Interview (Part 1): 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.

Today in Part 1 of a 6-part series to run each day this week, Julia talks about growing up as a kid actor, finding her way into writing TV animation and YA projects.

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.

Tomorrow in Part 2, Julia reveals what gave her the inspiration for her Black List script The Seven Guys You Date Before Marriage.

Julia is repped by CAA.

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