Interview (Part 3): Filipe Coutinho

My interview with 2023 Black List writer for his script Patsy.

Filipe Coutinho has made the annual Black List three times: In 2021 for the screenplay Whittier (co-written with Ben Mehlman), 2022 for Jambusters, then in 2023 with the screenplay Patsy. I had the opportunity to chat with Filipe about his creative background, his latest Black List screenplay, and the craft of screenwriting.

Today in Part 3 of a 6-part series to run each day through Sunday, Filipe Reveals how he decided to write a biopic about the 1950s singer Patsy Cline.

Scott: You start the script with her at Carnegie Hall, then jump to that fateful day of the plane crash, March 5th, 1963. Then the narrative shifts back in time. It’s like planting that seed of her meteoric success at Carnegie Hall is like symbolic of, “You don’t get any better than that.” Then there’s looming tragedy of the airplane disaster. What was the thinking behind starting the script that way?

Filipe: I wanted to have some sort of teaser. I hesitate calling it a teaser because it’s not, but I wanted to start with the most powerful thing she had, which was her voice. This movie is all about Patsy Cline’s voice. How she had it, how she lost it, how she recovered it, etc.

Since the story ends in a bad place, I wanted to start in a good place, in a happy place. As you said, “What better way to start than a country singer who at the time wasn’t exactly viewed as the pinnacle of high society, packing Carnegie Hall and delivering one of the best performances that’s ever been given there.”

Scott: I want to talk to you about this idea of Patsy Cline’s voice. Obviously, there’s the singer and she is a phenomenal singer. Also, I’ve lived in the South: Texas, Alabama, Virginia. How did you go about picking up those local patterns of cadence and jargon, because the dialogue comes across as authentic. How did you go about getting that so that the characters, not just Patsy, but a lot of the characters have that southern cadence?

Filipe: That’s the fun part of being a writer, at least for me. And this is also where Ellis Nassour’s book came very handy because he incorporates a lot of snippets of conversations he had with surviving members of the Patsy Cline family, like Charlie and Mrs. Hensley, and also her friends, like Fay and Dottie West. That allowed me to get a feel for how they talk. Having that base, I extrapolated from there, and I did that by doing a lot of research. There are some videos of Patsy Cline out there, but they’re mostly of her singing or giving short interviews, and she’s a different person in those videos. They don’t reflect her personality in her private life.

What I did was use a lot of what people remembered in terms of expressions she used, and things that she liked to say and how she said them. I also drew inspiration from letters she wrote. Then I watched a lot movies and read a lot of books that have the southern vernacular.

I also read a great book for additional depth and texture, I forget the name, but it’s all about the reality that Patsy Cline lived in. It’s not even about Patsy Cline herself, it’s about what Virginia and Winchester specifically was like during the time Patsy Cline lived in. That also includes a lot of information about language and things like that.

Scott: You did a lot of research?

Filipe: Yeah, this was two years in the making.

Scott: You’ve got Patsy Cline’s voice — the singer. You got Patsy Cline’s voice — The Southerner. But there’s a more metaphorical sense of voice, where Patsy found the strength of her own voice as an artist and a woman in a heavily patriarchal environment.

She’s got some complex relationships with men. There’s several of them. There’s Sam, her father. Gerald, her first husband, Charlie, her second husband. Bill McCall, her first manager.

Was this a conscious theme on your part, Patsy discovering her own innate power, her voice to speak out amidst all these male figures in her life?

Filipe: This is where doing the research before diving into the writing helps a lot, because by the time I read two books, one of them thrice, plus the research I did online, I started getting a strong feeling of what her relationships were like.

That second book, especially, “The Life and Times of Patsy Cline” by Margaret Jones, was instrumental in terms of shedding light on Patsy’s relationship with her father. Which consequently unlocked her relationships with other people, especially the men in her life. Then I just looked at the various pieces and started putting the puzzle together.

Scott: I want to zero in on Sam, her father. You do something interesting there. He’s a drunk, he’s mean, he’s there, then he’s not there. There’s a secret that’s revealed over time. Unpack that, what were you thinking? Because that revelation turns out to be a significant part of the story.

Filipe: I would argue that’s the skeleton key to understand who Patsy Cline became and why she had the kind of relationships she had with the men in her life. What happened was, she was sexually assaulted by her father when she was a teen, and later in life she was guilt‑ridden because she admitted to having had some feelings of pleasure.

That created a profound distortion of what a healthy relationship should be, especially at a time we didn’t talk about these issues in the way that we talk about them today.

Her guilt, her eating disorder, her hostility, her sexual dysfunction, her tendency towards re‑victimization, these were all things that were present and inevitably led to an abusive marriage. She definitely loved Charlie with all her heart, but she also felt like she deserved to be abused by him as a response to the guilt that she felt. This is an absolutely horrendous ordeal, but I think it’s one worth telling in an honest and sensitive manner.

But I also knew I couldn’t start the movie with Sam sexually abusing Patsy, because then, practically speaking, I lose the audience. I also believe in the audience’s willingness and ability to put two and two together and connect the dots. By the time we dole out the information that something happened in her past, by the time that she admits what happened, the rest will hopefully fall into place.

The movie also changes quite a bit after that revelation Especially in terms of her relationship with Charlie. I think sharing what happened with Dottie West [represented by Connie in the script] was what she needed in order to recontextualize a lot of what happened in her life. And the proof is that she changed. As much as she could. As much as she was allowed at the time.

She didn’t live in a society that knew how to take care of. It was an enormous act of courage on her part. Not only that, but then Dottie also admits that her father did the same to her, which was indicative of a larger, awful pattern that existed at the time.

In Dottie West’s case, she complained to the police and her father landed in jail. She ended up being the person who helped put the situation in perspective for Patsy. I don’t know if this answers your question. I went on a little bit of a ride there.

Scott: No. It did. Just pragmatically speaking from a writing standpoint, you answered the question. “I don’t want to start with that revelation. I’m going to lose my audience, so I’m going to dole out, and only then the audience is going to understand how it’s critically important to understanding much about who Patsy is.”

For example, I’m thinking some of what’s driving her to be successful, and even that idea of the dream home, is seeking some sort of external validation, that’s going to somehow not wipe away the guilt and shame she may feel about the thing with her father. Is that a fair assessment of at least part of her motivation?

Filipe: Yeah. The dream home is an empty pursuit. It’s when people say, “Oh, if only I had that, then I’d be happy.” She wants what she didn’t have, which is, by and large, a happy childhood. By the time that she gets the house, and this is in the script, at some point she feels very empty.

Scott: I have the quote right here.

Filipe: Please.

Scott: “I started doing some thinking and realized I’d been fighting so hard for the future when all along was the past I was aching for. This was my castle, my blood, sweat, and tears. Now that I had it, I hated it felt so empty.”

Filipe: That is pretty powerful in terms of where she landed. It’s a good lesson for all of us. It definitely made me think about a lot of my things. What am I pursuing? What does it mean? Am I doing this because I’m trying to fill a void, or does this have some real meaning in my life?

Scott: Working in Hollywood, that’s front and center. Get the house up in the Hollywood Hills, the Tesla, the this, the that…

Filipe: To bring it full circle, Scott, this is why I try to write things that I’m passionate about, because those are the things that have meaning to me.

Scott: That’s pure, that’s untainted. It’s you as a creative person finding something you’re passionate about. Nobody can mess with that original instinct.

Filipe: That’s what I hope.

Tomorrow in Part 4, Filipe talks about Patsy recording three of her hit singles: “Walking After Midnight,” “Crazy,” and “I Fell to Pieces,” and what drove Patsy Cline to become a success.

For Part 1 of the interview series, go here.

Part 2, go here.

Filipe is repped by Rain Management.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/filipefcoutinho
IG: https://www.instagram.com/filipefcoutinho
Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/fifeco/

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