Go Into The Story Interview: Karin delaPeña Collison

My interview with the 2021 Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting winner.

Karin delaPeña Collison wrote the original screenplay “Coming of Age” which won a 2021 Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting. I had the opportunity to chat with Karin about her creative background, her award-winning script, the craft of screenwriting, and what winning the Nicholl Award has meant to her.

Scott Myers: Great to have you here, Karin. Let’s begin with your professional background. Your bio offers quite a resume. For starters, “Professional child performer in all media in the UK, US, and Asia.” How did you get such a young start?

Karin Collison: We needed money, and I showed a facility at a very early age for performing. Actually, the first role I ever performed was Jesus. I was at a convent school. I was all of six, I think. This is a vivid memory. They were auditioning girls at this convent in the countryside of England to play Jesus in their annual play.

I’ve forgotten many of my Bible stories, but this scene was where Jesus goes to the temple and tells off the money lenders in the temple.

Scott: Tax collectors.

Karin: Tax collectors? OK. I remember auditioning against a little blonde girl. Her name was Jill. It’s one of those weird things that sticks in your brain. They gave the part to me, and I definitely caught the performing bug.

Scott: When you say your family needed money, what was this? Your mom, your dad?

Karin: My father was not dissimilar to the character of Micky [in her Nicholl screenplay]. The character Micky is not a deadbeat dad. But my actual father would definitely qualify, I’m afraid to say. He just bailed on us. We needed money to survive — pay the rent and so on. When I was about eight my mother was working for an agent in London. Actually, Michael Caine’s original agent. I remember his name was Bill. He took one look at my brother and me — my brother was younger than me but just as tall and we looked like twins. The agent said, “Well, these two could do commercials. It would bring in extra money..”

[laughs]

My brother had no interest at all. But I was totally on board. We did one commercial together. It was for a drink in England, which still exists, called Lucozade. It’s this glucose drink that’s supposedly good to give to ill kids. I hated it, but my mother had coached me to lie if I was auditioning for a product I didn’t actually like. I remember they left my brother and me alone on the set while they set up the cameras. It was a set depicting a child’s bedroom with two beds. There was a toy cupboard between the beds. In it, there was a water pistol. I was fascinated by all that was going on around me, but my brother was so bored that he filled the water pistol with Lucozade, and proceeded to squirt it around; it got on a camera lens. He was not popular and was not invited back. I was invited back several times. I did a series of those commercials.

My mother enrolled me in a stage school. I think I was nine when I started going there. And from then on, I was working.

Scott: Working as an actor?

Karin: Yes. Mostly in film and TV, initially.

Scott: Not on stage.

Karin: At that age, just film and TV. I did loads of theater after that.

Scott: Then in your early 20s, you went into journalism.

Karin: Even though by that time, I’d moved to the US, and taken my independence into my own hands, the engine behind me was still my mother. She died shortly after I moved to LA. That just took the wind out from under me.

Also, I always had a good brain. You know what it’s like being an actor. You’re rarely offered anything that really gives you anything to chew on, intellectually. Especially out here in Los Angeles.

I went for a long visit to my brother and sister‑in‑law, who lived in Paris. Although I ended up doing a play when I was staying with them, I took a break from the film business. And that gave me the chance to notice that all my brother’s friends with “normal” jobs had these wonderful lives. They did things like taking skiing holidays. Things that I had never done because I was always reluctant to lose the chance of getting an acting job.

So when I returned to the US, I quit acting. Ironically, I quit right when I had just started getting guest star TV roles. And lovely little cameo roles in movies. But I was quite simply done. I’d had enough. I thought I was out of it forever.

After that, I had a bunch of different administrative jobs here and there while I tried to figure out what I wanted to do. And then I fell into this journalism job.

Scott: Was that the first time you did something officially as a writer?

Karin: Yes. It was the complicity of circumstances. I was working at Dun & Bradstreet as a secretary in the marketing department. My boss was in a power struggle with her boss. She agreed to be shipped off to another site on the condition that he didn’t fire me.

He agreed, but he didn’t want me hanging out in the marketing department so he sent me over to editorial. He had no idea if I could put one word in front of another. I didn’t know that, either. But I could. And I enjoyed it. And I used their educational benefits to take a couple of writing courses at Columbia.

After I’d left Dunn and Bradstreet, I tried to stick around in journalism. But I was, once again, in a career where the supply was much greater than the demand. I just thought, “If I’m going to fight my corner, I’ll fight it as an actress. I just wasn’t that attached to being a writer.”

Scott: What about this MSW and your New York City private psychotherapy practice?

Karin: Well, I went back to therapy. And I also went back to college. I got my bachelor’s degree and my master’s degree. I’d had a couple of years in talk therapy; but I’d been out of it for a while. When I returned, it was to a very expressive form of therapy in a group format. It was a form of primal scream therapy. In this group, you worked with other group members, and people were constantly asking to work with me. Finally, my therapist said, “I should apprentice you.” I was intrigued and agreed. Before I knew what was happening, I was running groups. Professional therapists will be appalled to hear this — especially because I didn’t even have my MSW at this point. But I was still under very serious supervision from therapist. And I started making a very nice living, thank you very much, as a psychotherapist — while still getting my master’s degree in clinical social work. I must admit that it was all pretty bizarre. If you could see me now, you’d see me shaking my head in amazement.

By the time I finished my degree, I was clinically burned out — between the academic work, my field placement, and my private practice. I referred my private clients out to other psychotherapists and left New York. I moved to Santa Barbara.

Setting up a private practice in Santa Barbara seemed way too entrepreneurial to me, so I got a job working at Santa Barbara County Mental Health. That’s when I jumped back into writing. I took an adult ed fiction course and the teacher told me to sign up for the Santa Barbara Writers Conference. I did and won a short story prize.

When you win, you have to read it out loud to the whole conference. There were hundreds of people there and one of them came up to me afterwards and told me about an anthologist in Santa Barbara who had just started a program called “Speaking of Stories.” She suggested I offer myself as an actress to this man. Have you heard of Selected Shorts, Scott?

Scott: Yes.

Karin: I used to go to Selected Shorts when I was living in New York. And Santa Barbara was an ideal place for a local version of Selected Shorts because there are so many professional actors and stars living there. So I called him, but he told me he only used well-known actors for his series.

I was fine with that — I had nothing invested in acting again. I went to see one of his shows and had a few opinions about it. But it was none of my business, so I kept my opinions to myself.

I was introduced to him in person a couple of weeks later and he remembered that I’d called him about being one of his readers. I told him I’d seen his most recent show and he asked me what I thought. I just said, “I’m delighted you’re doing this out here, because I was a Selected Shorts Subscriber when I lived in NYC.” He asked me again what I thought. I tried to duck out of giving my opinion, but he said, “I really want to know.” So … I told him. I said, “The stories are terrific — wonderful writers. But they could be better balanced, and the presentation is sloppy. The actors weren’t well‑rehearsed. They didn’t dress nicely. I think it’s a privilege to read such beautifully-written stories to a live audience. Much like art song.”

I remember we were standing in the portico of a lovely home in Santa Barbara, overlooking a wide vista of the mountains and the beach. He took a moment after I finished talking, then he said, “Thank you.”

Somebody dropped out of his final performance of that season and he tracked me down and asked me if I would step in. I was being hoist on my own petard. I rehearsed thoroughly. I dressed nicely. And the difference between me and the other actors really showed when I read the story he’d assigned me.

The next day, he asked me to be his artistic director, and I agreed. I had that position for the next, I don’t know, seven years, something like that. We grew from a 150 seat theater to a 750 seat theater; and I was soon able to give up my social work job and earn a living wage.

We used professional actors as well as all kinds of stars like John Cleese, Jeff Bridges, Jane Seymour — on and on. I can’t even remember all the people. It was wonderful fun. And, as well as our ongoing seasons in which an actor stood at a podium reading a story, I staged huge productions as fundraisers — replete with live musicians. I felt very well‑used.

Although I’d left my social work position, I still had all my social work skills and the degree, so I was able to develop a very strong outreach program. In truth, that was what brought in the most money to the organization. Donors and grantors like to give to social issues more than they like to give to the arts.

Eventually, the US Embassy found out about what we were doing and invited me to Kuala Lumpur to mount a show and teach my outreach program. This was in the immediate wake of 9/11. They wanted to reach out to Muslims in that area, using American literature as a bridge. I included a lot of Malaysian writing in the show too, though.

Speaking of Stories was a nonprofit by this time, so we had a board, which started to try and tell me what stories I could and couldn’t use in our season. After a couple of years of that pressure, I quit.

By that time, the theater world there ‑‑ there’s a lively professional theater world in Santa Barbara ‑‑ had caught on to the fact that I had experience and skills as an actress. They started offering me wonderful roles. I couldn’t resist. And before I knew what was happening I had spread myself too thin again and burned myself out.

Also, while Santa Barbara is lovely it is also very self-contained. After I left Speaking of Stories, I realized that I needed to put on my big girl trousers and get back into the real world again as an actress.

Scott: Moved to LA.

Karin: Yes, I moved to LA. I didn’t raise my head into the radar initially. Just took classes, and did some Shakespeare in the Park. It wasn’t till I got signed by an agent in New York and moved there that I started back in earnest. I lived in NYC from 2007 until 2017, when I moved back to LA.

Scott: Fascinating hearing that story. It’s like the antithesis of your typical screenwriter who goes to USC, gets an MFA, and boom.

[laughter]

Karin: Antithesis.

Scott: You’ve had this incredible life experience that reminds me of…I’m a big Joseph Campbell fan and him talking about how…

Karin: “Hero’s Journeys.” Yes. And there’s so much more to my adventures.

Scott: …you follow your bliss. The universe will create doors where there once were walls and all these opportunities. You had this phrase you used a couple times, “Complicity of circumstances.” I know that in my own life, too. You put yourself out there. You’re following the thing you’re passionate about, and somehow these opportunities arise.

Let me ask you about the screenwriting. You mentioned here, “Published fiction, nonfiction throughout my careers but only recently dived into screenwriting.” What took you there? Was it because you’d been working in TV and film and theater and you thought, “I could do this”?

Karin: No, nothing as arrogant as that. Just to be clear, I have had a couple of short stories — three, I think — published. But one I started running Speaking of stories I stopped fiction writing. And I wasn’t doing any writing at all when I was living in New York. But during my Speaking of Stories tenure, I was absorbing a tremendous amount of the highest quality literature. And in NYC, I did a lot of dramaturgy. Working a lot on other people’s writing. I enjoyed working in that way with theater and film scripts. And my husband is a playwright — he’s won the New Dramatists and been produced off-Broadway, at Louisville, at The Music Center. So I continued to be surrounded by writing and writers … and even married one.

Shortly after I moved back to LA, in 2018, I joined a rather wonderful actor collective called The Collaborative. You have to join as an actor and it’s a very hard auditioning process. You have to show your stripes, and prove that, A, you’re a decent human being. That’s very important. And B, that you’re a really strong actor. Once you’re in, though, you meet all these remarkable people — many of whom are multihyphenates.

So here I was surrounded by people who were writing and they filming stuff for themselves. As a middle-aged woman coming back into acting, it has not been easygoing. Even though I have good representation, it’s hard to even get into audition rooms. And the kinds of roles for which I’m suitable are very often offered out directly to actresses who never left the business and have a much higher profile than I have. That’s just the reality. I do book work sometimes. But not enough to feel well used.

I was inspired by these proactive actors in The Collaborative and I told myself, “Well, you know what, it’s time for me to write material for myself. I can write. So I’m sure I can learn how to write a script.” I remember I was in Australia visiting family. I went to Yelp. And typed in, “Best place to go in LA to learn how to write a screenplay.” I put in the zip code where I was living at the time.

This name came up with masses of stars, way ahead of anybody else. And her classes happened to be within a bike ride of where I was then living in Valley Village. Her intro classes seemed reasonably affordable, so I signed up. And then I totally fell in love with her.

I just thought she was fabulous. She knew exactly what she was talking about. Her creds were so impressive. DreamWorks hired her as their Senior Story Analyst, virtually straight out of college. Then she started her writing studio: onthepage.tv

It’s been wildly successful. In fact, one of her students a few years ago was also a winner at the Nicholl. Even this year, she had a student who was a finalist along with me. She really knows what she’s doing.

Anyway, I started working with her.

The first thing I wrote was a 30‑minute comedy, in which the lead is…Well, you would read it and just go, “OK. No-one else can play this. That is you.” That was the first thing I wrote — and writing it was what had spurred me to learn screenwriting in the first place. But I somehow sidestepped the process of trying to film it.

I entered some competitions with that material, though, and won a couple of placements.

I decided to enter competitions because I wanted an ice‑cold response writing. For nobody to have met me in person, so they wouldn’t invest the script with my personality. The writing would have to hold up on its own. I wasn’t entering competitions thinking, “Oh, I’m going to win this.” It was just, “I want to get the feedback.”

After I finished the pilot, I told Pilar that I was interested in exploring a couple of themes. I told her what they were and asked for her input.

She is so incisive. She managed to go into what I was waffling on about and find its core. She said, “OK. Look, this is very interesting to me. Backstage in an English touring company in 1965 would be an unexplored world to screenplays. Also, the sexual development of a young girl is always compelling.” So I signed up for coaching with her and started working on it.

Initially, I was thinking of this material as a series. And I still do. I now have a finished pilot with a Bible attached to it. But I took a circuitous route to get there.

I coached with Pilar on the first iteration. She said, “OK. Since you’re familiar with the 30-minute pilot format, let’s stick with that.”

After I wrote it, though, I began to think, “This needs to be an hourlong pilot. It’s serious enough material that I need to undo some of these tight threads and allow it to breathe a little.”

I did that, and then had a Zoom reading about 18 months ago now. Some seasoned industry came, and they all said, “We want to know more about these characters.”

So then this one‑hour pilot started to mushroom. Suddenly, I had a two‑hour pilot. You can’t have a two‑hour pilot. A pilot in this market has to be one‑hour. I was beside myself. I just wasn’t a seasoned enough screenwriter — let’s face it, I was a rank beginner. I thought , “What am I going to do? I love this material, but I don’t know how to sort this out?”

I reached out to Pilar again. I said, “I’m in the weeds. I’m desperate. What shall I do?” She said, “It’s simple. You’ve got two hours’ worth of material. Let’s make it into a feature.” I was so relieved, and promptly bought another coaching series with her. She helped me wrangle the material into a screenplay, explaining that as a screenplay it needed to have an ending … unlike a pilot, which has to end on a cliffhanger. I also needed to skinny it down, make it shorter than two hours.

Anyway, when I’d finished converting it into a screenplay, Pilar said, “You should submit this for the Nicholl.” All I knew about the Nicholl was that it very prestigious, but I didn’t really understand all the ramifications. And I was submitting to other competitions as well.

After I submitted to the Nicholl I didn’t think any more about it. And then, at the end of August, I got this email saying, “Congratulations, you’re a quarter finalist.” I went, “Oh wow — that’s kind of nice.” I wrote to Pilar. She said, “Oh, I love it when I’m right.”

Then a couple of weeks later, I heard that I was a semi‑finalist. Again, I thought, “Very cool. This is fun.” Told Pilar again.

The Nicholl got in touch with all the semi‑finalists, and said, “Please check your logline and check your contact information. Because quarter and semi‑finalists are frequently approached by industry.” I did. And when I went on their website I discovered that I had six Readers’ Analyses. All too often I’ve had the feeling that reader feedback from competitions is coming from inexperienced and overworked readers and I’ve given up paying for it.

So I’d forgotten I’d paid the necessary extra fee for feedback from The Nicholl readers, and when I read them I was delighted I had. The analyses were so thorough and well-written and useful.

Then I got another email from The Nicholl saying, “We have a couple of questions about your screenplay. Can you attend a Zoom meeting on such and such a day?” I said, “Of course.” I showed up at the Zoom meeting. There were about 13 people there. I thought, “Oh, they’re doing this in a group format?”

One by one, three of these people introduced themselves as staff members. I recognize their names. The third person was Joan. I was expecting the other people to start introducing themselves, but then Joan said, “We have a question for all of you. How does it feel to be a finalist?” There was a thundering silence at that point. I cried. I think other people cried, too. We were so taken aback. It was a fabulous way to tell us.

I loved the fact that they had plotted so that they could spring it on us. We weren’t allowed to announce it, though. We had to wait until they announced it on their website. We had to keep our lips buttoned for about a week. That was tough. But worth it.

After they publicly announced the finalists, they managed to surprise us again. This time, they did it by saying, “It’s mandatory that you show up for this Zoom session. But you have to be willing to sit in the waiting room between the hours of 11:00 and 1:30.”

That’s what I often have to do as an actress, though, if I have an audition or a callback. So I was accustomed to the waiting room set up. You can knock around your house, doing whatever it is that you’re doing, until you get the ding, ding, ding, which tells you that you’re coming out of the waiting room.

I’d had to answer some long‑form questions before this zoom session so I assumed that this meeting would be like defending a thesis. And I figured they wanted to make sure I didn’t have moss growing out of my ears. That I was a substantive, cogent person.

But no. When I got out of the waiting room, they took me by surprise and reduced me to tears yet again.

Only this time, it was the chairwoman, Jennifer, who greeted me. And then she announced that I was a Fellow and welcomed me to The Nicholl. It was such a delicious experience.

This time, we had to keep our lips buttoned for a month. We were told the good news on October the 9th. The public announcement wasn’t made until November the 8th.

I ended up enjoying that window of time, though, because it allowed me to absorb the reality of what had happened and to get my feet back on the ground. It was still wildly exciting to me, and I wanted to share it with my friends, though. And I managed to do that — by lying. I was suddenly really busy with industry enquiries, and interviews, and the filmed conversation with Our Lady J, and I told my friends about everything as it was happening. My lie was that The Nicholl was treating all ten Finalists in the same way so that they could stockpile the necessary information and have it ready for when they actually named the five Fellows.

I said, “It’s like when obit writers accrue information on somebody so that when that person dies, they’ve got a head start on their obituary.” This way I was able to relish and share the process as it was happening.

Scott: Let’s talk about your script, “Coming of Age.” This is the script that you were just talking about that won the Nicholl. Here’s a summary of the plot:

“In 1965 Britain, a sheltered, studious schoolgirl, lands on a British Farce tour her mother stage manages, where tutoring by company members successfully replaces her formal schooling, she’s cajoled into replacing an actress in the show with surprising success, and she experiences a scandalous sexual awakening in the morally wobbly era of Free Love, which leads both her and her mother to ‘come of age.’.”

How much of this was inspired by your own experience as a young person and an actor, and how much of this is fabrication?

Karin: I was very interested in exploring the influence of lack of structure on the sexual development of a young girl. How lack of oversight can set a girl adrift. Especially in that era. The 1960s. In that era, it was all free love. Somebody who has had a sheltered life could be exposed to shocking revelations about herself, for which she’s ill prepared. Yes, although the scene I’ve written in the screenplay isn’t what happened to me, there’s a lot of truth in it about the emotions I felt back then. How lost I felt.

Discovering that she can attract men … especially one on whom she has a crush … would be wildly intoxicating and can also steer her…can knock her off base. Now, in the feature, it doesn’t really knock her off base. It is traumatic for her, definitely. But it ties itself up at the end, for her.

The series version of the material explores her dilemma with more ambiguity.

I think I just said to Pilar, “Look, my mother was a stage manager. My father was out of the picture altogether.” I told her enough about it that she caught on to the theater side of it. She went, “Oh, yes … that’s interesting. That’s an interesting environment.”

The first part of the screenplay that leads up to the inciting incident, and maybe a little bit past that, when the family is at home as a family unit — elements of that section feel very close to my life. That felt very close to home. Although my father never lived with us, I was able to just imagine that. The actual events that happened, though — I made most of those up. Although, I did walk around a lamppost and leave imprints in the wet cement.

Scott: Let’s jump to that. One thing, as a screenwriter, I thought you did very well ‑‑ because you’ve got a lot of characters in that theater group ‑‑ is there’s a specificity to them, which once you get to know them, you get it. When you introduce characters, that’s really important.

The script reader, they’re not privy to it like you are. You know the whole world. They’re being introduced. They’re just trying to figure out the roster. You do these little descriptors of the characters. In this case, Charlotte. Let me just read this to you, because I thought it was quite clever.

“Charlotte, 14, her eyes never leaving a biology textbook, halts at a driveway for a car to exit, sidesteps some dog poop, and dodges wet cement around a streetlight. She frees a grasshopper from the cement, glances down the empty street, and then, with great intent, heel toes around the light, leaving footprints in the wet cement. The middle shirt button of her school uniform has popped open. She rebuttons it as she walks on, reading again.”

That’s very specific. If you look at that, you’re setting into motion a complex figure. Biology text. You knows she’s studious.

We learned, she’s got a clear goal. She wants to be a doctor. Frees a grasshopper. There you go. She’s got some empathy. There’s that going on. She leaves these footprints in the wet cement, which suggests she’s got a bit of a rebellious streak.

Then this middle shirt popping open, which is not a metaphor. It’s like she’s growing into herself. Her body is evolving.

Karin: Growing out of herself. [laughs]

Scott: Out of herself. Exactly. Let’s talk about this choice of 1965. I’m old enough to remember this. [laughs] This is literally my youth. Free love. Did you choose that era because of the lack of structure?

Karin: I think what I was also interested in exploring was how we as a culture, writ large, create behavior. I’m interested in how people like Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein, Charlie Rose, Bill Cosby were a product of that time. It was a very “nudge, nudge, wink, wink — say no more” time for men. An “anything goes” time, for men. Free love was very much in service to men. Not so much to women. Women simply had an ability to make it easier for the men to have sex more freely and with more impunity, because of the pill.

I wasn’t interested in indicting the culture of the time, but in just looking at how the bad behavior these men exhibited throughout their lives didn’t come out of nowhere. Yes, there are myriad men who came out of that time period who didn’t exploit women, obviously. But the culture supported whatever predatory predisposition these particular men had. Their bullying tendencies.

I started writing this at the end of 2019. It was top of mind, the whole “Me Too — Time’s Up” issue. Top of my mind, anyway.

Scott: Even the father character, Micky.

Karin: Very much. Micky; and Edward.

Scott: They’re cut from the same cloth. Even to the point where they smoke the same cigarettes. From a symbolic standpoint, a metaphorical standpoint, Edward, the actor, is a substitute version in a way. He’s like a surrogate father figure in a way.

Micky has this comment. The inciting incident, if you will. Trisha, the mom, comes home and finds Micky in bed, in their bed, with the 18‑year‑old au pair.

Micky attitude is, “I just don’t see the problem. You want to traipse around with a bunch of actors, fine. If little Fleur [the au pair] can handle some of your wifely duties, why not a few more? At least for now. It seems only fair.” That’s that kind of entitlement. The male entitlement.

Karin: That’s not necessarily only typical of the ’60s. That sense of entitlement has existed in many men through the millennia. I just think that there was a lot of, “Yes, old boy.” Nudge, nudge, wink, wink encouragement. That the ’60s made it easier for people to condone that.

Scott: I think there was less structure, and there was less oversight. In this case, the mom, Trisha, who’s a theater stage manager, she’s drawn toward the arts. Once she discovers her husband’s infidelity, she takes Charlotte who keeps saying, “I just want to be a doctor.” But her mom takes her off to this strange environment.

Karin: It’s not just that she takes her TO the environment. She takes her away FROM her father fooling around.

Scott: The theater group, that is where this Lolita‑type thing happens. How early on was that character, Edward, in your thinking? Was that something that was to facilitate this idea of the sexual development, or did the character pre‑exist that?

Karin: I honestly can’t answer that, Scott. There was an inkling in my mind that there would be a character in this troop who would have an ambiguous relationship with the mother and with the daughter — and would be intoxicating to the daughter. Would go too far with the daughter. I had that idea from the drop.

The fact that he smoked the same cigarettes and wore the same aftershave as the dad. Those sorts of details, the fact of the tutoring, I don’t think I had those from the drop. I can’t remember now exactly. I think coming up with the tutoring was a way to solve a problem, because she had to have schooling.

Then having him as one of her tutors … and the John Donne poem — it all seemed to fit.

Scott: That’s that wonderful thing we do as writers, referred to as that receptive writing and executive writing. That receptive writing as an actor and a writer, that thing where you’re just really receiving from the characters. Then there’s a time where you step outside.

In this case, it’s like, “Well, I got to do a bit of problem‑solving here. If Trisha, the mom’s, going to take the daughter away from her education, she’s going to have to somehow substitute it.” So she reaches out to people in the company…Anu teaches her biology. Harry, I think his character, teaches her math.

Karin: Math and history.

Scott: Math and history. Edward’s got literature, which is quite great that you’re able to facilitate that. There’re so many levels. It’s a complex story. Very simple in some ways. It’s not your typical, the Protagonist has got a goal, got to do this in order to achieve that. It’s not that. It’s more of a slice of life thing, and yet it does have a structure to it. There is this complex mother‑daughter relationship. There is this relationship with her father that’s played out through the relationship with Edward. Mostly, it’s about the sexual and psychological maturation of the Charlotte character.

I want to talk about a specific moment with Edward, an abusive moment. Yet the tone of the story is also comedic. Did you know exactly the specifics of what was going to happen there, and how you handled that in terms of the script?

Karin: I didn’t want Charlotte to be a victim. I wanted her traumatic experience with Edward to exist in a morally gray area. In other words, I didn’t want to have a predator and a victim. I wanted to explore the complications. Clearly, a better man wouldn’t have succumbed to that level of temptation. A lot of men would, though. A lot of men would. Definitely back then.

This nubile protagonist — this girl whose body is so physically developed — and who is clearly intoxicated with the man in front of her, and by her own sexual feelings … well, a lot of men would succumb to that temptation. I also wanted to make it clear that although for her, a tremendous amount happened — objectively, not very much happened. That’s how she felt about it.

I wanted to show that the whole experience was as unexpected to him as it was to her; that he is not a natural predator. (Again, I have a slightly different take on it in the series. More morally ambiguous.) He reels back from what happens. He starts focusing on the mother. He basically rejects Charlotte. Also, they’ve finished the literature curriculum by that time, so he doesn’t have to see her in private anymore. This, of course, is devastating and terribly confusing for her.

That was what I was trying to achieve there. I was really trying to take this experience out of the realm of black and white. I wanted audiences to be turned on, because that’s the real world. But also, to be shocked. I wanted all of that complexity. We are incredibly complex creatures. That’s what I was going for.

Scott: It really lays the groundwork for her, because she has all those experiences, she is turned on, and she is shocked. At some point, it feels like she’s got a sense of shame about it, too, like it was her fault.

Yet then you’ve got these counterveiling characters like Gloria, who is sexually libertine and comfortable in herself and they become chums. There’s a rebalancing in a way. It’s great that it’s a female character, too. It’s a maternal type of a figure.

Having that Gloria character, was that one of those things where, again, receptive writing, these are the characters you know in the theater, but then, as you are working with the story and Charlotte’s character, Gloria plugs in. You can see how she serves as a mentor figure in a way at that time.

Karin: Yes, Gloria definitely beamed in to me … she’s definitely a product of receptive writing. And she becomes Charlotte’s mentor in a very girly way.

Scott: Trickster’s kind of way.

Karin: Yes. She’s not like Anu.

Scott: No. She’s more like a trickster.

Karin: Yes. She’s like a trickster. She’s teaching Charlotte some feminine wiles.

Scott: Limericks.

Karin: Yes, naughty limericks.

Scott: Then there’s Catholicism. You said that you yourself went to a convent school. Trisha is quite observant of Catholicism as a mother, but not in a strict, disciplinary way; I don’t know what it is. More of a cultural thing — or does she feel like it’s an appropriate or necessary thing to do as a parent?

Maybe unpack a little bit of that Catholicism and how that plays out because it comes into play at the very end with your ending, which I love.

Karin: That is very personal actually — very true to my life. My mother was a Catholic convert. When you’re a convert, you’re much more passionate about your faith. I swear I could speak Latin before I could speak English. I remember kneeling down, saying the Pater Noster and the Ave Maria by my bed next to my mother. Now despite being a passionate Catholic, my mother was not a straight-laced person. She was very contradictory. Quite confusing to me.

Tricia’s more straight‑laced in this script than my mother was. She has a flirtation with Edward in the film, but it never goes anywhere, because she’s a loyal wife.

In reality, as I said, my father bailed on us. He had no religion whatsoever. My mother raised us as Roman Catholics. But once she was a woman without a husband, she had men in her life. But very discreetly. She was always balancing these two dynamics.

This is not in the script. I don’t think I even put it in the pilot. If for some wonderful and bizarre reason, the series got produced and took off into a few seasons, it could definitely be a part of Tricia’s character arc.

In true life, my mother had TB. One of the convalescent homes she went to was run by Catholic nuns. She’d been brought up as an English Protestant. It was they who converted her.

She remained a loyal and very observant Catholic until she died.

Scott: There is a theatricality to Catholicism compared to the Protestants.

Karin: Very much so. Especially before they started saying the mass in English. I don’t remember exactly when that was … sometime in the ‘60s.

Scott: In the ‘60s.

Karin: It was, wasn’t it? But, for the early part of my childhood the mass was performed in Latin. It made it terribly theatrical and mystical. And, of course, there was the incense.

Scott: That’s why the ending was so great. I could see the structure of the story. There’s such specificity, love, and affection for these characters. This writer clearly knows this world. Yet, there are these things that happen.

Every so often, the major plotline points happen, they move things along every 10 to 15 pages. There is this structure to it that you recognize as being conventional in a good way.

Karin: Pilar will have guided me in that sense.

Scott: I think I know who you’re talking about with your screenwriting coach …Pilar Alessandro, is that who you’re talking about? Yes. We met in London Screenwriters’ Festival years ago.

Karin: Yes, she’s terrific. I have a natural sense for structure. As I said, I was an actress from a very young age. I was learning Shakespeare, and classical structure from a very young age. It’s in my bones. But, I couldn’t teach it. I don’t understand structure according to screenwriting rules. But my instinct was always good, structurally.

Pilar put my instinct for structure into language for me. She’ll say, “Oh, yes. Now we come to the end of Act 2B,” and I’ll say, “Oh, OK. That’s good.” I just knew the balance felt right somehow.

Scott: You’ve got that in the story where here’s this young woman. She’s in this theater group, learning all this stuff, having this sexual experience or this moment with Edward. And this goes back to your own experience. “I got into acting because we needed the money.” That’s exactly what happens with Trish.

Trish goes, “Hey, Charlotte. Here you go. You’re going to be in the play. And you’ll get paid and we need the money.” And it turns out that not only does Charlotte end up in the play, but she wears a French maid’s outfit, and the person she interacts with is the very guy with whom she had that moment. And Charlotte gets to slap him on stage every night.

I just thought that was so perfect. Was that there? Was that something that came out of the Pilar session?

Karin: Again, I don’t remember exactly. It came about pretty organically. I will say that one of my mates with whom I worked as an actress — he directed me in a couple of his films. Wyatt Rockefeller. He’s an absolute sweetie pie and a lovely filmmaker. And I sent him an earlier draft of the script and he got back to me and he said, “Oh, I love this.” He said, “But give Charlotte more agency. Why don’t you have her smack Edward around or something.”

I thought, “Hmmm, now that’s a fun idea.” I was happy to take his suggestion and run with it. A lot of actors and a lot of writers are very protective and defensive about their work. But I’m very sure of my truth, of what jives with the direction I’m going in.

If somebody comes up with something that feels just completely dissonant with my script, I’m fine about saying, “You know what? Thank you, but that isn’t for this script.” But I have a very open door for other people’s ideas. Bring it on. I will take it and run with it if it works for my character or my plot.

Scott: What’s the status of the script at this point?

Karin: It’s in various industry peoples’ hands, but in the meantime I’m getting on with other work. When I get representation, they’re going to want to know what other work I have. So I’m building a bank of screenplays. The Nicholl Fellowship incentivizes you to write a screenplay within the first year after you’re named a Fellow. It’s a great idea. The Nicholl metes out the prize money in five fractions. The first fraction is for winning. Then each subsequent fraction is tied to a stage of the Fellowship screenplay.

I’ve already started on the Fellowship feature, so there’ll be that to add to my bank of screenplays. And I’m not short of ideas. Two or three of my short stories are very visual, and would work well as movies. I will just continue to plug along and write.

Scott: Maybe one day, once everything’s done, you’ll direct this thing.

Karin: I don’t know. When you sell a movie, it becomes the director’s. So if somebody wants to direct the movie, I would probably have to say bye‑bye.

I would certainly want them to know that I would be available for any input that they would like me to give, any questions they had, etc. I’d be happy as a clam to be around for that.

If I was fortunate enough to get traction on the pilot and the series, though, that would be a different thing. I would want that to be negotiated such that I could be involved.

Scott: Who knows? Anyway, congratulations on the Nicholl. A few questions for you. Let’s talk about your writing and what you bring to it as an actor. Are there specific aspects about the process that you feel benefit you because you have an acting background? Actually, the psychotherapy background, too. There’s a lot of that in there. Do you bring any of that to bear when you’re writing?

Karin: Of course. Acting‑wise, I’m sure that that helps with dialogue. I’m sure it does. With developing the characters, and with the pace and the structure, too. My acting life has been about inhabiting characters, which I’m sure contributes to the specificity of my characters.

Although I am not what people think of as an improviser because the term improvisation has come to mean the kind of sketch comedy done by Second City, The Groundlings, or that sort of thing. I never approached improvisation just for comedy. I’ve always approached it as a way of exploring character. I love to do that. Sometimes it ends up being funny.

Improvisation helps in writing and acting; having an unfettered mind. Being willing to think out of the box. I love to stretch characters’ thinking.

I’ve always had a huge curiosity, which has made me quite intrepid in my life. And given me a huge appetite to explore different worlds. I used to travel much more than I do now, but right now, and for the past decade at least, I’ve been an absolutely voracious (to the point of addictive) audio book listener. And my literary appetites are omnivorous. So I’m constantly learning about different worlds. Definitely been a boon during the pandemic, when you can’t be out in the world.

Scott: That curiosity, that’s so key.

Karin: And allowing my curiosity to keep me pretty fearless about, and open to, a vast array of subjects has been crucial. I think it’s the life blood of an artist. And it’s probably what led me into being a psychotherapist too. I am fascinated. I want to go deeply inside whatever and whomever I’m exploring..

Scott: Finally, what advice do you have for someone who wants to learn the craft of screenwriting?

Karin: Find a good coach you trust. And be willing to put your hand in your pocket to do that. Don’t shortchange your creative growth and process. And it’s great if you can find a writing group made up of people whose work you respect from whom you can get strong feedback. But without my coach (and I now work with two people, because Pilar is so busy that she’s not always available) I wouldn’t have continued writing, and I definitely wouldn’t have won The Nicholl.

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