Interview (Part 3): Byron Hamel

My interview with the 2021 Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting winner.

Byron Hamel wrote the original screenplay “Shade of the Grapefruit Tree” which won a 2021 Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting. Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with Byron about his creative background, his award-winning script, the craft of screenwriting, and what winning the Nicholl Award has meant to him.

Today in Part 3 of a 6 part series to run each day through Saturday, Byron digs deep into the key characters in his prize-winning screenplay “Shade of the Grapefruit Tree.”

Scott: Let’s jump into these characters. Jamie, the Protagonist, is essentially inspired by your life experience. The very start of the script:

“Exterior, rooftop, day. Jamie Hamel, nine, lies on the roof of an apartment complex, freckled, pale‑face skyward, but with his eyes closed. There are finger‑shaped bruises on his neck. There’s a small bald patch where hair has been ripped out of his head.”

First of all, pragmatically, you’re establishing sympathy for the character, there’s that, but you’re also establishing a mystery. Where are the bruises from? How is the hair coming out of his head?

There is also something else that I thought was really moving about your script. There’s a way in which you describe the violence almost like a journalistic, a dispassionate way. It’s like the antithesis of melodrama.

You know what I mean? You’re describing it as, “This is the reality. I’m going to be brutally cold and honest about it.” Is that a fair assessment? If it is, was that a conscious choice on your part, or just the way that you saw your narrative voice emerging?

Byron: I love the way you’re describing that, but it was not a conscious decision necessarily. It was more like recollection which I shaped into something more varied later. The memory is “Where was I in that moment?” That tree was real. I would climb up the trunk of a grapefruit tree outside of Felicia’s apartment to get onto her roof. This is simple fact. And I think that way most of the time. Stark brutal pictures of realism.

In my memory, I would eat the grapefruit off of the tree because I had very little food. Because they spent the money on drugs at my house. I didn’t know about the drugs back then either, but you piece it together as you grow up.

The shade of the grapefruit tree protected me from the sun. I needed that in practicality, because the sun was brutal in Palm Springs, which is where we lived and you don’t think of the Palm Springs as having slums, but they totally do. We lived in the roach motel of Palm Springs. This shade under the grapefruit tree and on top of Felicia’s roof was a place that was safe from Augustine.

Eventually this is how I met Felicia. She started saying, “Come on in instead of being up on my roof. What are you doing? Stop going up there. Come in. Have some food.”

These facts, I am recollecting, but I eventually find the poetry in it. Felicia is the tree. She protected me. She fed me. I climbed her to safety. I always consider my writing poetically. What can I do to distinguish the realism from the simple slice of life? Because, while fun for actors to play in, I don’t find slices of life particularly interesting, speaking as a member of the audience. They can get boring.
 
 My rough drafts are painfully on-the-nose. They’re didactic and horrible and stark. Bare walls, plywood and echoing halls. But I’m a great poet and a great editor. So I use it. Poetry also allows me to bypass the reflexive rejection of my ideas. Dig under the defenses and reach people’s hearts. The final frontier of any storyteller is to have a heart-to-heart directly with an individual engaged in our story. Can I make them feel my love for them, having never met them? Can I give them a better life, long after I’m dead and gone?

Where it does become intentional is that, for the sake of good engaging rhythm, I tend to be as poetic as I can in some places and then contrast that with simple recollection. Or something harder. Something colder.

Scott: Here’s an example of that. Jamie’s mother Teresa, she is a drug addict. Her boyfriend is Augustine. No blood connection between he and Jamie.

We have not yet seen any violence at this point. I guess Michael, the older brother, has bothered Jamie at some point. You said, is “a psychopath.”

Byron: He was horrible to me.

Scott: He was horrible. Teresa was not terribly good either. But there is no major violence going on until page eight where they have this little moment where Augustine says, “Hell, let’s have some ice cream.” He’s in the van with Jamie. Augustine says, “What?” Jamie says, “Can I call you dad?” This is what follows:

“Augustine stares at Jamie for a long while. Suddenly, he punches Jamie as hard as he can in the face. Jamie falls to the floor of the van. His face full of blood.”

Now, that’s what I was saying. It’s like that, “Just the facts, ma’am.” You’re talking about poetry. You’ve got poetic moments and descriptions later on.

But then dealing with the violence in some ways, particularly, like right there, it’s so sudden and so black‑and‑white. Boom. There it is. I was very struck by that. I’m wondering whether that suddenness or that randomness is that reflected in your own experience. Was that your own experience with the Augustine type figure in your life?

Byron: True story, yeah. He was drunk, drove me to get some ice cream. I had mentioned that I liked him better when he was drunk. Something about me saying that made him really angry. I asked him if I could call him dad and he knocked me the fuck out. Called me a faggot. This was it. I only choose to use that F-word again for recollection. I like to tell the stories as they happen, at first, before I change them to what I feel communicates a greater truth.

I’m a quick writer, but that scene took me about three days to write. Just the rough scene. And I was crying the whole time. The stark reality is represented by the cold brutality of the language I use. It was more less an unintentional function of the difficulty of recollection and allowing myself to feel the moment emotionally. But if I leave it cold and brutal, that’s an intentional decision. The poetry lives somewhere else. I have to say something about this particular scene, which is that it was a very healing thing for me to write. I didn’t want to write it. Honestly, I wasn’t going to even tell this story. My girlfriend told me “you need to write your drama” because I hadn’t written one yet.

I’d written four features since the start of the pandemic, and she said you need to write your drama. I was like, “God. This is the best story I have. This is the one that I’m going to write, but I don’t want to,” and it hurt like a motherfucker recollecting this stuff.

Every time I say I love you to someone and it’s sincere, I get a pain right here between my eyes.

That’s because of that moment I’m recalling in that scene. I haven’t been able to kick that. That’s part of the complex PTSD. Reliving physical pain by association. People think we’re going to be like John Rambo, running up in the hills, shooting at cops. What really happens is the pain is physically felt still in some situations. It literally hurts me to sincerely tell my daughters I love them, but I tell them twenty times a day, man, because I’m not going to be that guy who lets his kids suffer because he’s afraid of feeling a little pain. Fuck that guy.

Scott: What precipitated you writing the story? Was this something you felt like, “OK, I know at some point, I’m going to always tell the story,” or was there something specific that happened? It sounds like your girlfriend was basically saying, “You got to do this. Now’s the time to do this.”

Byron: We knew I needed to write a drama for me to have the best chance of winning the Nicholl fellowship, if we’re going to talk shop. I was like, “OK, I want to win the Nicholl.” So in a way, this script is specifically designed to win the Nicholl, but in another, that’s not out of line with the story I was going to write anyway.

It’s important to note here that the idea of what would win the Nicholl was mostly guesswork based on studying what the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences stands for, and basically finding myself in agreement. I’m not some kind of genius who found a way to hack the system. I’m just some guy who believes in the power of stories and loyalty to the screen. And I’m good enough that they saw that.

And I feel lucky, to be honest. I’m a fucking idiot in terms of the industry. The other fellows who won, compared to me, are geniuses. I think they’re incredible. And one of the real prizes of this whole experience is just knowing them. And the fellows from previous years. But the industry? I don’t know anything about it. I just love movies. In terms of being a working writer, I’m very new to the movie industry and how it works. I didn’t know what the Nicholl was. I’ve never heard of the fucking Black List. I’m just starting to learn what the annual Black List is, or the significance if I’m on it.

See, if somebody had said, “You’re on the Black List,” I would be like, “Oh, cool.” I have no idea what that is, or who’s who. I don’t know any of that stuff. Which I am learning can be a real sore spot for people in Hollywood. I’m new enough that it’s a problem for me. I do plan to learn about everything and who everyone is, but for now all I really know is I love movies. I watch a shitload of them ‑‑ I’m talking thousands. And long-form stories like TV series. They’re foundational to who I am as a person. I input a lot ‑‑ and that I’m a prolific storyteller is probably because of that.

If there’s a moment in a story I see that really captures me, I want the power and influence to move people that way. That feels amazing to me to be able to reach people. And I think drama does that best, now that I have experience writing drama. That’s probably why the Nicholl favors drama. Because it’s so damn powerful and has the potential to move the world.

Scott: I think you’re right. The Nicholl tends to favor dramas. I’ve interviewed every Nicholl winner since 2012. There’s been a few comedy things, and others, but mostly dramas. Ironically speaking, the annual Black List drops tomorrow. It’s starting at 9:00 AM Pacific.

Byron: Again, you say that and I’m like, “I don’t care.” I’m thinking, “I don’t give a shit.” I don’t know what it is but I’m learning, and that’s part of this. Part of winning the Nicholl is that you’re new to selling scripts, and that is my case. I haven’t been doing it for a long time. I’ve only been writing hardcore all‑out, full‑time since 2019.

Also, I care more about good storytelling than writing something to please people. Not that money isn’t important. I want to sell. It’s just more interesting to impact the world.

I’m actually writing three features this year that are in development. Two dramas and a sci-fi action thriller. I have more stories about my life. I’ve written two of them already. “Shade of the Grapefruit Tree” is just the first. I know it’s generally considered low-brow to write autobiographical dramas, but I’ve had a fascinating life. It’s justified.

Tomorrow in Part 4, Byron discusses the role of robots as a central narrative element in his Nicholl-winning script.

For Part 1, go here.

For Part 2, go here.

For my interviews with every Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting winner since 2012, go here.

For my interviews with Black List writers, go here.