Interview Part 4: Jane Therese
My interview with the 2020 Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting winner.
My interview with the 2020 Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting winner.
Jane Therese wrote the original screenplay “Sins of My Father” which won a 2020 Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting. Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with Jane about her creative background, her award-winning script, the craft of screenwriting, and what winning the Nicholl Award has meant to her.
Today in Part 4 of a 6 part series to run each day through Saturday, Jane explores what it was like to write such a complex Nemesis figure: Brendan, the abusive father.
Scott: There’s the standard screenwriting proximity that we have to our characters, we’re like a journalist, describing what’s going on. But there are scenes in your script where you shrink that distance between the journalist and the narrator’s feelings about Brendan. I’d to explore a scene, picking up where he’s left the house. Ane has had a row with her mom. She’s gone to hang out with Brendan. Now we know ‑‑ Ane doesn’t ‑‑ but we know his whole back‑story, so that’s some frightening dramatic irony.
There’s this really creepy breakfast scene. I just want to read some of this language to you. It’s been a while since you’ve written it, so I’d be curious what your reaction to this is.
Brendan wakes to find Ane dressed for school making
breakfast. A pleasant sight for an old pedophile.
He feels vindicated having her in his kitchen. A new shift in
power and he likes it.
He watches Ane in her school uniform make him breakfast.
He reaches for a packet of sugar. Knee socks pulled up to her
thighs. Tearing the paper. Her hair falling over her eyes.
Pouring in the sweetness. Her lips. Laying aside the sugar
packet. She serves him breakfast. Stirring his coffee.
It’s really creepy.
Jane: I know. [laughs]
Scott: Did you intuitively or intentionally shrink that distance between the narrator and Brendan, in effect go into his mindset?
Jane: Abnormal psychology is extremely fascinating, and there is duality in each of us. When we look at Brendan and how he is viewing his daughter/granddaughter, we can go back and reference Eugene in his approach to his family life.
Now, I covered as a photo journalist, Jesse Timmendequas, I think is his last name, but anyhow, back in the day, Megan’s Law covered that, was there on side when Megan’s body was discovered, had ended up talking to the little brother Jeremy, all of this.
All of this ‑‑ I’m outside of the house ‑‑ and all of this is going on knowing, not until later but knowing that the pedophile was living across the street from them which we began to have laws in place as far as sexual registration and all that.
Here is a person who has a psychological deficit. That’s really what it is. Yes, the deficit is monstrous. There’s no doubt about that. He also tries to ‑‑ I don’t want to say he reasons or rationalizes himself ‑‑ but he tries to then move away as we see when Imogen is in the attic and he turns to her. Brendan turns to Imogen.
It’s like, “This was tough,” and your mom wasn’t here and all this other stuff. As a human being who’s trying to repress this psychosis inside of them, but then you see it lapse. It see it for what it is when Ane is in the kitchen.
We have this idea that Brendan is trying to really, “But I’m the dad, and I’m sorry. Things were tough. Hey, I provided a really great life for you. Let’s just move on.” It’s almost like a taste of kill or something.
We thought we rehabilitated this animal, but come to find out, this animal really isn’t rehabilitated because we just see him slip. At that point, when we see him slip it’s like, “Whoa, where’s this family going now?” I thought that was intense.
Scott: Yeah, it was intense. On the one hand, you could look at this and Ane is this lovely young girl who desires to be a fashion model. Obviously, she’s very pretty. Imogen, now making this connection, she was 15 when she got ‑‑ I forget what the word you use ‑‑ plugged or something like that, but the word when…
Jane: Pregnant.
Scott: Yeah. Now, she’s concerned because Ane is making out with his boy Daniel and all this stuff, but mostly concerned about her father and so that’s what precipitates this whole thing. It’s one thing because…Look at it from Imogen’s perspective as it’s unfolding and there are a few flashbacks filling that in terms of her youthful experience with her father.
Then to have this breakfast scene with the father, it’s one thing for Imogen to be concerned in abstract and our own sort of way about Ane safety. Then, we realize, “Oh, man she’s like literally in this predator’s crosshairs.”
Jane: I was going to say like teenagers…Have you ever heard a parent go ‑‑ I don’t know if you have children ‑‑ but they’re at this age in fact literally on an assignment a couple of days ago, which ended up getting canceled because of the cold.
This guy shows up, and he was like this wagon ride. It really was cold. He’s like, “Oh, I’m about ready to like, oh my 13‑year‑old boy.” I said, “You’re supposed to be feeling these feelings. This is what it’s like to have a teenager. You’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.”
You want to protect them. Even if you tie them up and put them in their bedroom, they’re going to find a way out to do exactly what you’ve asked them not to do. It’s almost like as if she has given this power over to something bigger than her and hopes that, “Pray to God.” Her daughter wasn’t going to be preyed on by this man. The relationship is so complicated.
We saw Brendan’s slip. We really saw Brendan slipping. It was really heart‑wrenching to see that he’s sick, but he took matters into his own hands.
Scott: He actually did say to Ane, “No, at some point, you can’t stay here.”
Jane: It’s like he’s backing away from the ledge.
Here is a video of the moment Jane and her fellow writers learned they had won the 2020 Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting.
Tomorrow in Part 5, Jane describes what it was like to win the Nicholl fellowship.
For Part 1, go here.
For Part 2, go here.
For Part 3, 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.