Interview (Part 2): Kevin Sheridan

My interview with 2022 Black List writer for his script Colors of Authority.

Kevin Sheridan wrote the screenplay Colors of Authority which landed on the 2022 Black List. I had the opportunity to chat with Kevin about his creative background, writing a Black List script, and the craft of screenwriting.

Today in Part 2 of a 6-part series to run each day through Sunday, Kevin discusses how he became interested in the real life cop drama which inspired him to write Colors of Authority.

Scott: It’s also clear, too, he’s a writer, and you are, too. Love language, love words, they’re powerful. Let’s use that as a segue here to your script, which has got a lot of good words in it, Colors of Authority. Here’s how it’s described when the Black List itself came out.

“Escaping his father’s shadow, James Sexton, the son of a sheriff in Alabama joins the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department with lofty ambitions of one‑day becoming sheriff himself. These dreams quickly sour when he realizes that the department he serves is mired in corruption and a systemic culture of moral depravity.

At war with powerful figureheads within the department, threats of death looming from all sides, James betrays the department’s code of silence in order to incriminate his father’s closest friend, sheriff Lee Baca.” This is based on a true story.

Kevin: Yup. It’s a massive, whale of a story.

Scott: I normally say, “What inspired you? What drew you to this story?” It’s pretty obvious. That’s an amazing set of circumstances. Could you talk to me how you stumbled on it or happened upon it or knew about it?

Kevin: I said this on a friend’s podcast, it was two failed meetings and a taco truck that led to me writing this script. Trevor White, the producer, had the rights to the story. He was on a way to a meeting, and it got canceled, and he pulled over at this taco truck. My manager, John Zaozirny was also on a way to a meeting that got canceled, and pulled over to that same taco truck. They know each other well, and they had tacos together and chatted. They finished their lunch, John’s walking away, and Trevor does the whole… “Hey, by the way, I got the rights to this story, and I need to find a writer for it. Do you have any writers who are good at getting into really specific worlds?” John very kindly said my name, and I met with Trevor. There was some literature that was written on James Sexton — who Colors of Authority is based on… but it wasn’t as all-encompassing as the story really is. James hadn’t yet gone to a big publication yet with it. He was protecting it in a way.

I met him with him and just thought that this could be a really special movie. The reason I’m in this business is to tell the kinds of stories that made me vibrate as an audience member, whether it’s “Shawshank” or “American Beauty” or “The Insider” or “Michael Clayton” or “Being There,” whatever it is. And I thought that James’s story could be just that.

I think a lot of people who get into this business do it for the same reasons I do. They want to create those things that moved them so deeply that they decided to dedicate their life to that pursuit. And when I was in the process of meeting with James and Trevor, I started to recognize that this story had all the bones to be one of those films that could leave audiences breathless.

Writing the script, it was me and Trevor in this foxhole. I’ve said it before, but there’s this myth that the writer is given an assignment, disappears into some cave, then comes back later with this beautiful screenplay. It’s way, way more collaborative than that.

A lot of the credit goes to Trevor White and James Sexton and Tim White and Allan Mandelbaum and Kay Foster and Andrew Heckler… because their notes and their guidance were just so incredibly invaluable in writing it. There should be a little aside at the bottom of the script that lists all their names. But it was me and Trevor for the longest time working on it, and it was truly one of the greatest creative experiences of my life. There was an energy there in the collaboration that’s incredibly hard to find.

Scott: Did they own the life rights…

Kevin: Yes.

Scott: Did you meet with James?

Kevin: Oh, my God, yeah… I met with James twice before I got the job. Then countless times after. Writing the script, it was incredibly important to me to really capture this world as best I possibly could. I’m a big research guy. If I’m going to tell a story about something, I want to know that world in and out, just because… it informs everything. It informs how you begin a scene. It informs how you end a scene….

Say, you look at a scene. It’s like, OK, there’s five guys in an office inside a prison… What’s in the office? Who’s in the office? What authenticity can add value in a similar way to how we used a bull throughout the screenplay.

James Sexton answered my call day and night. I interviewed him I don’t know how many times. I would call him probably once a day with, “Hey, let’s talk about the second floor at Men’s Central Jail…” And these conversations got pretty heavy at times because James gave his life… and went through absolute hell to do the right thing.

He sacrificed a lot to do what he did. I think, hopefully, that’s the takeaway, that there’s a lot of bad things going on in the world. And what is it going to take to change that? It’s going to take someone with the courage to risk everything to do the right thing.

Scott: That’s Joseph Campbell’s definition of a hero, someone who gives their self over to something larger than themselves.

Kevin: I think that’s what we’re all doing hopefully. Writing is really, really hard for me. It’s a pound of flesh every time I write because I set the bar really high with the types of stories I want to tell. I wish I could just be sitting in front of my computer in a state of bliss consciousness, pecking away at keys with a big grin… But unfortunately, it’s a pretty painful process. And, it’s only getting harder for some reason (laughs).

Scott: The research is important, from your perspective, just in terms of knowing that subculture, that world, envisioning it, and being able to write it. It’s also important because you’ve got to gain that trust on the part of the reader that you know what you’re talking about, that this is an environment that you’re comfortable with. It comes across in spades in the script.

Kevin: Thank you.

Scott: I was going to ask, even the language, the cop language, the jargon, the lingo, the stuff, how did you go about picking that up?

Kevin: Well, I did ride‑alongs. I’ve walked through prisons. I don’t know how many meetings I had with different people in law enforcement over this project before I even started writing… I would hear things, and I would just write them down on my phone.

James Sexton was also so invaluable. He was so willing to make me look like I knew what I was talking about. But you are right, authenticity is really important. It makes the reader trust you.

Tomorrow in Part 3, Kevin shares how he approached working with real life people and adapting them into a story that can work as a movie.

For Part 1 of the interview, go here.

Kevin is repped by Bellevue Productions.

Twitter: @Sheridankevin

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