Interview (Part 1): Gillian Weeks

My interview with 2022 Black List writer for her script OH THE HUMANITY.

Gillian Weeks wrote the screenplay OH THE HUMANITY which landed on the 2022 Black List. I had the opportunity to chat with Gillian about her creative background, writing a Black List script, and the craft of screenwriting.

Today in Part 1 of a 6-part series to run each day through Sunday, Gillian describes how she went from an interest in acting to writing.

Scott Myers: How and when did you start getting interested in writing, and in particular screenwriting?

Gillian Weeks: I started acting as a young kid. But I don’t mean in Hollywood. I grew up in rural Oregon, a small town outside of Eugene.

I got a flier in my school mailbox when it was in third grade, saying, “Auditions for a local community theater production.” It was for an original musical by a 19-year old prodigy, basically the Northwest’s Lin Manuel Miranda. The show was very ambitious but he was putting it on at a tiny theater, and he needed to cast some kids. I sang “ Frère Jacques” for my audition.

So my first foray into theater, into storytelling, was an original story conceived and mounted by someone I knew. I got to participate in the process. I think that had to have seeded in me the idea that anyone can write a story. And anyone can, with their own determination and chutzpah and help from their friends, put on a show.

Then I went on from there to be in dozens of musicals and plays, mostly in local community theater productions. Eugene had a very good local theater scene.

At the same time, I knew I wanted to write. I was 12 when I got my first paycheck as a writer. I was in a program at the local newspaper, The Register-Guard, where once a week writers under 20 would write and edit a section of the paper. This is before, of course, local newspapers died.

Scott: Then you go off to Williams College and Oxford University. Your focus was political economy, right?

Gillian: In college I began to imagine myself as a journalist rather than a writer of fiction or drama. Ideally a political reporter. I was also very practical about all of it. I don’t think it occurred to me that I wanted to make a living from being in theater or as a novelist or any of those things. I didn’t consider screenwriting as a career.

Scott: That interest in journalism, didn’t you first work in documentary?

Gillian: That’s right. I wanted to go be a longform journalist but instead, the job I was able to get was as a PA in reality TV, and then that turned into a development job. This was the golden age of reality television. This is during the writers’ strike, actually.

Scott: I was going to say, that’s when it all blew up, in 2008.

Gillian: Exactly. There was money to be made, there were shows to be sold. I was in development at a couple different production companies. In some ways the worst job, but a very good job for an aspiring writer.

Because what it is, is scouring the world — going out there and meeting interesting people, finding the strangest, most fascinating subcultures you can, and then figuring out how to stitch it all together in the form of a narrative. Then to package that together and pitch it to networks and, hopefully, sell the show.

It was good training for storytelling. It also had me out there in the world, having strange adventures and meeting people of all walks of life. But ultimately, the shows that they would become were not interesting to me.

What I hadn’t realized at the time what that it was preparing me to write. Instead of sitting behind a computer and imagining real life, I was out there living it, witnessing it.

A few twists and turns that lead me to Alex Gibney’s company, called Jigsaw Productions. That was wonderful, because you have terrific access given his reputation as a director, and the opportunity to develop shows that are investigative. I got to work with some of the very best journalists and directors. Those were ones that I felt very proud of, and ultimately were beautiful pieces of work.

But all during this time, from the age of 22, I was waking up at the crack of dawn to write scripts in my bedroom. Very poor ones at first, but they got better.

Tomorrow in Part 2, Gillian talks about how her interest in historically based stories led to writing OH THE HUMANITY.

Gillian is repped by The Gersh Agency and Entertainment 360.

Twitter: @gillmw

Instagram: @thegillface

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