Go Into The Story Interview: Julia Yorks

My interview with the 2024 Black List writer for his script The Seven Guys You Date Before Marriage.

Julia Yorks wrote the screenplay The Seven Guys You Date Before Marriage which landed on the 2024 Black List. Recently, I had the opportunity to do a deep dive with Julia into her filmmaking background, writing her Black List script, and her approach to the craft of screenwriting.

Here is the complete interview with Julia.

Scott Myers: Let’s start at the beginning. I think you’re from Pennsylvania.

Julia Yorks: Yeah. I’m from right outside of Philadelphia.

Scott: I believe your first foray into entertainment was acting, right?

Julia: It was. I was a kid actor, so I was in basically anything that shot in the Philadelphia area. I had a small part in a lot of big things. I was in some of the M. Night Shyamalan movies because he always filmed movies in my area. I was on a short‑lived show about a Philadelphia taxicab driver played by David Morse who solved crimes.

Then my biggest kind of claim to fame was “Jack Reacher,” which was in Pittsburgh. That was, I think, right after I graduated from college. I act here and there still. I did an episode of “Law & Order” last year, which was the highlight of my life. So every New Yorker’s dream.

Pivoted into writing. I’m a big fan about following your momentum, and that’s where the momentum seemed to lead.

Scott: You even have in the script that was on the 2024 The Black List, there’s a little Law & Order moment there.

Julia: [laughs] That’s right.

Scott: So how about the writing? When did your interest begin there?

Julia: Yeah. I’ve always been a writer. I’ve always enjoyed writing. I’m an only child. When I was younger, I wrote…I’m from this little town called New Hope, which is a very tiny tourist town in Pennsylvania, and I wrote…I called it “The Kids Guide to New Hope,” and the town actually rallied around me to fund me getting it self-published.

Then “Chicken Soup for the Soul” reached out because they had heard about it, so I wrote a chapter in one of their books. So I was always a writer.

I took a year off in between high school and college, and I moved out to Los Angeles to pursue a career in acting. Unfortunately, I graduated from high school in the year 2007, which as I’m sure you remember, was the writer’s strike. So I got out to Hollywood. I had deferred from Northwestern and the whole town was shut down. So I ended up doing an internship with Chuck and Larry Gordon.

Scott: Larry produced my first movie, “K‑9.”

Julia: That’s right.

Scott: I worked on two different projects with Chuck.

Julia: Chuck was a real mentor to me. Actually, it’s so funny because I remember he had a big pot belly pig, and he was like, “I think I want to do K‑Swine,” and so we talked about that a lot when I was working there. I interned with them and really got a firsthand look at the industry. I did so much coverage.

Then I deferred…my gap year was over. I went to Northwestern. I was very cold, so I transferred to USC where I was in a screenwriting class, and I start writing. I wrote the first draft of this movie that was actually…The main character was a little bit inspired by Chuck because he had three daughters who were about my age.

I remember my own dad at the time was computer illiterate, and so when I went to school, I was posting on Facebook all of these pictures, and there would be boys in the picture. Chuck would be like, “What are you doing at that school?” He was very paternal.

In this screenwriting class at USC, I wrote the first draft of a movie called “The House Dad,” and it was basically “Mrs. Doubtfire,” but set in a sorority house where an over‑protective father dresses up as the house mom of his daughter’s sorority to keep an eye on her.

Scott: Why didn’t that get produced? That seems like a natural…

Julia: Well, the story was kind of crazy. It was funny. I have the email from Chuck that I looked at recently. I just popped by his office after I graduated just to say hello, and he was like, “What are you working on?”

I pitched in the idea, and he said, “I want to read your pages,” and I was like, “OK, but this was a school project. I haven’t had anybody read them. I don’t even have the finished script. Let me show them to…” I don’t know if you remember Jimmy who was his assistant for a very long time.

I went home that night, and the next morning, I got an email from Chuck. He said, “I was walking my dog this morning, and I couldn’t stop thinking about your movie idea.” Then he said, “I also couldn’t stop thinking about how ridiculous you were being for not showing me your pages. I want to read your writing as is. Send me pages,” and so I did, and he wrote back a day or two later and said, “OK…”

What did he say? I forget the exact wording, but basically, he was like, “I’m impressed, and I’m happily surprised. You can do this, and you should keep going.” A year later, we went out with the script with Chuck and Larry attached.

Scott: That must have been a confidence boost.

Julia: That’s what it was. Right? I think that’s what so many emerging writers really need is someone to say, “You’re good at this.” Over that next year and a half, he and his assistant gave me notes. Ultimately, the funniest part was that script, about a year and a half later, I always say, “I was at a tailgate at USC.”

At the time, I was working as an SAT tutor, and I went to this tailgate. I always say that I was a boxed wine to the wind. I literally tripped and fell into this girl who was in my screenwriting class, and she said, “Did you ever finish that script?” I said, “Yeah,” and she said, “I’m an assistant at Gersh, and I want to give it to my boss.”

Two weeks later, I was repped by Gersh, and a month later, we went out with script with Chuck and Larry attached, and it didn’t sell, but it was my first taste of that waiting by the phone. Every call is going to be the call and, “Hey. We love it, but can you change it so that it’s actually not rated R? It’s rated G because we want it at Disney…” “Yes. Of course. I can do anything.”

It was a bummer when it didn’t go, but it got me my first writer’s assistant job. It got me my first agent. My first introduction to Hollywood was Chuck and Larry.

Scott: Subsequently, you’ve done a lot of TV writing.

Julia: A lot of animation TV writing. My first job that I got from The House Dad, probably was about two years of the general meeting tour, which is such a wild time that I don’t think a lot of newer writers realize. You get the agent, you have the first script that goes, and then nothing happens. Nothing tangible happens.

I ended up getting a writer’s assistant job on “The Adventures of Puss in Boots” when DreamWorks was first starting their deal with Netflix, and so I ended up getting promoted on that show, and then I moved over to “Trolls,” but then I’ve written probably 40 episodes of kids’ TV across a dozen shows, which is a lot and I’m very proud of. Unfortunately, in the live action space, it means literally nothing.

Scott: Nothing. I always tell my students. I say, “Don’t worry about if they brand you in Hollywood.” That’s the beauty of being a screenwriter, you can redefine yourself just like you’ve just done with a script in a new genre.

Julia: Yeah. I will say it took me a little while because I was trying to pivot within TV, and so the scripts that I was…Also, I never had…which is something that I tell people to avoid a bit. I did anything. I wrote everything. Features, comedies, feature dramas. I wrote it all, and I think the lack of consistency made it difficult to brand me as the younger writer.

I think my agents and managers had a hard time with that because it’s like, “She can do anything, but she hasn’t proven that she can do anything.” Whereas now, it’s an asset that I have all this stuff that I’ve done, but seven years ago, it was to my detriment.

So, it was a little bit trickier, but I managed to get out of the animation bubble. I sold a live‑action sci‑fi drama to Freeform. Then I was in the YA space, genre. After that, it was really just kind of connecting with people, execs who I had met with years before who suddenly ended up in positions where they were able to hire me on stuff.

That was “DOD” which was I sold it to Freeform in 2018, developed it with them in 2019, and it didn’t go obviously to pilot, but it was a really cool experience having that with really no attachments, which was wild. “1UP” happened in 2020 and that was a really interesting experience too.

Scott: Whenever a screenwriter says “interesting,” you always have to kind of wonder…

Julia: Well, what I will say is I had just come off of writing a pilot of a show that I had created, moving into features for the first time as having a produced feature, which is something that as a writer, as a feature writer, that’s so lucky, like it doesn’t happen often.

What I learned a lot was how different the hierarchy is in features than it is in television. I learned about director’s passes. I learned that the script that you write is not always the script that makes it to screen, and to its credit, it was 2020. They filmed this in Canada. I turned in the first draft in June or July, and this movie filmed in November. It was a crazy turnaround.

I was not there because it was COVID, budget cuts and everything. I turned in my last draft, I think, in August, and that was literally the last interaction that I had with it. So it was a very weird experience because I was so detached from it.

Scott: Well, let’s hope that this project, the script you wrote that made The Black List, “The Seven Guys You Date Before Marriage,” let’s hope that, A, gets made, B, you’re on set, and C, the director loves you and your writing.

Julia: I’m hopeful. I really love the script, and it was really fun to work on, and it ended up at such an amazing place being at Olive Bridge. I’m just really thrilled.

Scott: Let’s dive into your script because it’s a good read and there’s a lot of screenwriter‑ly stuff I’d like to discuss with you. Here’s a logline: “After her ten‑year relationship collapses, a newly single New Yorker dates the seven archetypes of guys to get unstuck in love.” What was the origin of this project?

Julia: But yes, what was funny, actually it was something that a producer brought to me and said, “Literally, I just have this title. What would you do with it?” I immediately knew what the movie was. I said, “It’s this. It’s the different archetypes. It’s the younger guy. It’s the older guy. It’s the one who’s not a guy,” and he was like, “Oh, my God. OK. Cool.”

I was like, “And trying to figure out, is it that she’s single forever and she’s going through these guys, or is it that she has this long term relationship and decides to date?” I wrote the first draft of this in 2021. So, it’s really come a long way. There have been many, many drafts, many iterations, but that’s kind of where it came from, and it’s been a really fun script to write and play with.

Scott: Having been a screenwriter for nearly four decades, my first thought was, “Oh, the title, that’s actually kind of convenient for a screenwriter.” You got these seven characters you’re going to meet. Well, that’s going to pretty much take up act two, so there you go.

Julia: Yeah. Oh, it’s true. You know, it’s funny. There was a movie called “What’s Your Number?” with Anna Faris that it was like she didn’t want to up her sexual number, so she went back and revisited all of the men that she had previously slept with to see if one of them could be her husband.

I was like, “Oh, that’s interesting because it has that similar…it’s like almost vignettes of men, and then you kind of have to figure out how to connect them all together. What’s the through line to connect them? I think that her mom passing and the diary and that kind of situation ended up being the through line to help us connect all of these men.

Scott: Yeah. That was very impressive what you did in the script because it could have been very easily felt very episodic, just going from one thing to the next, but you could see that there is a throughline in terms of her psychological growth, her arc.

Were there any movies other than, say, that one that were kind of reference points to you? Particularly for tone. When you said you knew it, were you going, “Oh, kind of like this, kind of like that?”

Julia: Yeah. Well, it’s so interesting having this discussion now because I’m going to do another quick pass of it before it goes to…We’re in the talent phase, and so it’s funny thinking about what it is and what it…certain small changes that will be made.

I think when I wrote it initially, it was when rom‑coms were just streamers. They were just streaming them. The era of the rom‑com had passed, and that’s why it’s so exciting to have this at Olive Bridge where they made “Anyone But You.” Speaking of Anyone But You and Glenn Powell, I thought “Set It Up” was such a cute, funny rom‑com with two amazing leads, and I just really enjoyed it.

So that was another one. Also, because I thought that that movie, I talk about it whenever I talk about the promise of the premise, particularly in a rom‑com. It’s two assistants. They want to set up their bosses so that they can get out of work, and they’re terrible bosses, and so much of the plot driver is that. That was a touch point, but then, of course, I watched so many romantic comedies because I just love a rom‑com.

Scott: Oh, I remember back in the day. I think it was that one summer about five years ago that Netflix came out with several rom‑coms, sort of out of nowhere because I was talking to managers and agents at the time, and they were saying, “We don’t even use the phrase ‘rom-com’. We say it’s a comedy with some romance.” They were trying to skirt around it.

Julia: They were, and so it was really interesting. I’ve never worked at the company before who said, “Make this bigger and more expensive.” You know? “Make these set pieces bigger.” So that’s what I did, and it was really exciting and fun.

Scott: Yeah. That’s funny to hear you say that because one of the things that you did, it’s like a love letter to New York, basically. Yankee Stadium, Metropolitan Museum of Art, all these wonderful iconic places because each of these little vignettes, they take place in these different environments.

Let’s talk about your protagonist, Avery. She’s introduced at a Brooklyn rooftop restaurant with her longtime beau, Noah.

She’s described as adorably high strung, and she thinks, like the perfect setup and the language that Noah is conveying is that this is going to be the big proposal that she’s been waiting for for years. But then there’s a nice twist where is a proposal, but it’s the people next door, the next table. Was that opening always present? You wanted to do that little twist at the beginning as a way of introducing…?

Julia: That one has actually always been there because I just think it’s really fun and funny and unexpected, and I love starting off…You just got to hook the reader. You got to hook the viewer right away. I just thought it’s every woman’s…not every woman’s, but it’s so many women’s dream of, like, “OK…”

Especially when you have a long-term partner, it’s like, “OK. We’re going to do it, and it’s going to be so magical and impressive,” and then it’s for somebody else. I also loved the idea of the person behind her who does get proposed to being like, “Oh, my God. It’s been three years. I thought he’d never ask,” and it’s like, “It’s been 11.”

I sat next to a girl at a wedding once, and she and her partner, now husband, had been together for 11 years, and she was at another wedding where she wasn’t engaged, and she was not having it.

Scott: I love the ending of that opening scene because too, it’s like we’re experiencing the scene from her perspective. Noah who’s gone off to relieve himself, comes back and he sees the fireworks. He goes, “Whoa. Cool. Fireworks.” So clueless, of course, he couldn’t quite know exactly what was going on in her mind.

So beyond just how you introduce her in that opening scene, how would you sort of describe Avery, her persona at the beginning of the story?

Julia: Well, you know, it’s so funny because this is something that might shift, which is why it’s so interesting to talk about now, but I always pictured her, which, again, potentially feels a little 2011 of it’s Jess from “New Girl.” Right? It’s that kind of adorkable character that I think…

It feels weird talking about this to not address something that I’ve been going through over the past year, which is that I have a very funny story about this script, which is that I had my last notes meeting for this script like three days after my husband said that he wanted to get divorced, and so I literally…

I tell this story. I picked myself off of the floor for this notes meeting, tried to put some makeup on and hopped on this notes call, and they were all like, “We can reschedule,” and I was like, “No.”

At this point, I had done three rounds of free notes. I’d been working on the script for so long. I just wanted to get it done. Their notes were so funny in hindsight because they were like, “OK. Well, what is their relationship status? Are they broken up? Are they separated? What is happening?” I was like, “Am I in an episode of Curb? I don’t know. This is a little meta.” You know?

Then at one point, they were like, “This script has so much calm, but it needs a little bit more rom.” I was like, “I guess my marriage did too.” You know? I was really throwing tears back and forth, and I made the joke of, “I’m going to be getting some material for the sequel, “The Seven Guys You Date After Marriage.” You know?

It was so uncomfortable. I felt so bad. I turned in this draft of the script two weeks after that happened. What’s so funny about it is because I’m going to do another pass of it, I am a different person than I was when I turned in this draft of the script. I think when I do another pass, Avery will be a different person too just because I’ve learned so much in this year.

So it’s actually so weird to see her on the page because she is…It’s a very innocent, adorkable, very endearing, almost naive character, and I love that, and I think it’s really sweet, but I also want to give her a little bit more for someone to chew on because I’ve had a lot more to chew on this year.

This script came in a very, very weird time. It’s been kind of a roller coaster with this script.

Scott: Yeah. It sounds like a sequel, like you could do the making of the movie, and then meanwhile, the screenwriter is having their own challenging storyline, where you’ve got the movie and the story behind the movie.

Julia: It’s true. You’re getting more than you bargained for with this interview.

Scott: One thing that really stuck out to me was the relationship Avery had with her mom. Her mother, you have a lovely little montage where you slip in the mother’s illness, then eventual death. Talk to me a little bit about Avery’s relationship with her mother.

Julia: There’s a part in it where she says that maybe one of the reasons why she stayed with the ex‑boyfriend so long, even though maybe it wasn’t the right fit, was because he knew her mom.

Scott: Yeah. On Page 67, She says, “If I didn’t end up with Noah, my mom would have never met my partner.”

Julia: Yeah. I think that so often from our parents, we want approval and validation. I think that it’s really just not…For her, it was not being able to have her mom to help guide her along these big questions in life. I also think that when someone passes, we tend to idealize a lot of them in their life, and so she’s really idealized her parents’ marriage and tried to recreate it.

I think what’s so interesting too is it’s not just…The message is it’s not just her parents’ story, but really what I’ve learned in my own life now is you really can’t idealize anyone else’s relationship. You really don’t know what anyone else’s or their life. You don’t know what anyone else is going through. You don’t know what anyone else is dealing with. You don’t know how anyone else’s relationship or marriage is.

So that’s kind of the lesson that she comes away with is that, “I have to kind of find my own love story.” It sounds so corny, but I think what I’ve learned over the past year and what I think Avery learns at the end of the movie is the truest love story is the one that you have with yourself. That’s kind of her journey.

Scott: Joseph Campbell talks about the “parent path,” that if we find a path that’s laid out for us, that’s probably not our path. That’s the path of the parent. That’s the path of “you should do this.”

So, you’ve got these two dynamics going on with Avery. One, she’s talking about the romance of the proposal that happened between her mother and her father. She’s loaded down with that, but that’s an association that exists for her, that the proposal is a really big deal.

So maybe let’s separate the two. So, let’s talk about that. That’s a thing going on there. Right? That’s a pretty powerful association going on with her, her parent’s marriage.

Julia: Yeah. Well, I think that what she says is, “My mom always said that it wasn’t it wasn’t their wedding or when we were born, it was the proposal because it made everything else possible,” and so she’s been waiting for this proposal so that she can start her life with him. I think that that’s kind of the thought process behind it.

Scott: Then the second thing is she discovers this box, which is this little black book that her mother had and this whole thing where she and her dad took a “break” and their mom went off with these seven dates. So that was the thing that producer brought to you. Was that that premise, or you spun that out? The title?

Julia: Literally, it’s the seven guys you date before marriage, and he was like…

Scott: You came up with the idea that the mom had done this.

Julia: Yeah, because I wasn’t sure how to connect it to her. There was a version where…I think her mom had always passed. I grew up reading all sorts of “Cosmo” or “Teen” magazines where there’s always a listicle. You know what’s so funny? This movie was actually at BuzzFeed for a while and they love a listicle. So, it was like, “Oh, OK. Cool. We’ve got…”

So, it was, “How do I turn this listicle into the driver of this plot, into how does that become kind of the catalyst? I think it grew over the years of me working on it to really become more about her relationship with her mom and having that be a through line that she really missed her mom.

Scott: That idea that these paths that were presented to us, Campbell’s point was, “No. We have to create our own path,” which is really along the lines of what she discovers, like self-love and her own journey.

Julia: Yeah. It’s true because even the archetypes are not archetypes that she comes up with. It’s archetypes that her friends come up with, and so it’s really about kind of…I love the moment where she’s like, “I don’t know. Maybe I have to date 38 guys,” and her dad is like, “Oh, no.”

Scott: And he’s like, “I’ve got to get 38 more cans of pepper spray.” That’s pretty funny. So, she does go on this journey in which she’s not replicating her mother’s thing because her friends, Meghan and Ellis, help her come up with this new list of types because it’s different than what her mother’s era was.

It is a similar sort of thing with the…I think she has the expectation that by doing it, she’s going to end up with someone like what her mom and dad had. Is that a fair assessment?

Julia: I think this is something to be brought out a little bit more too, is it, “Who needs this? Who is this for? Is this because this worked with my parents and they found their way back to each other, maybe it’ll work for us. Maybe I just need to show him that there’s not better fish in the sea. Maybe I need to figure out what I want.”

I think she’s like, “Oh, well, this worked for somebody else. This is what our story needs because everything…” They were, instead of high school sweethearts, college sweethearts. Right? So, it’s all of the same elements.

As I’m learning, as I’m seeing, as I’m hanging out with more single people, it is something that you…At first, dating is fun and meeting new people is fun, and then you get to a point where it’s the Charlotte York, “Sex and the City,” like, “ I’ve been dating since I’m 16. I am exhausted. Where is he?” You know?

I think people sometimes settle for the familiar as opposed to what I’ve learned over the past year, not just in relationships, but just in life, is that, yes, the unknown can be scary, but it can also be incredibly exciting. I think so often people fall back on it’s scary and so moving back into safe spaces. I think the takeaway for her at the end of this movie is that it’s exciting.

Scott: Let’s talk about Meghan and Ellis, these best‑friend, mentor‑type figures.

Julia: Yeah. I just had a lot of fun with them. Meghan has always been the same character since the inception, very strong, confident, and I kind of love the difference between she and Avery as best friends because they are very different characters.

Then Ellis has really taken turns over the years in trying to find his voice. It’s just two characters that I feel like are not just comic reliefs, but they’re just actually full characters in and of themselves, which I love.

Scott: Yeah. Well, Meghan has a very substantial subplot of her own or this relationship that she has with Skyler. You could argue it heightens the frustration Avery’s having because while Avery’s struggling to find her feet romantically, Meghan is finding her feet romantically with Skyler.

Julia: I think that’s so hard. Right? Like, “All of a sudden, we’re both single, and now you’re not.” I think also too what’s so interesting, they get into a big fight, and Meghan has a point where it’s like once Avery and Noah split, Meghan has a moment where she’s like, “I’m really glad that I get my friend back. I know you’re hurting, but I get my friend back.”

Avery is someone who keeps losing herself in these men, and Meghan kind of calls her out on that. I think that can be really true of women. I think we have this biological clock that is telling us that we have to go find somebody, and so you end up becoming kind of consumed by these different relationships. A lot of times, if you don’t have a strong enough vision of yourself, you end up really molding and changing for other people.

Scott: It’s interesting that you have Avery as an accountant. That’s her gig. I think science has disproved this idea of left brain, right brain, but from a writer’s standpoint or to understand a character, someone as an accountant has got a very strong left brain — logic, sequential, rational — and so it makes sense in a way that this idea of going down these seven people would kind of connect logically along with just whatever association she has with her mom.

Julia: No. It’s true. That’s so funny that you mentioned that because I think, as I’m sure you know as well, the hardest thing for a writer to write is a job. It’s like, “What job is this person?” I don’t know. You know? I’ve never had a real one. Avery has been so many jobs. For a while, she ends up working for Central Park, but there was a moment where she was working on the grounds of Central Park.

Truly, this girl has run the gamut of jobs that I’ve had her do. This one felt like it was a thing where it felt very safe and secure, and she was going to now take a real risk and a real leap even though she’s still doing the same job, but just somewhere that means something to her.

Scott: I think it does fit psychologically why she would be attracted to this idea of the seven dating things. Let’s talk about it, when your producer presents this thing to you, you go, “Oh, I know what that is,” and so you’re thinking, “Meghan and Ellis helping her formulate all this. The guy from work, the guy who’s a total asshole, the guy for sex, the guy who’s not a guy.” That was funny.

Julia: Thank you.

Scott: The Older Guy. I mean, they all were funny, but there’s some lines at the end of that…

Julia: It was one of my favorite parts. I think it’s really funny.

Scott: Even the bit where the girl, Hannah, I think it was, is at the window, “These straight people.”

Julia: Well, I’m sure it’s very frustrating.

Scott: The younger guy and the guy you thought was “the one.” So, you’re in this producer’s meeting. They present this title to you. You go, “I see this immediately.” There’s a two or three that come to mind right away. How did you come up with the entire list?

Julia: It’s a really good question. I went through, and I, honestly, I thought about all the people that I had dated in the past. I polled my friends because, truly, anytime I’ve just mentioned this concept to any one of my friends, they’re like, “I need this movie immediately,” and so I’ve had so many friends who’ve, like, “Here’s a story for you.” “Here’s a story for you. I went out with this guy and this happened. I went out with this guy and this happened.”

So it’s been so fun to kind of collect stories along the way, dating anecdotes, but one of them actually for a long time ‑‑ the scene got cut, it was replaced with the coworker, ‑‑ but it was the starving artist, and that was one where at the end of the date, she’s like, “I had a really fun time,” and he’s like, “Great. Can I come up?” She’s like, “No. I don’t think so.”

He’s like, “No, can I use your shower?” She’s like, “No.” He’s like, “Oh, was there a common space in your building? Do you have a gym? Can I use that?” She’s like, “I’m sorry. Why can’t you use your shower at home?” He had just gotten off the bus. This was his first day in the big city, and throughout the movie, you would see him busking from time to time.

There was something about it that just felt a little too silly, and the coworker really felt like it was something that that happens. Coworker feels like a much more kind of relevant person, but all of the rest of them, I think, had been there since its inception. Older guy, younger guy to me were the easiest ones, of course.

Scott: Older guy and younger guy?

Julia: Younger. I was just like, “Oh, OK. Yeah. That makes sense.” The one who’s not a guy, I thought that was really fun. I think the one for sex was always there. The total asshole was always there. Then, of course, the one you think is “the one” is Noah, and so that felt really positive to me.

I do love…She has a moment at the end where she’s like, “You’re the total asshole or maybe you’re this. I don’t know. I’m starting to realize that people contain multitudes.” You know? Like, I just need to realize that people are more than one thing. And so that’s…

Scott: That’s where I think the accounting thing comes in again because she can slot them into these little spreadsheet categories, but then by the end, no, people, they bust out of those little cubicles. You know?

Julia: No. It’s true.

Scott: If people are telling you to change her job, I’m advocating for her keeping it.

Julia: The job, actually, we are set on, but it took us many, many iterations. I think her job has changed as many years as I’ve been working on this project. It’s been a lot of changes.

Scott: One thing about rom‑coms, the tropes, and the challenge there would seem to me because I’ve never really written or ran a comedy, but I would assume that one of the big challenges is you’ve got to kind of nod to them. You’ve got to kind of say, “OK,” but then do it in a way that’s a little bit of a twist.

I mean, you’ve got there’s the education‑about‑dating type thing, sort of the mentor, the best friend. There’s a little bit of a makeover before her first date. The meet cute, which you do not once, not twice, but three times…

Julia: The rule of three.

Scott: Rule of three. Exactly. So how do you approach that? You’re writing a romantic comedy. You’re a fan of them, obviously. You’ve got these tropes. How do you approach them so that you’re doing it in a way that is similar but different?

Julia: I think you want to kind of whisper to what feels familiar because people want to see what they love. Just a way of doing it differently, I think really feels rooted in what makes sense for these characters. That, to me, was kind of the fun of it of, “OK. This is a fashion show, but how do we have Avery be the one to do it?”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked out to my friends and been like, “What do you think of this outfit?” And they’re like, “An oversized button down? That’s what you’re going to wear on this date?” You know what I mean?

It just is so funny when you’ve been in a relationship for so long, you really don’t know how things work. It was so interesting to me. That was really what it was. It was like, “Show us modern dating,” in a way that I think if you’ve been in a relationship for a long time or if you’re not of this particular era, it’s a totally different world.

I was shocked. I met my ex‑husband on a dating app in 2015 and logging on to that same dating app in 2024, you would do different things, like you didn’t have to swipe left or right anymore. You had to send hearts and flowers and rose. I was just like, “What is this? I don’t even understand how this works.”

That’s was kind of my thought of at least the explaining dating part and the makeover part. The meet cute, I loved the idea because I think so many people have that person who you really do think is, “This is my next person,” particularly with women and then they just disappear or disappoint. I really wanted that to be the twist of what you think this movie is going to be.

Scott: Well, speaking as a guy, I can say I was very disappointed in that dude because I was hoping that might work out, but as a screenwriter, I’m going, “No. This is not going to happen because page count wise, there’s a lot more to go.”

Julia: Well, see, that’s what I appreciate because I think when you’re watching it, you think, “Oh, no. There’s a chance that he’ll come back.” Right? Or there’s a chance that this is the person because it’s around the midpoint when they have their kind of music swell moment. So you think, “Oh, OK. Now this movie is about this guy,” and in reality, it’s not really about any of the seven guys. It’s really just about her.

Scott: There’s so many great lines of dialogue. I could’ve highlighted dozens of them. We talked about that one scene where she does almost have a sexual encounter with a woman, and she’s so funny. She says, “I’m embarrassed by my heteronormativity…” It was just so funny.

Then there was earlier…I just pulled out another. Ellis had this line, “If I wanted to get into the head of a straight man, I’d listen to country music,” and I’m like, “Well, Julia must be the kind of person who has got a really good inner recording device.”

You live in New York. I’m sure you’re in conversations all the time, and you’ve got all your friends and whatnot. Because the lines of dialog just feel like they’re funny, but they also feel very authentic, like real, like they could have come from real life. So I’m just curious how you feed yourself in terms of your dialog. How does that work?

Julia: I think my acting background really helps. I think that dialog is something that I love so much because I really see the characters very clearly in my head as I’m writing, and if I don’t see them, I cast them, and I know that that can kind of be a no‑no, but I need to hear their voices, and I need to know who they are so that I can know how they speak.

For me, I wanted to make sure, particularly with our three best friends, that they didn’t sound alike, that they couldn’t be interchangeable, that they had to have different, distinct, unique personalities.

There’s one line that I always think about because it’s how I dress. She’s talking about dressing for dates, and she goes, “I don’t have anything. All of my clothes were made for cuteness and general ease,” and I’m just like, “That’s how I feel.” That’s what would come out of my mouth.

So I think Avery and I have a lot in common but she’s the more kind of neurotic, more adorkable version of me in my head. I really have a fun time with dialog. I read everything out loud to make sure that it works and that it feels right, and then just really picturing the characters.

Scott: The ending, I don’t want to give it away. Did you always have that in mind?

Julia: Yes. I wanted something to happen where we’re hopeful because I think for a lot of people, the fear is ending up alone, but it’s such a big world. There are so many people. You never really know what’s just around the corner. Yeah, I wanted to end it on a hopeful, positive note. It wasn’t enough for me to just be like, “She’s happy by herself.” You know?

Also, then you move into maybe there’s a sequel, but I know the sequel, which would be The Seven Guys You Date After Marriage. Then you can have, “The Seven Girls You Date Before Marriage.” What’s been so funny too is talking to guys about who are the seven archetypes of women. You know?

“Who are the seven archetypes of women before and after marriage? How do you do this? Does Marty, her dad, have an opportunity to find love again?” “The Seven Women You Date After Death.” There’s so many different ways and Hollywood loves franchisable.

Scott: Oh, sure. Absolutely, and they’ll find a franchise wherever they can. My theory on this, ‑‑ because I wrote this book called “The Protagonist’s Journey” and Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung, because I do a lot of reading of Carl Jung ‑‑ this idea that the journey that the hero or heroine takes is the journey they need to take.

It’s all about self-identity. It’s about going inside. All the outer stuff is really about driving them inside. So, you can look at these seven experiences that she has with these different interchanges with these potential dates, that’s really about each one of them is kind of piercing through her defenses and causing her to go a little bit deeper to determine who she is.

So often, the end of the movie is the beginning of the Protagonist’s new life.

Julia: I love that. I think too, again, what’s so interesting is rereading it now, I really didn’t realize how autobiographical this movie would be. It really is crazy, and I feel, not protective, but I guess I love it. It’s been a fun ride.

When I was in “Jack Reacher,” I got to work with Chris McQuarrie, who I had literally just…I was like, “I just studied you in film school,” and we talked a lot about screenwriting. I remember when the movie premiered, I went to the cast‑and‑crew screening, and it was right then that I had gotten repped by Gersh and was starting this process with Chuck and Larry Gordon to really bring it all full circle.

Chris said to me, “The best piece of advice that I can give you is to not be precious.” This was at a point, now he can be precious, but before, he was like, “Even I can’t be.” Right? You know? He said, “I’m still at the whims of what the studios and what everybody wants.”

I really took that to heart, not in a way where I am so quick to give up things that I believe in, but really that in order to get to a place that you want in your career, you have to be a team player, and you have to know kind of what your role in it is, and if I wanted things to be printed the way that I wrote them, I would have become a novelist. Right?

A screenplay is a blueprint, and it’s so collaborative, and at the end of the day, it is the first piece of a very large puzzle, and I believe it’s the most important piece of a very large puzzle, but it is just one. Also, if this movie can make what anyone but you made, then who cares?

Scott: Let’s talk about your script being named to The Black List in 2024. What was that experience like and what has it meant to you?

Julia: It meant a lot. As I said, last year was a really, really tough year for me, and if nothing else, it just felt like something incredibly positive. It felt like that kind of thing of like, “OK. You’re going to be fine.” It was also a weird year where so much happened, it felt like, to me, but I was also waiting on a lot of, “This is set up, and so we are out to talent.”

I had another project that’s set up that was out to talent last year. So it was a lot of things where it felt like I was on the precipice of something happening, and then nothing really did, and so it really just felt validating.

Scott: Well, congratulations. I’ve got a few craft questions for you. We’ve already touched a bit on. Here’s one for you that I don’t normally ask, but I was noticing it’s a very professional script in the sense that it’s got wonderful setups and payoffs and callbacks. I did stand‑up comedy for two years, and so I’m very attuned to callbacks.

You have a lot of them, including bookends. The beginning, there’s this proposal that’s not, and then in the end, there’s a big, public‑facing proposal that’s very satisfying. Do you actually think of, “I want to do callbacks,” or are those the kind of things that just sort of serendipitously happen?

Julia: You know, it’s funny. I am a meticulous beat, sheeter, outliner. I really think through everything before I jump onto the page, and so all of that stuff typically is thought out, and I do love a circular moment, but I think because I do so much planning upfront, it allows me to find a lot of things on the page and have a lot of fun in ways that I don’t think I could if I was a little bit more loosey‑goosey with all of that stuff.

So I think some of it, I’m like, “Oh, wait. That would be hilarious to put in here,” but the big set‑piece moments are thought through, like, “OK. How does she meet Brooks the first time? That’s how she’s going to meet him the next two times.” Things like that. I try to keep that consistent.

Scott: When you’re breaking story, do you bust out cards, or do you have some sort of electronic version of it?

Julia: I created this beach‑y template that I have that has come out of just years of working with scripts and also directors and things like that. It’s a combination of three things. It is “Save the Cat,” which I know is controversial, but it’s like the Save‑the‑Cat arc. It is the sequence method, and it’s character goals and plans, and basically assigning new plans every sequence.

Breaking my scripts into bite‑sized pieces has just been so unbelievably helpful, and I started doing that probably in 2020, 2021. Then from there, from a pretty solid beat sheet, I bring it to an outline. For features, it tends to be 20 to 30 pages, scene by scene, and then it honestly makes writing a first draft a breeze.

Scott: That’s what I tell my students all the time.

Julia: Nobody believes you.

Scott: Yeah. It’s like, “Why would I spend all this time?” If you sell a project, a pitch or you get a writing assignment, you got twelve weeks or whatever to turn it in. They’re like, “Why would you spend four or five, six weeks on the outline?” Well, it’s just going to expedite the process, and you’re much less likely to get lost.

Julia: I always think, “OK. If you have a script, you’re writing five pages a day, it’ll take you 20 days.” Right? Only 20. That’s no time, and that’s five pages a day. That’s nothing. Right? You can do that so easily.

It’s so funny. I’m working on a first draft right now, and I said to my manager, he was like, “How is that going?” I said, “Oh, I’m on page 70.” He was like, “What? How are you on page 70?” I was like, “Well, because 30 pages of it was my outline.” Right? I already had a very comprehensive plan in place.

I’m not a vomit draft person. I’m a person who I got to plot out and need to know what needs to be in every scene, and then I want to figure out what I’m trying to say and then how do I say it in the most unique, bold, and concise way possible?

Scott: I want to talk to you about that concise part because that’s another thing that I think screenwriters would appreciate, is the efficiency of this thing. By page seven or whatever, we’re right into the front end of the story’s hook. By 15, she’s got that…I think it’s by page 11, she says, “I want to go on these seven dates.” There’s an efficiency to it.

Then the scenes themselves are not long. The scenes typically are a page, maybe a page and a half.

Let’s talk about the scene writing part of the process. Are you conscious of scene length? What are you trying to do when you’re writing a scene?

Julia: Yeah. You know what’s so funny? My first drafts tend to be really short. I have a horror movie right now that’s tight 90. I have this draft that I’m working on right now, I’m like, “It’s page 70, but I’m going to need to add some more meat to it.” I tend to be concise, which is so funny because in person, I’m extremely verbose, but on the page, I’m more concise.

I like to keep scenes to be no longer than three pages, and I rely a lot on particularly in a rom‑com, but in anything, really, I think it’s my animation background. I rely a lot on the physical because in animation, it’s what you write that we’re going to see that’s so much more important because board artists have to interpret that and bring it to life.

I think a lot about what we’re going to see action wise. I always think, “This is what I need to convey. How do I convey it in the most fun, most bold way that I haven’t seen before?”

Scott: What about theme?

Julia: It’s a really great question. It’s not something that I tend to think about a ton when I’m writing, which I think is a little bit…Yeah, I don’t know. It’s not something that I think about a ton when I’m writing. What is the theme of this movie? It’s loving yourself or realizing that your love looks different, you don’t have to be like anyone else or you can trust your own voice. You don’t have to rely on other people for advice.

Then certain projects that I have I’m really interested in taking the theme and turning it into motifs within the story. I have this horror movie, and it’s very much there’s a lot of duality. It’s a lot of mirrors. It’s a lot of double metaphors, and so when I have a really strong theme, I think it’s really fun to pepper it in, but it’s a tough thing to think about as a screenwriter.

Scott: I’ve interviewed hundreds of writers, and theme is the one area where they most often respond with, “Oh, yeah. I don’t know.” Most of them say, “ Whatever it is, I discover it over the course of writing. I don’t start off with a theme.” You know?

Julia: Well, you know what’s funny? Because I use the Save‑the‑Cat beat sheet within my own beat sheet, page five is theme stated. Right? So it’s like I do always find a way to do that. In this case, it was, “Well, your parents’ marriage isn’t necessarily yours.” Right? I tend to do it a little bit more simplistically, putting it into that moment and then kind of letting it go.

Scott: Another question: You’re in New York. I always imagine New York writers, they go out to write in some funky, cool coffee shop. How about you?

Julia: Truly, it’s funny. I was never this much of a morning person before, but I think my divorce has changed my brain chemistry. I wake up almost…Without an alarm. I wake up at 5:55. I don’t know why. Not by choice, but just my body wakes up naturally, and so I will spend the morning kind of breakfast, hang out, getting ready.

I’m typically at the coffee shop that I like to work at by around 8:15, 8:30, and I’m a morning writer. After about 3:00 PM, I am useless, unless I’m on a deadline. So I write basically from 8:30 until whatever I’ve got going on in the afternoon, if I’ve got meetings, if I’m…

I also started coaching, so if I have stuff in the afternoon or evenings, but if it’s a day where I’ve got nothing to do, I’ll be there until about 1:30, maybe, or until I get really hungry because a lot of these places, the food is very expensive, so I’ll go home, have lunch, and either have calls or meetings in the afternoon, or then I’ll work maybe for a couple more hours.

Maybe I’ll switch it up on a different project, something that feels a little bit less pressure if I can make a little bit of progress, but really, it’s that chunk of time in the morning. Today, I had a meeting, so I went from 8:30 to 11:30, but I cranked out more during that time than I do sometimes when I have more time to write.

Scott: One final question for you. What’s the one most important piece of advice you would offer to someone who’s trying to do this, trying to learn the craft and work in the film and TV business?

Julia: I would just say that you’ve got to just keep going. Like, I had someone say to me early on and he’s now a writer who is in the…Is it the Marvel? He’s in the Marvel family, writing Marvel movies. He was in his 30s delivering pizza downtown and ultimately got staffed on a Marvel show and and now is making millions of dollars writing these movies.

He said to me, “You just have to outlast everybody,” and he didn’t mean it in a competitive way. He meant it in, like, “People leave, and all of a sudden, you’re still around.” You know what I mean? I’ve really found that to be true. That’s just it. Luckily for me, I don’t really have any other marketable skills, so I’m going to be here for a while.

Julia is repped by CAA.

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