Interview (Part 1): Bill Holderman and Erin Simms

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

“Four lifelong friends have their lives forever changed after reading ‘50 Shades of Grey’ in their monthly book club.” That’s the logline of the Paramount comedy Book Club which opens in theaters across North America beginning Friday, May 18th.

Recently, I had an hour-long conversation with the co-writers of the movie: Erin Simms and Bill Holderman. Bill also made his directing debut with the film. Today in Part 1, Erin and Bill discuss how they wound their way to Hollywood and were brought together working for a well-known actor’s production company:

Scott Myers: Erin, let’s start with you. I think your background in the film and TV business has been mostly acting. Could you walk us through your journey from growing up in Montreal to becoming an actress?

Erin Simms: I started acting in high school, got an agent real young, and started working at around 14, 15. Then I ended up on a show called “Student Bodies” as one of the series leads. It was a Fox show, we were shooting in Montreal, and it was a pretty big deal back then, like 20 years ago.

On one of the hiatuses, I moved to LA and got a role on the “Power Rangers.” I decided not to go back to Canada, so I stayed here.

Then slowly, I realized I wasn’t enjoying being an actress. In my trailer, bored out of my mind, it was like the opposite of everything an actress is supposed to feel. Was not excited about it. I spent a few years confused about what I really wanted to do, and so I started to be an assistant to producers, working in offices, reading scripts, and doing coverage.

Then I moved to Vancouver and decided I was going to be on set and assist directors. That was when it all came crystal clear that this is actually something I love to do. Being on set and not caring to be in front of the camera at all… that put the final nail in that coffin.

I eventually got the job to be Robert Redford’s assistant in his production company [Wildwood] where Bill [Holderman] was writer-producer, and they actually were hiring a development executive. Over the course of those four months, I said, “Anything you guys have to read, I’ve done development before. I’ve done a lot of script coverage.” I just took advantage of that four‑month period of being an assistant.

I guess they saw something and they offered me a job to come to LA to be the development executive at Wildwood, which was unbelievable. That’s where I really got my training.

To come to Hollywood and to jump into a company that was operating on that level, you really had to get your act together quickly. I pretty much had my head in scripts for three years. Bill’s an incredible writer. We realized we connected very well on story because I was usually supporting him in developing things. Eventually, we came up with the idea for Book Club.

Scott: I was looking at some shared credits… A Walk in the Woods, All Is Lost. That would explain that connection there?

Erin: Yeah, exactly. They really mentored me, Bill and Redford. They really did. They changed my life by giving me that job.

Scott: Bill, how about you? How did you wind your way into becoming writer, producer, and now director?

Bill Holderman: I started out, like so many people, not really knowing what I wanted to do. I’d graduated with an economics degree. I came out West and I was doing internships. It was right around the time when the Internet was exploding and there was all sorts of opportunities. Then the Internet crashed and all those opportunities were gone. I thought, “Boy, I need to go do something much more traditional and safe.”

What is safe and traditional? I thought, “Film,” which, by the way, is ridiculous. It’s so not safe and not traditional.

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

Then, I was there for…

Erin: 14 years. [laughs]

Bill: …yeah, almost 14 years.

[laughter]

Bill: The company kept evolving and changing, and my role kept evolving and changing, too. I had already wanted to write and be a writer. I was really interested in writing for television. Again, it was at a moment when TV was much less in vogue than it is now. It was really hard to get jobs writing for TV because there just weren’t any.

I went through the Warner Bros. Writers workshop in a year when… It used to be that most people got staffed out of that program. The year I went, only one person got a staff job out of the group, which was incredibly rare.

So I stayed in film and started writing doing, believe it or not, rewrites for Redford. Then doing on‑set rewrites for Redford. Then eventually doing bigger rewrites for Redford and for the company.

Erin: He rewrote A Walk in the Woods, rewrote The Company You Keep, and rewrote… can we talk about Pete’s Dragon?

Bill: Yeah, I did a rewrite for Pete’s Dragon. Before that, I had rewritten The Company You Keep, I was uncredited, but I did pretty much a page‑one rewrite of that script. Before that as a development executive, I was at a company where WE self‑generated a lot of ideas, so I was writing a lot of treatments, ideas and…

Erin: A small unknown fact. Bill did so much research on Jackie Robinson and wrote the original treatment for 42. The movie was actually at Wildwood. Redford was going to be playing Branch Rickey, then as movies do, it moved in another direction, but that was Bill’s original development piece.

Bill: Yeah, that was one of the projects I was developing. After that and A Walk in the Woods, I just wanted to keep writing and producing. Eventually, that translated into adding the third of those hyphens, so I directed this (Book Club).

Here is a trailer for the movie Book Club:

With an all-star cast which includes Candice Bergen, Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Mary Steenburgen, Richard Dreyfus, Andy Garcia, Don Johnson, and Craig T. Nelson, it opens in 2500+ screens nationwide this Friday.

Tomorrow in Part 2, Bill and Erin share how they came up with and wrote the script for Book Club.

Erin and Bill are repped by WME.

Twitter: @200bill, @Erinsimms9.