Interview (Part 3): Charmaine Colina

My interview with the 2024 Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting winner.

Charmaine Colina wrote the original screenplay “Gunslinger Bride” which won a 2024 Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting. Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with Charmaine about her creative background, her award-winning script, the craft of screenwriting, and what winning the Nicholl has meant to her.

Today in Part 3 of a 6-part series to run each day through Saturday, Charmaine relates how in writing “Gunslinger Bride,” she was influenced by such films as Severn Samurai, Les Miserables, and Star Wars.

Scott: There’s a second element that’s set in motion by midpoint of Act One: A memory flash where she sees this figure quote from the script:

“He was bald with scars on the back of his head.”

So she has this identification of who this character is. Then that is what drives her toward wanting revenge.

Charmaine: Yes. I would say that from the time she was little, she wanted Jeb to teach her skills to avenge her family’s murder. And Jeb’s mindset is, “OK, she’s got to know how to protect herself so I must teach her these skills, but not for revenge.” And the memories, yes, they’re repressed. As she gets older though, they come back up in her nightmares. But they’ve been gone for a long time. So why are they coming back now?

She’s thinking, “Oh, because it’s time for me to go do this,” and Jeb’s thinking the opposite, “No it’s time for you to let go.” They have a big argument. And later, after Jeb is gone, we see the effects of Lou being without Jeb to keep her in check… SkiyIt’s sort of like when you go to college.

You have your parents when you’re in high school saying, no, don’t do this, you’re under my roof, this is how we behave. But once you leave the nest and you have freedom, you don’t always make the best choices. So once Jeb is gone, that’s when Lou actively hunts for the man who she thinks killed her family.

Scott: Yeah, Jeb even says on 18:

“I taught you skills only so you could protect yourself and do what’s right, not for revenge. If you go down this road, it won’t lead you to the ocean, it will destroy you.”

That’s like Mentor advice, it’s what you were just saying. It’s like the parent voice, and she’s struggling with this, because obviously, she’s got a lot of rage and anger about what happened to her family. That plays out throughout the rest of the story, that dynamic tension. Then there’s, as you mentioned, Jeb and Kusu, they died.

Charmaine: Yeah.

Scott: Did you know all along that was going to happen that they had to be there for a while and then they were going to be dispatched?

Charmaine: I’m a big “Star Wars” fan. Star Wars changed my life. As a kid, I saw it in the drive‑in, and life was never the same after that. As far as storytelling and the notion of heroes and villains and is there more backstory to this? What do we not know about the villains and what do we not know about the heroes?

The mentor figure of Obi‑Wan or Yoda strongly influenced me in the idea of Jeb. It’s like how Luke Skywalker is always wanting to do something else and it’s either Obi‑Wan or Yoda who tells him you’ve got to settle down. A Jedi craves not these things. You have to be chill about it. But Luke can’t because he’s young and he has this drive in him. Yoda dies in Empire Strikes Back, Obi‑Wan dies in Star Wars, but then we get pieces of them later on, in Luke’s memories. So I knew that Jeb and Kusu must eventually leave Lou.

Scott: Well, it’s interesting because Lucas has talked about how Westerns influenced him when he was coming up with Star Wars.

Charmaine: Yes, and the Kurosawa films …

Scott: Seven Samurai.

Charmaine: Yes! When I saw that Seven Samura and then watched Magnificent Seven, I thought, “Oh, my God, I see where he got the influence, how Magnificent Seven was influenced by Seven Samurai.

Scott: There’s another piece of wisdom that Jeb gives to her that I thought was quite touching and it is important: “Plant corn, harvest corn.” Where’d that come from?

Charmaine: I survived 12 years of Catholic school. And there were a lot of good things, a lot of bad things. It’s Catholic school. There was just a lot of Bible, Bible, Bible, and scripture, scripture, scripture. But one of the things that had always stuck with me, that made sense, was you reap what you sow.

If you act a certain way, that’s going to come back to you one of these days. And so, it was the idea of whatever you sow, you shall also reap, which comes back later when the Reverend is saying these verses.

I wanted there to be parity with what Jeb’s mother — who was Pawnee — had told him and what the King James version, or whatever translation of the Bible says, you reap what you sow. In other words, if you’re going to be a crappy person, crappy things are going to happen to you. But then, Lou counters with, “Yeah, but what about good people like my family? Bad things happened to them.”

Jeb tries to give her these pieces of wisdom. But Lou, she’s pretty clever, argumentative, and she’s stubborn. Just when you think she’s going to listen to some advice, there’s the, oh yeah, well, what about this? She’s not afraid to question things.

[laughter]

Scott: On the trail, she’s on her own now, and she does have revenge on her mind, but she has kind of this Robin Hood chapter of her life, where in these series of shots, she’s taking out train robbers and saving people from slick snake oil salesmen and facing off with gamblers and so forth, like an avenging angel almost in a way, but with this benefit to other people.

Where did that come from? Why is she doing this type of thing?

Charmaine: I think for Lou, the motivation is what she couldn’t do for her family, she will do for others. The voice of Jeb is always there in her brain, like do good, do good. I taught you these skills to do good, but she will do good on her own terms.

For her going through that tragedy of her family being murdered right in front of her, it’s like she’s determined to stop bad people. She will protect the weak and the defenseless. And so she does that, but then the last thing she does, which sort of sets us off on this new part is when she kills a corrupt judge.

She was getting away with things like stopping snake oil salesmen, train robbers, gamblers, but then there’s the big incident with killing the judge — out of self-defense — but now there’s the bounty on her head. It’s also a pride thing with her. In a way, she thinks she’s unstoppable.

Scott: The headstrong nature of youth. That judge was in Dodge City, so you got to even know why she “gets the hell out of Dodge” literally. At that point, she’s wanted dead or alive.

Now that introduces Lou’s adversary or Nemesis character on 25. Detective Mordecai Thorne is introduced:

“35, looms, slick suit, town hat, chin like a shovel blade, the silver badge and swagger of a Pinkerton agent, the 1880s private dick, emphasis on dick.”

You need a Nemesis. How did this character come into view?

Charmaine: I’m also a fan of Les Miserables and the character of Inspector Javert, whom I’ve always been intrigued by. He is obsessed with getting his man. And there are motivations for why Javert is the way he is, born in a prison to criminals, etc. and yet this lawman who had such a black and white view of justice, lets Valjean go in the end. That is so complex and interesting to me.

That was the idea behind Thorne’s mindset of hunting down the outlaw. He’s got to get this person who broke the law. It doesn’t matter if there was a noble purpose behind the crimes. A crime is a crime. Jean Valjean stole a loaf of bread so his sister’s children wouldn’t starve, and he was thrown in prison for that. But according to Javert, it doesn’t matter why the law was broken.

I wanted this Pinkerton man to be like a thorn in Lou’s side. That’s why he’s named Thorne. It’s like he’s always there just poking and prodding and just when you think maybe everything’s cool, there he is again. He pops up. I do like the idea of him being this super detective, and yet Lou’s right in front of him and he has no idea that it’s her.

Tomorrow in Part 4, Charmaine discusses some of the key characters in “Gunslinger Bride” and how they emerged into being.

For Part 1, go here.

Part 2, here.

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