Interview (Part 2): Jack Waz

My interview with the 2024 Black List writer for his script Decoys.

Jack Waz wrote the screenplay Decoys which landed on the 2024 Black List. Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with Jack about his creative background, writing multiple Black List scripts, and his approach to the craft of screenwriting.

Today in Part 2 of a 6-part series to run each day this week, Jack shares what inspired him to write the script “Decoys”.

Scott: Working in Hollywood is all about peaks and valleys. How’d you get out of this particular valley?

Jack: I got a call from a buddy of mine, this guy Grant Gish, who at the time was working at Marvel.

He was like, your old show runner from “Cougar Town” is doing a show for me, would you want to go work for him again? I’m like, yeah, I’d love to meet him. I went out, and it was Kevin Beagle, who was the creator of “Cougar Town.” We walk in, and we’re reminiscing. I’m like do you remember that whole thing with Santa Claus? He laughs his ass off. He’s like, oh, yeah, you were that PA.

It was just a very nice full circle moment. Kevin wound up hiring me. I worked with him on a Marvel show for a season. He’s become a friend and mentor, just a genuinely great human being. We brought a show out together a few years later. I was that knucklehead PA that almost ruined Christmas for his kids. I wound up being his assistant, then friend.

Scott: Oh, wow.

Jack: Yeah. Did the Marvel show, went to work as a writer’s assistant on a show called “Get Shorty” for a couple seasons, worked for this guy, Davey Holmes, who is, I think, the best pure producer I’ve ever worked for. He was a very good show runner. What I learned from Kevin is something that stuck with me forever, which is how to balance heart and comedy.

The stuff I wrote before I worked with Kevin on the Marvel show was very cynical and very dry. It was funny, but it was mean. What he taught me was how to actually put human emotion and pathos into my work, and I am much better off for it. When I worked for Davey on “Get Shorty,” I learned story stuff.

I also learned the production angle of, this is how you write for a budget, this is how you cycle in characters, actors, and guest stars. You want to maximize this person because you like them. Watching him work was actually masterful. He’s a very, very good show runner. Then left “Get Shorty,” got married.

Two days before I got married, I had an interview for a different Marvel show being run by this guy, Dave Willis, who created “Aqua Teen.” Met with him, got married, went on our honeymoon, came home, I was like, well, hope something happens. Then got the call that I was going to be a staff writer on a Marvel show.

It was just one of the best moments of my life. I jumped up and down, danced around everywhere. I was a staff writer on the Marvel show, “Howard the Duck,” which we wrote in fall 2019. That was an absolute blast. Dave ran it. Casper Kelly, who did…Did you ever see “Too Many Cooks?

Scott: No.

Jack: It was an Adult Swim short that’s truly incredible. Casper Kelly, who’s our second in command, created that. He’s on a bunch of those really wild Adult Swim shorts. Albertina Rizzo, Tesha Kondrat, Keith Fogelsong . Really great people that I got to work with. Had a great time writing it. it’s January 2020.

Unfortunately, we had written the first season, but then through, I don’t even know what to say, a variety of setbacks, the show wound up not going forward. Then I was like, it’s fine. I’m coming off being a staff writer. The world’s my oyster. It’s January 2020, nothing bad’s going to happen. I was pitching a movie with some friends of mine. Went out, pitched the movie.

They’re like, there’s this thing called COVID that’s coming around, so we’re going to take a couple days when I get back to you. I was like, yeah, absolutely. Then wouldn’t you know it, the world shut down.

Scott: Where along the way did you pick up the whole feature screenwriting thing? Did you start there at Emerson, or did you pick it up along the way? How does that happen?

Jack: I’ve been writing pilots. The pilot that first got me attention in 2014 was based on my old boss, George. It was a hour long dramedy about the Lebanese civil war. That first one passed around, and the next year got a manager and then he encouraged me. He’s like, you should really consider trying to write something for the Black List that, like would really help move things forward.

I was like, sure. I had written a feature script that was not very good. It was prohibitively expensive, would have cost $200 million to make, and it was called Clusterfuck. I’m still very proud of it. It’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever written, but it is unmakeable. I got very muted reaction from that. He’s like, why don’t you consider doing something better?

Scott: Good advice.

Jack: Yeah, that’s what I did. I’d read the story somewhere about Bill Clinton losing the nuclear codes in the ’90s. Then I was like, oh, that’s really fun jumping off point. I created my own little alternate somewhat history of it, and that wound up becoming The Biscuit. That got on the Black List in 2018.

That’s part of what helped me get on to Howard the Duck, was the Black List provided me with the clout, in a sea of other writers, to stand out and be like, basically, this this guy is bona fide. He has proved that he is able to do comedy and do it well. That helped open the door to my first staff writer job.

Scott: Let’s jump to your current Black List script, the one that made the 2024, DECOYS! Logline: When two cocky self-proclaimed CIA badasses learn they’re being used as diversions, they must prove to themselves and the world that they’re capable of being real heroes.”

I love the script. What was the inspiration it?

Jack: The very seed of the idea came from my current manager, a guy named Russell Hollander. Russell, he had been toying around and said he was like, yeah, man, I want to do something like a CIA thing, it’d be really fun if they were distractions. He and I have been talking about it for a little while. Eventually, I was just like, no, man, I got this. I got this, let me let me add it.

Every script I’ve got on the Black List has been an action comedy. It is my bread and butter. It’s what I absolutely love. I had done my own riff on “Die Hard” with a father and son. I had done my own time loop “Groundhog Day” thing with “Baby Boom.” I had done my own Christmas movie action comedy with “Fistmas.” Now I wanted something different. I wanted to go big.

I love the “Mission” movies. I love the “Fast” movies. I wanted to write my version of the Mission movie or my version of the “Fast” movie. From the idea of what if Vin Diesel and The Rock learned that they weren’t who they thought they were? I just thought that was immediate comedy gold.

The setup is always these guys are badasses. We’re going to watch them. It’s like, what if they weren’t? What if they were just absolute fools? You had to watch them learn how to become badasses.

Tomorrow in Part 3, Jack talks about the story’s key characters and how his plot involving “broligarchs” eerily foreshadowed current politics.

For Part 1, go here.

Jack is repped by UTA and Fourth Wall.

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