Interview (Part 1): Filipe Coutinho

My interview with 2023 Black List writer for his script Patsy.

Filipe Coutinho has made the annual Black List three times: In 2021 for the screenplay Whittier (co-written with Ben Mehlman), 2022 for Jambusters, then in 2023 with the screenplay Patsy. I had the opportunity to chat with Filipe about his creative background, his latest Black List screenplay, and the craft of screenwriting.

Today in Part 1 of a 6-part series to run each day through Sunday, Filipe talks about how he fell in love with movies and his experience as a participant in the 2020 Black List Feature Writers Lab.

Scott Myers: Filipe, we did a previous interview when Whittier, a script you co‑wrote with Ben Mehlman, made the annual Black List in 2021. One thing I remember from that conversation was that you were growing up in Portugal and someone, I can’t remember who — maybe one of your family members — took you to a movie and you saw Cate Blanchett and like, boom, it changed your life. Maybe you could walk us through that again.

Filipe Coutinho: The way that it worked was, I had just started business school, but I was also getting very interested in movies and moviemaking in general. I was going to the theater every chance I got. I wanted to watch everything and anything. At some point, there was this movie, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, and I figured that was something my mom and my grandma would enjoy. [laughs] So I convinced them to go with me. It’s not a genre I tend to gravitate towards, but like I said, I wanted to watch everything. So, there I was — watching this sequel about Queen Elizabeth — and I found myself completely transfixed by Cate. That had never happened to me before. Not in that way.

There’s a line in the movie — and I’m paraphrasing here — in which Cate says, “I’m the mother of my people, the queen of my country.” I don’t know what happened, but something sparked inside of me. I felt overwhelmed by emotion, and I felt like I had to do something with it.

It was 2007 so I went home and did what most kids my age did at the time, which was create a blog. [laughs] I did it just so I could write about what her performance made me feel. One thing led to another and that started me writing in the world of movies in some capacity.

I’m fully convinced that I wouldn’t be where I am today without her and that performance in particular.

Scott: It was kind of a Letterboxd experience before Letterboxd.

Filipe: Absolutely. As an obsessive Letterboxd user, I see so many people expressing themselves in similar ways. It makes me so happy that there is another type of outlet that unites film lovers in this way. At the time, it was much harder to create this kind of community.

Scott: I’m always concerned about whether young people are going to maintain a love for movies. There are so many things they can do — video games, TikTok, YouTube, whatever. But the growth of Letterboxd as a social medium platform for movies lovers … it’s exciting.

Filipe: The Letterboxd rise has been exponential over the past, I would say, four years. I started using it six or seven years ago, and I’ve noticed an incredible increase in users and also in users who are young. I’ve thought a lot about what you thought about, and my conclusion is, if you make good movies people will always find them, no matter how old they are.

I think it’s a mistake to think that just because people have grown up with the Internet and have access to all kinds of short content, they won’t make time for something that can be perceived as being a little more challenging.

Scott: We have another previous connection beyond the 2021 “Whittier” conversation we had, and that was the Black List Feature Writers Lab in 2020, right during the middle of the pandemic. We did it on Zoom. What was that experience for you?

Filipe: It was life‑changing. I tell everyone that they should try to apply to these programs because the upside is so huge. For example, after the lab ended, I quickly signed with a manager alongside Ben Mehlman, and that changed everything. I believe that experience shaped a new trajectory in my career, which led me to where I am today.

The experience itself was very dramatic in some ways. One of them was that I was in Portugal at the time, so most of the Zoom sessions started at around 1:00 or 2:00 AM my time.

A lot of it felt like a fever dream. [laughs] I remember one session in particular, a masterclass or a fireside chat or whatever you want to call it, with Lindsay Doran. It only started at 5:00 AM and so, to stay awake and have some sort of energy, I watched Michael Mann’s “Miami Vice”, just to keep going. By the time I got to Lindsey Doran, I felt like I was in a state of elation and manic energy. I was trying to take advantage of this, but I was also completely alone in this house, isolated in a small town during peak pandemic times. That was quite a striking experience and I obviously will never forget it.

But I think that what really helped me — and I think I can speak for Ben on this as well — is that we had written several scripts before Whittier, but that was the first time someone like Beau Willimon spent time talking to us and said, “This is good, guys. You wrote a great script.” We should never live off validation, but at certain points in your life, you just need it. To have someone like him, or Jack Thorne, or even you, Scott, tell us “you guys have written something good, something that I can see having a path forward” was very meaningful.

Beyond that, you learn so much about film and filmmaking in these programs. Writing is an ever‑evolving craft and the program made me such a better writer than I was.

Tomorrow in Part 2, Filipe reveals how he decided to write a biopic about the 1950s singer Patsy Cline.

Filipe is repped by Rain Management.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/filipefcoutinho
IG: https://www.instagram.com/filipefcoutinho
Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/fifeco/

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