Interview (Part 1): Laura Stoltz

My interview with 2023 Black List writer for her script Last Resort.

This is a special interview for me: Laura Stoltz is one of my former students. She wrote a complex, compelling screenplay “Last Resort” which was named to the 2023 Black List. Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with Laura about her creative background, the craft of screenwriting, and the challenges of writing a script with such dark subject matter while infusing it with considerable humor.

Today in Part 1 of a 6-part series to run each day this week, Laura reflects on how she developed an interest in writing at an early age, then discovered screenwriting while attending college.

Scott Myers: Congratulations on making the 2023 Black List.

Laura Stoltz: Thanks.

Scott: Let’s start at the beginning. How early on in your life did you exhibit an interest in creative writing?

Laura: My parents weren’t big readers, weren’t even big movie watchers. But my aunt was a librarian at a middle school, so she would just send me boxes and boxes of books. That was where I got my sense of story from, from devouring all these books that she had sent me.

So naturally I wanted to be a novelist first. But then when I got to Carolina (UNC) I had this epiphany that people write movies. You know you always see the gag reel at the end of comedy movies and it seems like they’re just making stuff up as they go, I guess I always just thought it was like a director and actors just riffing.

So anyway, when I learned that people wrote movies, I was like, “Wow, this seems easier than writing novels.” [laughter]

I tricked myself into thinking it must be the easier storytelling path. Spoiler alert, it’s not.

Scott: I remember interviewing a writer some years ago. A novelist. When he discovered that a screenplay is only about a hundred pages or so, he was like, “That seems easy.” He learned otherwise, although eventually he did get a script on the annual Black List. He found he prefers writing novels.

Laura: It seems like a luxury to have all that room to do what you need to do!

Scott: You were a creative writing major, weren’t you at UNC?

Laura: My major was Communications, Film & TV Production. Then I had a double minor in Creative Writing and Writing for the Screen and Stage.

Scott: This is how you and I crossed paths. I was teaching as an adjunct at the University of North Carolina‑Chapel Hill, and you were in the WSS program, Writing for Screen and Stage. What do you remember about that experience?

Laura: College seemed so compressed to me, it doesn’t feel like it was four years long. I know I took tons of credits but I could not tell you a single thing from my Poli Sci classes or my ancient history classes. Screenwriting, though, I just devoured all the knowledge I could. I loved it so much.

I had you, Dana Coen, and Stephen Neigher as my three screenwriting professors, and I took most of my classes from you and Dana. I generally have a terrible memory but I can remember where I sat in each of those classrooms.

That’s where I fell in love with the craft. And it is a craft, it’s a very specific kind of skill set that you have to learn.

Your class in particular, I remember you would have guest speakers, working writers, Skype in to talk to us. I have a very vivid memory of one particular speaker.

John Swetnam. He had just sold a tornado movie, “F5” I think it was called, and we were all just in awe of that, and someone asked him what he was going to buy with the very large paycheck he just got and he talked about how excited he was to buy a new ergonomic computer chair to write in. For whatever reason, that stuck with me for a decade, because you dream about selling a script, and what you’ll do with the money, but the reality is that you just have to sit your butt back down in your new chair and write another one.

Nothing has been more true than that over the years. And I just want to thank you because I learned so much from you, especially, and just…If I hadn’t had you as a professor, I don’t know that I would love the craft as much.

Scott: Well, you were one of my top students ever and I love your writing. We’ve stayed in touch over the years, so I’ve been tracking your career. Could you give us an overview of how and what you’ve done in the film and TV business.

Laura: I was accepted into the Hollywood Internship program at UNC. They send out a group of interns every summer and you’re paired with a production company or an acting studio or a camera shop, depending on what your focus is.

That summer, 2012, I was lucky enough to be placed at Scott Free with Ridley and Tony Scott for three days of the week and the other two days I had another internship with the writers and showrunners, Bill Martin and Mike Schiff, who did In Living Color, 3rd Rock from the Sun, and Grounded for Life.

The summer I worked for them they were doing a Nickelodeon show called “How to Rock.” When that ended I went with to work on this pilot they had picked up called Brothers in Law.

Both the development internship at Scott Free and the production internship with Bill and Mike were amazing. Because of those being on my resume, I quickly got a paying job at the end of the summer with a small, brand new production/ lit management company called Haven Entertainment.

Scott: Haven, right. I remember.

Laura: I worked on the lit management side for about nine months and then moved over to the production side because I knew that was where I wanted to be. Then not long after that, my boss on the production side started his own new production company, Bow and Arrow Entertainment, and I followed him there.

At the time we were doing lower budget, one to two‑million‑dollar features and documentaries and 30 for 30 shorts. They’re still doing great stuff now.

Shortly after that, I got a call from a friend of mine who I had worked with at Haven and he had gotten the Disney Writing Fellowship and he had to leave his job, so he was calling to see if I would be interested in replacing him as Peyton Reed’s assistant on Ant‑Man in Atlanta.

At the time, I had just moved into a brand‑new apartment. Everything was freshly unpacked. I had been there less than a week, but I interviewed and I got the gig and had to move to Atlanta two days later. [laughs] I was like, “All right, let’s pack it all back up.”

I moved out to Atlanta Labor Day weekend 2014, and then I worked with Peyton for about eight and a half years. We did all three Ant‑Man movies, a couple episodes in season two of The Mandalorian, and The Unicorn, which ran for two seasons on CBS.

Every career trajectory in Hollywood is weird, and that’s how mine unfolded.

Tomorrow in Part 2, Laura talks about how she quit a promising career as a creative producer to return to screenwriting and the inspiration for her Black List script “Last Resort.”

Laura is repped by Heroes and Villains Entertainment.

Instagram: @lestoltz

Twitter / X: @yostoltz

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