Interview (Part 3): Miguel Flatow

My interview with 2022 Black List writer for his script Viva, Mexico!

Miguel Flatow wrote the original screenplay Viva Mexico! which landed on the 2022 Black List. I had the opportunity to chat with Miguel about his creative background, writing a Black List script, and the craft of screenwriting.

Today in Part 3 of a 6-part series to run each day through Sunday, Miguel shares his thoughts on several of the other key characters in Viva Mexico!

Scott: Let’s talk about these characters that are involved in this situation. Governor Eduardo Pena, what was the inspiration for him and how would you describe that character?

Miguel: Well, yeah, he was based on the former president of Mexico before AMLO. He was a controversial president, not exactly like the character in the script but definitely a riff on him.

Now we have a leftist president for the first time ever. That’s another conversation altogether, but it was definitely a riff on him. I wanted to make the movie small enough that some of the set pieces were believable. Like you can’t take over the entire country, that would be crazy and pretty hard to pull off, but maybe at the State level it could work. So that’s at the level the story takes place.

I never specify which State it is, it’s nondescript, and that was intentional because I didn’t want it to be a criticism of a particular state in Mexico; the criticism is about Mexico overall and the way it operates, but it happens somewhere in the south, which is the least developed part of the country.

This world exists in Mexico. I know it. I played some serious soccer back in the day, which actually exposes you to all different socioeconomic levels. You have the rich guys trying to go pro because their dad got them into a team, but then you have the really, really good players and they’re mostly from the streets and they’re betting everything on this one opportunity to get them out of their situation. That’s kind of what my movie For Diego is about.

But yeah, I know the world. I know the different levels of Mexico. I even worked in politics in Mexico for a little bit. While I was applying for my Master’s at NYU, I worked in the Chiapas Government. I was an adviser and speechwriter to the Secretary of State for four months and that gave me an insight into how ridiculous the Mexican government operates. Particularly the State Government.

I mean, there’s a superhero running around, but the Mexico portrayed in the script does exist. If it gets made I hope to direct it. I know where to find the streets and the dilapidated houses and everything. Visually it makes complete sense to make.

Scott: The two kidnappers, the first one, Sordomudo? How would you describe this character and how he emerged into this story?

Miguel: I like his nickname because he’s the head narco kingpin and he cuts ears and tongues, so Sordomudo means deaf-mute. Oh jeez, I can already see how tricky it’s going to be to talk about the script and not sound crass. There are a lot of pitfalls where I can go wrong. [laughs] It’s politically incorrect, but I think the idea is important. I don’t know.

Scott: Then there’s Juan Rojo, who kidnaps the Captain again, but as it turns out, to save him, to pull him out of a sticky situation. Could you talk about this character?

Miguel: Yeah. I think he’s my favorite character and the real protagonist of the film in some way. I don’t know what I can say about him. He’s an indigenous character, a genius of sorts, that got recruited by the CIA and then deflected when his mother gets murdered by the Mexican Government.

Then he goes to a personal vendetta, and through embarking on that journey, finds a very noble cause worth fighting for, an important social cause, and realizes there’s more to do here. In a way, he completed Captain Bald Eagle’s journey like three years back, and when the characters meet they are at different stages in their evolution. But only one can fully understand the other.

Captain Bald Eagle then joins Juan to help him accomplish his mission, which is basically to topple the government which is in cahoots with the narcos. I don’t know what else I can say about him. He’s a chess expert. I play a lot of chess as well. I wish I was more like him, probably. [laughs]

Scott: It’s like, I’m reading the script, I’m going, “This guy seems too good to be true.” I kept waiting for, “Oh, it’s a twist. He’s actually… No. He’s just good.” He’s a really attractive character, very passionate, and very insightful. When he explains to Captain Bald Eagle what’s really going on, and what the plan is, that seems like something that people would do, like the CIA. This is where I was dialing into this story. It’s the relationship between these two guys. You spend a lot of time just having these two interacting, entire scenes where they’re just talking philosophy and life.

Was that something you discovered along the way, or was the intention all along that I’m going to feature these conversational scenes almost more than the action scenes?

Miguel: I guess it was intentional. Juan was always going to be the guide and a way to talk about Mexico and say what I wanted to say. He’s like our Virgil in a way, bringing the Captain through all these different levels of Mexican culture. To reference The Divine Comedy, through all these different levels of hell. That’s why I say the movie is more of a social satire or a social criticism, something along those lines.

Also, practically speaking, I needed a character who could speak perfect English to interact with the Captain, so the script is partly in English as well.

I really love dialogue and I think I’m good at it so I don’t think it feels expositional because the Captain is literally getting introduced to Mexico.

I do think Juan stands for many different things. He’s a symbol of hope for the Mexicans. He’s a symbol of truth. He’s everything that we probably need but, as you say, he’s almost too good to be true, even though he can get violent and has his own agenda. But he’s probably the real superhero of the film.

Scott: You mentioned this thing where Captain Bald Eagle eventually does find purpose. Juan identifies that as an itch and says, “I know what you’re capable of, you’re just missing a little motivation, a little purpose.”

He is a mentor character. Then, there is another character, Gaby, who in my language system, she’s an attractor character who is most attached to the Captain’s emotional development. In fact, they become lovers.

Was that character there early on, or did the Gaby character comment on the process a little bit later? What was the timing on that?

Miguel: No, that was early on. I wanted to explore how that would look like because Gaby has a son and it’s almost like Captain Bald Eagle becomes a quasi-father figure to her son as well. And in a more practical, less sexy way, her character operates at many different levels and serves several different functions, one of them resulting in Captain Bald Eagle getting even more immersed in Mexico. I mean, he literally falls in love with her. So by proxy, he falls in love with Mexico too.

I have to say though, it’s very hard to talk about characters in such a practical way. For me, writing is just so instinctual. When the writing is going well, I have no idea what I am doing. [laughs]

For me, it’s never just the three Cs, and the X and Y, and Z. It’s so much more about intuition and muscle memory. Honestly, when I write, I try to be there as little as possible. And when I’m not writing, I try to be there as much as possible. Today I did four or five hours. That’s kind of a normal day for me. On a really good day, I can get seven to ten hours. But those are rare.

On the best days, when I’m finished, I’m kind of exhausted and I have no idea what happened. I’m being serious about that. I don’t really remember what I wrote. I just know it was good. That’s why I say it’s difficult to talk at such a granular level about the characters.

The trick for me is that I think about it a great deal before I start, and then it becomes very intuitive. It’s never that intentional, which is probably a terrible thing to say because execs might read this. [laughs]

Scott: It’s like that Ray Bradbury quote, “When you sit down to write, don’t think. Feel.” I tell my students that we talked about receptive writing and executive writing. Receptive writing is when you were there with the characters and you, and it’s intuitive.

We’ve all heard, read, or seen thousands and thousands and thousands of stories, and it’s all about how there are various levels of our consciousness and subconsciousness. A lot of writers would say the best writing is that subconscious type of thing because then you can step back and look and discover what you did and say, “Oh, yeah, well, from a practical standpoint, that’s helpful because it personalizes his connection to this cause.”

But that’s not where she came from. She came just from your instincts, but you do that thing where you bounce back and forth between going into the story and outside of it.

Miguel: It reminds me of Stephen King’s book “On Writing” when after he published Carrie people kept telling him, “Oh, the color red in the clothing and then the blood, and blah blah blah,” and he started finding all these themes that he infused into the story that he wasn’t aware of while writing it.

So when I talk about it, I can kind of BS my way through the intentions and the practicality of things and make sure I sound semi-intelligent and like I know exactly what I’m doing, and in a macro way I do, I pay a lot of attention to structure, I know my beats, I know my payoffs, I know what goes into making a script work, but while I’m writing all of that goes out the window. Honestly, the best writing happens when you have no idea what just happened.

Tomorrow in Part 4, Miguel discusses the inspiration for a memorable speech given by the Protagonist in Viva Mexico! and what his experience has been like when the script landed on the 2022 Black List.

For Part 1 of the interview, go here.

Part 2, here.

Miguel is repped by CAA and Rain Management.

Instagram and Twitter: @miguelflatow

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