrote before I worked with Kevin on the Marvel show was very cynical and very dry. It was funny, but it was mean. What he taught me was how to actually put human emotion and pathos into my work, and I am much better off for it. When I worked for Davey on “Get Shorty,” I learned story stuff.

I also learned the production angle of, this is how you write for a budget, this is how you cycle in characters, actors, and guest stars. You want to maximize this person because you like them. Watching him work was actually masterful. He’s a very, very good show runner. Then left “Get Shorty,” got married.

Two days before I got married, I had an interview for a different Marvel show being run by this guy, Dave Willis, who created “Aqua Teen.” Met with him, got married, went on our honeymoon, came home, I was like, well, hope something happens. Then got the call that I was going to be a staff writer on a Marvel show.

It was just one of the best moments of my life. I jumped up and down, danced around everywhere. I was a staff writer on the Marvel show, “Howard the Duck,” which we wrote in fall 2019. That was an absolute blast. Dave ran it. Casper Kelly, who did…Did you ever see “Too Many Cooks?

Scott: No.

Jack: It was an Adult Swim short that’s truly incredible. Casper Kelly, who’s our second in command, created that. He’s on a bunch of those really wild Adult Swim shorts. Albertina Rizzo, Tesha Kondrat, Keith Fogelsong . Really great people that I got to work with. Had a great time writing it. it’s January 2020.

Unfortunately, we had written the first season, but then through, I don’t even know what to say, a variety of setbacks, the show wound up not going forward. Then I was like, it’s fine. I’m coming off being a staff writer. The world’s my oyster. It’s January 2020, nothing bad’s going to happen. I was pitching a movie with some friends of mine. Went out, pitched the movie.

They’re like, there’s this thing called COVID that’s coming around, so we’re going to take a couple days when I get back to you. I was like, yeah, absolutely. Then wouldn’t you know it, the world shut down.

Scott: Where along the way did you pick up the whole feature screenwriting thing? Did you start there at Emerson, or did you pick it up along the way? How does that happen?

Jack: I’ve been writing pilots. The pilot that first got me attention in 2014 was based on my old boss, George. It was a hour long dramedy about the Lebanese civil war. That first one passed around, and the next year got a manager and then he encouraged me. He’s like, you should really consider trying to write something for the Black List that, like would really help move things forward.

I was like, sure. I had written a feature script that was not very good. It was prohibitively expensive, would have cost $200 million to make, and it was called Clusterfuck. I’m still very proud of it. It’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever written, but it is unmakeable. I got very muted reaction from that. He’s like, why don’t you consider doing something better?

Scott: Good advice.

Jack: Yeah, that’s what I did. I’d read the story somewhere about Bill Clinton losing the nuclear codes in the ’90s. Then I was like, oh, that’s really fun jumping off point. I created my own little alternate somewhat history of it, and that wound up becoming The Biscuit. That got on the Black List in 2018.

That’s part of what helped me get on to Howard the Duck, was the Black List provided me with the clout, in a sea of other writers, to stand out and be like, basically, this this guy is bona fide. He has proved that he is able to do comedy and do it well. That helped open the door to my first staff writer job.

Scott: Let’s jump to your current Black List script, the one that made the 2024, DECOYS! Logline: When two cocky self-proclaimed CIA badasses learn they’re being used as diversions, they must prove to themselves and the world that they’re capable of being real heroes.”

I love the script. What was the inspiration it?

Jack: The very seed of the idea came from my current manager, a guy named Russell Hollander. Russell, he had been toying around and said he was like, yeah, man, I want to do something like a CIA thing, it’d be really fun if they were distractions. He and I have been talking about it for a little while. Eventually, I was just like, no, man, I got this. I got this, let me let me add it.

Every script I’ve got on the Black List has been an action comedy. It is my bread and butter. It’s what I absolutely love. I had done my own riff on “Die Hard” with a father and son. I had done my own time loop “Groundhog Day” thing with “Baby Boom.” I had done my own Christmas movie action comedy with “Fistmas.” Now I wanted something different. I wanted to go big.

I love the “Mission” movies. I love the “Fast” movies. I wanted to write my version of the Mission movie or my version of the “Fast” movie. From the idea of what if Vin Diesel and The Rock learned that they weren’t who they thought they were? I just thought that was immediate comedy gold.

The setup is always these guys are badasses. We’re going to watch them. It’s like, what if they weren’t? What if they were just absolute fools? You had to watch them learn how to become badasses.

Scott: The script starts with this big action sequence, the scene where you meet these two leads, Griff and Mac. You think, of course, that they are these big badass CIA guys. Could you describe these two, because they’re very similar, but they each have their own distinctive thing going on.

Jack: I’ll start with Mac. One of my favorite types of characters to write is just really stupid. It’s such a fun comedy archetype that you can have a really stupid person say really smart things, and it makes the joke that much better. Throughout the movie, Mac is actually very cunning and very witty, but he says it with a big dopey grin on his face.

It makes it that much more rewarding to have the character who you’ve written off be like, oh, no, this guy’s actually making some good points. Then Griff is a little bit more of the protagonist. He is the character that I put a lot of myself into. I think I’m narcissistic in that every main character that I write is dealing with a problem that I am having.

For example, in Worst. Dinner. Ever, it was about some issues I’ve had with family. In Baby Boom, it’s about whether or not I wanted to be a father. In Fistmas, it was about, what am I going to do during the holidays. What would I do to get a sense of normalcy back? Then with DECOYS! It was a sense of imposter syndrome. It was conceived during the strike.

It was written after the strike when all of us were trying to figure out, oh God, what are we really doing here? What are we doing next? I’d had a bit of success, but I kept thinking, is this it? Am I good at this? Am I capable of writing like this? All that anxiety channeled into Griff. He’s on the surface braggadocious, but inside, he’s someone who generally doesn’t know if he can believe in himself.

What he learns from the movie is he is capable, and he is good enough. To go with the Barbie thing from last year, he is enough. He is someone who his anxiety and his insecurity drive a lot of his motivation drive the story. It’s only when he is able to conquer his insecurity that he’s able to stand up and be a hero.

Scott: It’s funny because the script has got a retro feel, the characters are reminiscent of Schwarzenegger, Stallone, “Action Jackson,” and yet it’s very contemporary too. The politics of it is extremely contemporary. There are points where I’m like, oh my God, literally what we’re going through right now with the oligarchs.

Jack: I wrote this nine months ago. [laughs]

Scott: I know. God. Dude, you should go to Las Vegas.

Jack: Trigger. My finger on the pulse of it.

Scott: Talk about that bad guy plot, and when people read this, they’re going, oh my god, this is so relevant.

Jack: The bad guy’s plot, the genesis of that was, I’m a devoted listener of “Marketplace,” the Kai Ryssdal NPR show. At one point, I can remember it was on the Marketplace or on his spinoff podcast, “Make Me Smart,” they were talking about the financial crisis a few years ago and about when Congress was threatening not to raise the debt limit.

They mentioned the coin and the theory of the coin, like, this is weird. Then they did the story about how they have to mint this coin in West Point and fly to the Federal Reserve. I’m like, wait, there’s literally a trillion dollars worth of wealth that could be created, put into a MacGuffin, and transported from point a to point b? What’s the heist? Who are the people that are trying to steal that?

It always felt like such a fun device, such a fun type of heist you haven’t really seen before. That led to, who are the characters that would try to get basically the sum total of human money, which led to this tech bro villain, Theo Wolf. I’m like, oh, yeah, of course, it’s the guys already on top who want to do everything they can to stay there.

I was talking about the insecurity of Griff, Theo has the exact same insecurities as Griff. He’s someone who also feels imposter syndrome, but his way of dealing with it, rather than changing himself, becoming a better person, is to double down on everything that’s gotten to the place that he is, and just lean into the evil of it.

I did not know when I wrote this in March that we would be in the climate we’re in where the “broligarchs” are doing everything they can to maybe take The US economy and become kings.

Scott: I think at some point, Theo mentions Peter Thiel, then there’s some reference to Elon Musk. I’m watching the inauguration, there are these guys. Maybe you should become a political adviser or something.

Jack: It’s not a bad idea. Nine months ago, I’m like, who seem to be villains? These guys. Wouldn’t you know it, the bet the bet paid off.

Scott: You mentioned this thing I thought that was interesting, that at some point, somewhere along the line, someone said to you that your humor you’re writing mostly cynical, but bring the heart into it. It’s all scalable.

This is not obviously a two-hander psychological drama, but Griff’s got his background where his parents abandoned him. That’s a significant thing. It’s certainly enough to build a psychological arc for this guy.

Jack: Yeah. That is a theme that I tend to return to is, what is it? How does someone who has a difficult past like that overcome it? That was a big part of my script Worst. Dinner. Ever, and there’s shades of it in Baby Boom. It’s also subtly in the background of Fistmas. Someone who doesn’t have a family that they can immediately call up and rely on, how do they deal with this kind of world?

Scott: Let’s talk about Jonah because he’s the third leg of this this triumvirate that takes on the bad guys. What’s his deal?

Jack: Jonah is just such a fun dipshit to write, just the most smackable dude in human existence. That’s why he’s been such a fun foil, I think, to the two guys, is that he is the straight man. Everything he’s doing is correct. He’s the guy who’s actually good at his job, and yet he would hate him because he’s the one standing in the way of our guys having as much fun as possible.

It’s that ’80s archetype. I’m trying to think of, like, trying to think of an exact reference to it. It’s the guy who’s so perfect that you want to root against him, but as we go through the script, we learn that he is just as flawed as they are. He’s the one who’s geeking out over PO. I’m proud of the line, “Don’t you guys ever read LinkedIn?” which seems like the most douchebag thing a guy can say.

[laughter]

Scott: He becomes the conduit, the guy with the earpiece who’s helping to guide them, the guy who knows about the weapons and all that stuff.

Jack: It’s a fun reversal of, yeah, how do you take the guy who should be doing all the cool stuff, make him the guy in the chair. It’s fun to have that foil playoff of, especially. He’s, in a way, a mentor figure who genuinely does not like either of his mentees, and yet in order to do something that’s of greater good, guide them through this process.

Scott: Jumping well ahead in the script, at a key point, there’s a big soiree at one of those rich guys type getaway things. Jonah no longer has the earpiece, and so Griff has got to learn how to do this on his own, like you were just saying. He finds that he does have the capability of doing that. That was a smart choice and pulling Jonah out of that key part of the of the story.

Jack: Thank you. One thing I always return to in everything I write is, why are the protagonists in this movie the absolute worst people to be in this situation? That’s something that I find really helps with figuring out the conflicts and figuring out momentum of the movie. For DECOYS! These guys, they are the worst people to be in this situation if they have to figure it out.

In Baby Boom, it is two knuckleheads struggling 30-somethings who have to save the world at a gender reveal party. In Worst. Dinner. Ever, it’s a father and son who don’t get along, who all of a sudden have to play “Die Hard.” It’s just, what is it about these people that makes them functionally unable to complete this task, and how do they complete it anyway? Because that just feels so good.

Scott: Yeah, underdogs. We love underdog stories. As I’m reading your script, I was reminded when Larry Gordon, who produced “Die Hard,” “Predator,” 48 Hrs.,” and my movie “K-9,” he told me about the “whammo theory.” That in an action movie, every ten minutes, something has got to go “whammo.” Are you familiar with that theory?

Jack: I don’t know that theory, but unconsciously, I think that has absolutely influenced my work. Now that I think about it, the reason I wrote this way is because I was trying to nail the rhythms of a movie like this, of a “Fast and Furious,” of a “Mission: Impossible,” of a big, crazy, ’80s style action movie. That’s exactly right, it’s just you’re moving from set piece to set piece. It’s all about, how do you create good enough connective tissue to reward the set pieces?

There’s some interesting, fun, quiet moments, but I found that it’s even more fun to do those quiet moments in the middle or at the end of a giant set piece. I love the moment at the end of this, Mac pulling Griff up after he’s killed the bad guy by unzipping his cargo pants. They just have a very sweet moment where there’s like, I love you, man. I love you too.

You’ve been waiting the entire movie for these guys to basically accept themselves and accept each other, and they do it while covered in bad guy juice.

Scott: Speaking of set pieces, I know a screenwriter who writes action. That is straight full-on action. He has in his home office a whiteboard that’s simply like, what would be a cool set piece? This seems like they’ve all been done. You have some very interesting ones. Is that something you set your mind to like, I got to come up with a unique environment in which to conduct some action here?

Jack: It usually starts off with, what’s a fun place for a sequence or a stock place? It feels right for them to start at the docks. It feels right for there to be a high-end gallery or museum sequence. It feels right for there to be a chase sequence. It feels right for there to be an airborne sequence. It feels cool to have, what’s the biggest I can go for the finale?

Once you figure out the stock of it, here’s A to B to C to D, whatever, then it’s how do you support that? How do you make it different than what you’ve seen before? One of my favorite pieces of this movie is the is the museum sequence. I love in the Mission movies, like, the mask stuff.

That would be really funny, what if he keeps playing in the wrong direction? What if you have a moral obligation to playing the guy, how do you square that away?

Scott: That was very funny. This is what I’m saying, you got this retro feel, but also, it’s very contemporary. There’s a little setup to that scene that you’re talking about where they come in after that opening thing — I guess Sheila is an assistant, and Griff comes in, “Sheila, what’s cooking good looking?” Sheila says, “HR said you guys can’t talk to me like that anymore”

Then they go to this thing where Griff is supposedly going to get these masks, but he knocks out a guy and he’s black. He says, I’m not really comfortable with this whole situation. Jonas says, “We’re running out of time, Griff. You need to get to the security office.” This feels like a hate crime. It’s this whole sort of cultural appropriation. The next guy is Korean.

Jack: Exactly. It’s not a detail you would ever think about in the Mission movies, but it was something where I’m like, oh, yeah, it’ll be really interesting. What’s the moral conundrum of if you feel like, what would you do to save the world? It felt really fun to put Griff in that really squeamish place. Then, of course, it leads to there’s all the buildup of no one’s the same race as him.

Eventually, he finds the guy, and the printer’s out of mask juice. That way he looks like a goblin trying to break into the security room. It’s just, how do you build that joke and then be the final twist at the end of, oh, it didn’t actually matter? He’s saying he’s put it off so long that he only gets a half mask.

Of course, that leads into another sequence I’m really proud of, which is the fight carefully sequence in the in the weapons room. It’s like, yeah…

Scott: Oh, I love it.

Jack: In the “John Wick” movies, he just stumbles into a knife factory, so they’re going to fight with knives now. I was like, it’ll be awesome to have a sequence like that where you can’t touch any of the fun shit on the walls. I grew up adoring Jackie Chan movies, and that is the most Jackie Chan thing I’ve ever written. How do you do the most acrobatic fight and causes the least amount of damage possible?

Scott: I love that scene because you’re exactly right, it subverts expectations. First, you see this thing, you’re like, oh my God, this is going to be great. They’re going to have all these weapons come out and all hell will break loose. No. They’ve got to be super careful. I thought that was great.

How much to think like that was influenced by or helped by your experience doing improv and sketch work?

Jack: Oh, absolutely. The reason I am able to write is because I did improv for so many years. It’s always thinking yes and, or how do I one up the scene? What’s the game to the scene? What’s the twist I can introduce to the scene? The characters, the action, the brainstorming is just it’s improv mind.

I picture a scene. Here are the characters. What are the situations? How do we make this different? Every improv scene, it’s supposed to be the most important moment of these characters’ lives. It’s the exact one we are watching right now. That’s why you’re watching this improv scene. You take that mindset to scene work.

The reason we are watching this movie, the reason we are watching this exact moment right now is because this is a defining moment of these characters’ lives. Everything we are watching is the most important thing that will ever happen to this person.

Scott: Are you a fan of Shane Black?

Jack: I’m a massive fan of Shane Black, yeah.

Scott: There’s a couple of moments there where you’re winking at the reader. Of course, I literally remember when “The Last Boy Scout” came out. Reading that script…

Jack: “Boy Scout” definitely rules.

Scott: The script, literally, he breaks the fourth wall big time there. You got a couple of references there talking about this place where they show up with all these rich people. It says, quote, “It makes Bohemian Grove look like the Santa Barbara Film Festival,” which I thought was great.

Then you also have another one, “Sweeping establishing shots of all the sights and sounds, the even more beautiful, the protection friendly state of Massachusetts has to offer.” You’re looking at the reader.

Jack: That purely came from, I thought it would be really, really funny to do a movie where the entire thing takes place in production friendly locations. It’s not a joke that the audience would get, but it’s absolutely a joke for the producers, for the directors to be like, oh, yeah, we’re shooting this shoot in Atlanta, shoot it in Massachusetts. Shoot it in the woods up in Vancouver like they did for all “X Men” movies.

It’s not something that the viewer will ever see, but the spirit of it permeates the script. The playfulness of the writing just bleeds everywhere even though it’s not a joke the audience will ever necessarily get until the credits when you see that it’s shot in all the places.

Scott: That’s why it drives me crazy these people who come around talking about so-called “unfilmables.” It’s like, you can only write within the act the audience can see and hear. All they need to do is read “Butch Cassidy and the “Sundance Kid,” and that illusion is blown up with page one. William Goldman says you’re not writing a refrigerator manual, it’s meant to be entertaining.

Jack: I’m married to someone who works in entertainment. She’s a producer. She’s worked in development for years, and I everything I write is to make my wife happy, to make her laugh. She is the most important person to me in the world, and her opinion means more to me than anyone else. I have a manager. I have an agent, and my wife is always the first line of defense.

She’s the one who will tell me thumbs up or thumbs down on anything I do. I’ve written entire scripts before, handed them to her, and she said, you know what, this ain’t it, you can do better, and she’s right. I think a lot of my playfulness in that respect goes to I know who my audience is. My audience is my wife, it’s my friends, and other people who I know work in the industry.

I know they’re reading dozens of scripts a week, and I want them to have a good time. I purposely never write anything more than…I think this is 108 pages. I think that’s the longest script I’ve ever put out. I try very hard not to waste anyone’s time. I want them to get in, have a great time, get out with a smile on their face.

Like you’re saying, the structure of it is, it’s important to respect the people who are taking the time to read your creation. I respect them, and I want them to respect my work in the same way.

Scott: You have a moment in there, the Mac/Theo relationship is actually quite interesting because it’s like Mac starts to get seduced by that whole of “broligarch” thing.

Jack: It was really funny in March, I’ll say that. [laughs] Something I was trying to do was figure out what is a villain type or who is someone that we haven’t seen be the villain before? We know we’ve seen arms dealers. We’ve seen terrorists. We’ve seen gangsters.

We’ve never seen someone who’s just really, really rich and kind of an asshole be the villain, and that wound up informing Theo. I guess I had my finger on the pulse a little early, but it’s not something I quite expected to pay off in this big of a way.

Scott: I think what you did with this character, because there’s a monologue, basically, where he explains his worldview, it’s psychopathic, I suppose, but it does make sense. It’s a demented worldview, but they believe it is a plausible perspective. Where’d that come from?

Jack: A lot of it came from, especially after I worked in that tech company in in 2016, I’d never really cared about the tech world before, but I was writing a character specifically to make fun of it called Jeremy Pivot. I learned a lot of the tech barons at the time. It was very interesting working at a tech company during 2016, during the election, it was very eye-opening experience.

That always stuck with me. I tracked those guys. I tracked the Travis Kalanick’s and the Marc Andreessen’s of the world for the next decade, essentially. I wondered what these guys are up to. A lot of Theo’s drive, his worldview, comes from, if you read interviews with a lot of these guys, their worldview is essentially not enough people respect us. They respected us back in the ‘90s.

They respect us in the 2000s, but something changed, and they’re wrong. We’re not wrong. Everyone else is wrong. It’s this very inward focused worldview of, I’m doing everything as I’ve always been doing it. How could I be the bad guy, everyone else changed? Without realizing that the world changes and adapts around you, and you have to keep up?

Once you get to a certain level, you’re no longer creating, you’re no longer growing. You’re stagnant. You’re stuck. You have to do everything you can to maintain your status. I think that’s Theo’s whole outlook because he has created something that has led to immeasurable wealth, but now you can’t make another $250 billion You can only gain slight percentages, slightly get over your competitors.

The one thing that you can’t buy is respect. Tere’s certain unnamed tech executives right now who can spend all the money in the world on social media platforms, but they can’t buy a fucking joke. It’s fascinating what that does to a human. That was what was really fun to explore.

Theo was like, what does it mean if you can never trust anyone around you just due to your wealth? What does it mean to not feel human anymore because you are just surrounded by a buffer of money?

Scott: Yeah. It’s very smart. It’s like the armchair psychologist, sitting here in my own little universe, my own little world, and thinking about these guys and watching their behavior. It just seems like there’s a void, there’s something missing inside, and they keep trying to find external validation through wealth and power.

Jack: That’s the thing, the pursuit of wealth and the pursuit of power leaves you hollowed out. At the end of the day, you can have you can have everything in the world, but if you don’t have human connection, then none of it means anything.

I think that’s what’s so fun about the Theo and Mac relationship, is that Mac is so dumb, he’s such a blank slate that Theo doesn’t see any competition from him. He sees another person he can connect with, another person who he feels kinship with because Mac has the exact same problems as him but doesn’t want anything from him.

Mac, even though he is there to spy on him, is still basically just a dude that’s trying to have a good time. That’s what makes their relationship so fun. Mac is the only person in the entire movie who Theo actually connects with, and it happens to be the stupidest man alive.

Scott: It’s a wonderful script. What what’s the status of it right now?

Jack: We’re bringing it out. Hopefully, someone wants to make it. It’s irresponsibly expensive, especially for a spec. I’m very proud of it. Like you said, I think I picked up on some things a few months ago before any of us really had any idea where this was going. Through sheer dumb luck, here we are.

Scott: I’m sure you’ve got a ton of general meetings off of it too, so that’s good.

Jack: The reason I wrote it was because, we all we all had a traumatic year in 2023, and I came off that wanting to do something that just made me laugh, and would make my friends laugh, make my wife laugh. I wanted to go big, crazy, and dumb and do something just joyous I hope that is the tone I was able to really strike with this was, it is a joyous movie.

It is gleefully silly, but at the end of the day, it’s something that is supposed to bring a smile to the face after years of just trauma.

Scott: It’s a terrific script, and congratulations on it and making The Black List again in 2024. I’ve got some craft questions for you.

Jack: Of course.

Scott: How do you come up with story ideas?

Jack: That is a very good question. I think going back to what you’re asking earlier, it comes from my improv mind. My brain never really shuts off. I have a list on my phone. I have two lists. I have one that’s a joke list that I’ve been keeping from past eight years that is just gags, jokes, one liners, bits of dialogue. After I finish every script, I will do a pass to the joke list.

Be like, is there anything that I haven’t used yet that’d be really funny here? That’s always one of my favorite things to be like, what can I pull from the joke archives? The other thing is, I have a list of just premises, you’ll hear something, I’ll read something.

Fistmas came from, I read a “New York Times” article about a competition [inaudible] in the mountains of Peru or Chile, where there was a fighting tournament around Christmas time every year, and those people settling their beefs. I was like, oh, that seems like great grounds for a Christmas movie.

Baby Boom, I saw plenty of social media stuff about gender reveal parties destroying forests, houses, cars and people. I was like, oh, that feels like it’d be really fun apocalypse movie because I always want to try an apocalypse movie where every apocalypse happens at the same time. That’s how I got away with it. I’m constantly reading.

I’m constantly listening to the news, reading the news, trying to find weird stories, going down weird rabbit holes just to see if anything sparks. My immediate consumption diet is every day I read the New York Times, “Washington Post,” and the “Atlantic,” and try to digest as much information as possible, politics, world events, culture, and then any of these weird one offs that lead to…

I wrote a script a couple years ago called “Bad Hombres” that’s based on a Washington Post article that I read about Mexican federales who caught American who jumped over the border to escape US law, and returned them to America. They got paid in gift cards, which I thought was just insane.

I wrote a really fun two hander buddy-cop combi that’s a Mexican cop to an American con man, planes, trains, automobile in their way from Cabo to Tijuana to throw the con man back over the border. Once they had the cartel guys after them too. That came from, oh, this is a really cool world. What can I do with that? I’ve watched so many goddamn movies in my life.

I can’t remember any basic math, but I can tell you the exact plot of “Hot Tub Time Machine” 1 and 2. I’m always dipping into the archive of, what do I like from this movie? What do I like from that? How do I remix them? How do I combine them?

Also, my guiding light is always, what would Edgar Wright do? Everything I write, write in that spirit. “Shaun of the Dead” is the movie that made me want to go to film school. I would say my style is someone who was trying their best to write an Edgar Wright movie.

Scott: Okay, how about prep writing. How do you break a story?

Jack: From Genesys, let’s say we’ll use Baby Boom as a comp, I’ve seen something about gender reveal party causing a wildfire. It’s like, oh, that’s crazy. It’s sticking in the back of my mind, it’s sticking in the back of my mind. This is in March of ’21, and thinking about it, thinking about it, thinking about it.

While I’m there, I’m writing my movie Worst. Dinner. Ever. In the back of my mind, like, this gender reveal thing seems really fun. Then it’s January ’22. I’m like, I got to do something with this. It’s been building my mind for nine months now. It has to come out. I just start thinking, what is this world? Who are these people? Who would go to a gender reveal party?

Are they the ones throwing the party? Are they the ones attending the party? Why is this meaningful to them? At the same time, all my friends are having kids. Do I want to be a dad? Do I not want to be a dad? Do I feel responsible enough? That all coalesces into what if two people who aren’t sure whether or not they want to be parents are thrust into a situation where they have to grow up immediately?

Then that all formed into the basic blob of stories. Then the actual process is, I’ll just beat out everything in my notes app, then I’ll throw it in final draft. Usually, it comes fully formed while I’m beating it out. I’ll do, let’s say, a 10 to 20-page outline, then I’ll usually smooth that out to a 40 to 60-page script. It’s just like here are the key scenes. Here are the set pieces. Here’s key lines of dialogue.

My movie is basically three quarters written by the time I actually go to write it. Then I always go sequentially, start at the top, go through the entire thing. I usually overwrite. I try to write at least 120 to 140 pages because I know I’m going to cut it down significantly. Put every idea I have into it, do a vomit draft, put it down for a minute. They’ll come back to it maybe a week later, and then start cutting.

That’s usually one of my favorite parts of the writing process, is I know everything’s there. It’s just weeding it out. It’s just, how do I trim up this topiary into being an actual story? Cut it down. Cut it down. Cut 10 pages. Cut 20 pages. Switching dialogue, is this thing working? Not really. I’m going to have to rethink.

The logic isn’t working here. How do I connect this? It’s basically putting as much into it at the top as I can so that I can then start trimming and finding the thing that really exists in there. Once it emerges, then it feels fully formed.

Scott: Could you talk about character development? Do you have a set of exercises you use to develop them, or is it more feeling your way into them?

Jack: It’s feeling my way to it. Like I was saying earlier, I always try to put a big part of myself into whatever I write. What is a part of my psyche that is raw? What is something that I haven’t really dealt with myself? For DECOY! Like I was saying, there are two guys who feel like frauds. What does it mean to feel that way?

What does it mean to put on a brave face, muddle through the day, have everyone think you’re doing OK, and then behind closed doors, be an ancient’s wreck? That’s how I and most other writers, I’m sure, feel 90 percent of the time. Whatever is the thing that is bothering me, that usually informs the characters of the piece.

Like I said, with Baby Boom, at the time, all my friends are having kids. What does it mean to be a parent? What does it mean to start a family? What does it mean to be responsible? All that swirling around in my head. Basically, every time I write a protagonist, I’m putting my own anxieties into them.

Then through the expression of that, I’m able to take it out of my own body, put it into them, and then cross off my list. It becomes something that becomes less swirling in my own psyche and is able to live in a character. It’s basically my entire writing process is a form of therapy journalism.

Scott: Therapy journalism. I like it. What about theme?

Jack: Theme always emerges from whatever the story is. I figure out the story I want to tell, then I figure out why I want to tell the story. it’s like, oh, I think this should be a really cool story. Then going back, but why is this important? They’re like, why is this the most important moment in these people’s lives? What is it that brings you to this?

What are going to take away from this? It’s never, I want to write a movie that’s…It’s never theme four. It’s always who are the characters, and then the theme emerges from the characters. I don’t know. It’s a difficult question when I always get hung up on. Whenever I’m asked about theme in pitch meetings, it’s always something that trips me up. It’s intangible. I can’t quite describe it.

It’s not something I consciously think about as I always think of who are the characters, why do I care about them? Why did they exist in this place? Then the themes usually emerge from there.

It’s completely intangible. I think it’s something that would be in the back of any writer’s mind of they know what they want to say, but they don’t quite have the way to say it until there’s the finished product. Then you look back, I was always clearly writing towards that, but I didn’t know I was writing towards it while I was writing towards it.

Scott: Where do you see yourself in 5 or 10 years? Perfect world, do you have any ambitions of directing? I know you mentioned earlier that that was what you were doing at film school.

Jack: I do. That’s the thing, is I love what I do. What I want to be doing in 5 to 10 years is continuing to be paid to write. It rules. It fucking rules. I love creating. I love collaboration. One second. I do want to think through this. It’s funny. It’s not something I ever consciously think about, or it’s not something I’ve had to consciously think about because being a writer so often is about survival mode.

It’s not about what’s 5 to 10 years in the future. It’s what’s five months or five weeks in the future. There’s so much. It’s like, how do I jump from thing to thing? I’ve been blessed recently to be somewhere where I am able to take a longer-term look at my life and my career. I’m still coming to terms with what do I really want out of it.

There’s the stock answer that everyone has, which is, I want to direct, so I absolutely do. I want to create the kind of movies that I want to watch. I want to create big, fun, dumb, popcorn features because that’s what always brought me joy. When I was growing up, movies were an escape. They’re a way to figure out the world around me. They’re a way to escape the world around me.

They’re a way to make sense of myself. That is something that I’ve always tried to do with what I created is, what would appeal to a teenage me? What would appeal to the young me? What would get my ass in the seat of the multiplex? It has to be cool, but it also has to be resonant.

You have to feel something while watching it. Again, a long, bullshitty way of saying 5, 10 years, let’s say writing the “Fast” movie and somehow winning an Oscar for it. I want to write the first Oscar winning “Fast and Furious” movie. Let’s go with that.

Scott: One final question here for you. What advice can you offer aspiring screenwriters? What’s the one thing you would say is critically important for someone trying to learn the craft and hopefully break into the business?

Jack: Relationships. I occasionally look on screenwriting Reddit and see a lot of people. They’re like, how can I get an agent? How can I get a manager? How can I do this? Where are you? Are you in LA? No. Have you ever worked in entertainment? No. It’s really fucking tough.

The only reason I have the career that I do is because — the past 20 years, since I was 16 and worked at G4 — I spent the past 20 years of my life meeting everyone that I can, establishing as many relationships as I can, cultivating those relationships, nurturing them friendships. Some of my best friends in the world are people I collaborate with and people I’ve been collaborating with for years.

I know it’s a very long-term view of it, you have to have a long-term view of writing. It’s not a sprint. There are not overnight successes. I’m sure I’m preaching to the choir, but every overnight success is 10 years in the making. It takes a long time to get good at this. It takes a long time to get OK at this. I was rereading DECOYS! Before we hopped on here. I was like, oh, I would change everything.

I haven’t read the script in five months. I’m like, oh, shit, here’s repeated word in two sentences. I’m shit. That’s bad etiquette. I shouldn’t have done that. I should’ve changed this. I should’ve changed that. Oh, I can make this stronger. I think I’m an OK writer. I think I’ve been very lucky to get where I am.

I think I’ve been able to do that because of the people I’ve worked with and the relationships I’ve cultivated for the past almost two decades. It’s all about you have to buy in. There’s no cheat code. There’s no easy way in. You have to struggle. You have to work.

You have to be willing to be a PA and jump into an industrial dumpster because your boss threw out a receipt for something, or be chased around town by the paparazzi while bringing an actor somewhere. You have to be willing to do anything to learn and make yourself better.

Jack is repped by UTA and Fourth Wall.

For my interviews with dozens of other Black List writers, go here.