Interview (Part 4): Kristen Gray-Rockmaker, 2017 Nicholl Winner

My 6-part talk with the writer of the script “Last Days of Winter”.

Kristen Gray-Rockmaker wrote the original screenplay “Last Days of Winter” which won a 2017 Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting. Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with Kristen about about her background, her award-winning script, the craft of screenwriting, and what winning the Nicholl has meant to her.

Today in Part 4, Kristen shares what it took to delve into the mindset of a hitwoman in the writing of “Last Days of Winter”:

Scott: There’s several big plot twists. I thought they were great because it kept me wondering where the story was going. One of the biggest ones is Nick finally…First of all, they think it’s a guy, right, this Whitter character?

Kristen: Yeah.

Scott: Everybody thinks it’s a guy, so that’s how good January is at doing her job. Of course, that also speaks to the prejudices people have about who would be a hitman. What’s a hit-man? Hit. Man.

Nick figures out that it’s January behind many of these several murders on his open case list, but instead of busting her, he negotiates with her to kill his wife. He basically is using that power that he could bring her in any point.

Do you remember when you hit on that idea?

Kristen: That was from the very beginning. It was going to be about her getting involved with this crooked detective who blackmails her into killing his wife.

I had known about a case where a police officer hired a hitman to kill his wife. And he did kill her. That idea had always been really interesting to me, this idea of the cop who’s supposed to be the good guy taking on the bad guy role and blackmailing this hitwoman who kills people for a living.

I was really interested in playing with this idea of the bad guy and who is bad guy in this story because she gets paid to kill people, but really, he’s more of the bad guy. I was interested in that role reversal, especially given where it takes place and everything.

Scott: You show January approaching a hit early on, while she studies the person for a period of time to understand their patterns and behavior and where they’re going to be all that sort of thing, there’s a distance from them.

It’s not like she really enters into their life and really gets to know them that well. She wants to keep to an arm’s length there and that’s intentional.

Kristen: Yeah, definitely. Again, she views it as professional, a job.

Scott: But then — and this is another big plot twist — the woman who is the wife of Nick happens to be the same woman who works at the OB/GYN office and has actually seen and interfaced with January. Now, it’s a whole different game.

Kristen: That gets into her moral code that she has of she doesn’t kill people like this, number one. Number two, yeah, she knows her in a very intimate level in that she’s been there to examine her baby and everything.

Scott: Was that a conscious thing? “I want to up the stakes on January in terms of her emotional life by making this a personal thing. She actually knows this person, so that’s going to really create some complications for her.”

Kristen: Yup, that was. That was actually something I talked a lot to my husband about when he was reading it. Because early on, the character of Debra was slightly different, it was somebody that she had gotten to know a little bit so there was always a personal connection, but it wasn’t as strong as it is now. He had suggested making it even more personal.

That’s when I came up with the idea of making her the ultrasound technician, which I think was a really good decision because it just makes it so personal.

Scott: Also, you’ve got the contrast of death and life. There’s some really good plot twists and I don’t want to give them away. But, by the end, it’s quite surprising that Nick’s partner, who is a female cop, and January, who’s female, and this woman, who was the object of the hit, that they all have these disparate backgrounds.

Yet, fate brings them together in a large part because of what Nick has said in emotion. There’s this really interesting resolution where again, it’s very mature in nuanced. It’s not like it’s all tied up with ribbons and bows and strawberries and cream.

That ending, how difficult was that for you to come to that ending to where it is, that sort of adult nuanced approach?

Kristen: It was an ongoing process. I rewrote this many times. I went through some major rewrites. It took a while to get to that. I always knew what I wanted to do with the very end, that very last scene where she says “a version of me” and everything. Where she’s getting respect from the neighborhood dealers.

That scene I had early on, but how to get there was something that I wrote and rewrote and rewrote. [laughs] It took a long time to get it to where it is now. Yeah, it was a struggle.

Scott: Were you getting feedback from other people, or were you just reading it and interpreting it and analyzing it on your own?

Kristen: I was. I did get feedback from people. My husband is usually my first reader, and he’s pretty critical. He’s really good with suggestions. Then, I’ll usually do a rewrite based on that, and then I give it to a handful of friends who I trust, and I’ll get feedback from them too. They would tell me if something wasn’t making sense or wasn’t ringing true, or whatever.

I did do a lot of rewrites based on people’s notes, but then there were times when I would just read something, and I’d say, “Uh.” This doesn’t make any sense, [laughs] and then I myself would rewrite it just to do it.

Scott: Were these people writers that you were giving the script to?

Kristen: Yeah. I work in television, and so I’m around a lot of creative people. There are a lot of people in unscripted who would love to move over to scripted, of course. So I tried to pick out my friends who are interested in writing or are interested in scripted. I definitely have a handful of them that I turn to.

Scott: I don’t know if you ever thought about this, but by the end of the script, January is quite pregnant. It brings to mind like she’s the first cousin of Marge Gunderson in Fargo.

Kristen: Oh, yeah.

Scott: It’s two pregnant women. Opposite sides of the law but both of them…really stalwart and they do what needs to be done in order to get what they need to be done. Was there any point of connection there ever for you or was that just my own crazy…

Kristen: I did think about that, because she was the only other character I could think of who was so pregnant in a crime movie. It wasn’t intentional, but I did definitely think about that.

In fact, I’ve had some people respond to the logline in unintended ways. I think people think it’s going to be funny, kind of the way Fargo was, and I realize, “Oh, maybe I should rewrite that logline.” [laughs]

Scott: You mean as soon as they see the pregnant thing, they think it’s going to be a comedy.

Kristen: Yeah. I feel like maybe they’re thinking she’s super‑pregnant the whole way through, which would make it totally different. It might be because of Fargo, because of that character.

Tomorrow in Part 5, Kristen shares what her experience was winning the Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting.

For Part 1 of the interview, go here.

Part 2, here.

Part 3, here.

Kristen is repped by The Gotham Group.

For my interviews with 28 other Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting writers, go here.

For my interviews with 53 Black List writers, go here.