Interview (Part 4): Gillian Weeks

My interview with 2022 Black List writer for her script OH THE HUMANITY.

Gillian Weeks wrote the screenplay OH THE HUMANITY which landed on the 2022 Black List. I had the opportunity to chat with Gillian about her creative background, writing a Black List script, and the craft of screenwriting.

Today in Part 4 of a 6-part series to run each day through Sunday, Gillian talks about why she thinks so-called screenwriting rules are “fairly intuitive.”

Scott: My favorite character in your script is this guy Carl Syrup. You must have had so much fun writing this character. He’s assigned to Hugo to go over to the United States, to basically make sure he toes the line. Here is how you describe him when introduced in the script:

“A Sergeant, Carl Serup, enters wagging several small paper bags and dressed almost identical to Goebbels. A chummy psychopath.”

How did Karl emerge in your writing?

Gillian: I spent a lot of time researching the propaganda ministry and the internal apparatus to see what kind of things they actually do. In reality, there was a large group of government officials who went to New Jersey to try to contain the story. In this case, I have had just Carl and Hugo, to keep it cleaner.

With Carl, I wanted to send up Nazis’ stiff formality and vanity, a rather effete form of masculinity. And I needed someone to make the jokes, when the actual task that’s in front of the other characters is very serious.

Scott: He’s just a funny character. I want to get to EJ Connelly, who’s like a special agent who it’s you describe when you’re introducing:

“Squishes toward them in the mud in his city boy shoes. He’s got a handsome face, a pencil mustache, and a hardcore cop bravado.”

He comes in thinking the Hindenburg disaster is some sort of Communist thing. He’s the portent of the whole ’50s HUAC, right?

Gillian: Yeah.

Scott: Was that character real, or was this a fictionalized character?

Gillian: Oh he’s very real. He was an important deputy of Hoover’s. His rise started in the Prohibition days, at the birth of the FBI, then worked a lot in organized crime. By 1937, he was pretty high up within the FBI.

Also around that time, the FBI became very fixated on communists, and the way they were seeking to undermine the US government. If you look at the historical records, the FBI did investigate accusations of sabotage, and they pursued them very seriously.

To the FBI’s credit, ultimately, they were like, “There isn’t anything here,” but everyone had been quite eager to have that be the explanation. Not just the Nazis, because that helped them save face, but also the FBI.

Scott: One last character I want to mention is the South Trimble character, you describe as, “It’s like if Bill Clinton was born rich. He’s a big man, with wire rim glasses and a dapper suit. He speaks with a melodic Kentucky accent, especially when he’s negging a European.”

Gillian: He’s a historical figure. He oversaw the hearings. He was indeed from Kentucky. I was doing genealogical research and found a source that described them as large landowners Kentucky, for many years.

They were real fixtures in Washington. His father was a Congressman and served as the Clerk of the House of Representatives for 15 years. Then his son became a lawyer with the Commerce Department.

I’m jumping to some conclusions about his attitudes around race and class, but given where he came from, he provides a link between the American South in Jim Crow days and German ethnonationalism.

Scott: Now, I want to step back a little bit, put our screenwriter hats on here. You’re, of course, I’m sure quite aware with these so-called screenwriting rules. Things need to happen here on this page, there on that page.

You make some really interesting narrative choices in your script. For example, there is this thing about the break into Act Two happening on 25.

In your script, I would say that it’s not until Trimble is introduced on 31 and we establish that there’s going to be this hearing, that that’s where act two begins.

Do you at all think about any of this stuff? Like, where these page counts need to happen?

Gillian: I think that the rule about act one, act two — to the extent that there are rules — that’s a fairly good one. I personally see that act two transition happening a little sooner. To me, it’s when both Gertrud and Hugo get their assignments and they’re sent on their way. The game begins.

To me, a lot of those so-called rules are fairly intuitive. In a character’s journey — where they succeed and where they’re thwarted and those low points and ultimate triumph — I think that comes from a place of, how do I want to be feeling? How do I want my audience to feel at various moments along the way? You have to hear the music.

Tomorrow in Part 5, Gillian discusses how she landed on the specific comedic tone for OH THE HUMANITY.

For Part 1 of the interview, go here.

For Part 2, go here.

For Part 3, go here.

Gillian is repped by The Gersh Agency and Entertainment 360.

Twitter: @gillmw

Instagram: @thegillface

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