Interview (Part 4): Sam Boyer

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

In 2022, Sam Boyer received a Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting for his original screenplay “Ojek”. In 2023, his script “Foragers” made the annual Black List. Quite an accomplishment in back to back years. Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with Sam about his Nicholl experience, writing the script which eventually made the Black List, and writing in the action genre space.

Today in Part 4 of a 6-part series to run each day this week, Sam talks about the Nemesis figure in his script Foragers.

Scott: Here’s a thought for you as you go forward. If you did look at the story through her eyes, it’s a bit like Dorothy of The Wizard of Oz. She’s just looking for a home. She’s in effect orphaned because her father doesn’t recognize it or it’s not known. I don’t want to give away the data more which I thought was quite effective.

I’m glad you spent more time with her because it absolutely would just been like an edifice, like a device if you hadn’t spent the time that you did with her. Anyhow, it just maybe something to bear in mind.

Sam: I love that.

Scott: Joel Coen said all movies are an attempt to remake the Wizard of Oz. I always think about that, because from her perspective, Andi and Juno are like Tin Man and the Scarecrow.

Sam: Yeah, I agree. The Wizard of Oz is like that seminal American cinema journey. I think it’s a really good comparison. That’s something you put so eloquently I’ve been trying to find in these future drafts and even between the draft you just read and the one I’m probably going to submit this week or the next week or the week after.

There’s been more and more Maria, honestly. There’s totally a lesson to be learned from that that I’m still learning.

Scott: Let’s talk about her father, this billionaire, Bill Squire. He seems like a John Wick type of a character, a Nemesis figure, the way that he introduces himself and has these four guys barreling in on Andi and Juno. You want to talk a bit about how this character unfolded and emerged in your writing process?

Sam: Yeah. I remember getting a beer in Portland at some point at a bar on the East Side, and looking to my left and my right and realizing this bar was half Nike employees who were just off from their job, and thinking that, “Man, if I ever pissed off Phil Knight, he could probably have me killed by the end of the day, and no one would notice or care.”

It’s totally me being a dramatic screenwriter rather than a resident of reality. I wanted some proxy for that, of the way like, it’s not like Los Angeles, which has way too many billionaires, Portland’s a city where there’s a couple, and they have this outsize impact.

I totally made a Squire, in this version, a character who believes that money can solve every problem and that his entire life has been a testament to that fact. You don’t know, necessarily, his origins or how he came up. He might be entirely self‑made, and it’s just, “This is how I solve problems. I work in one direction. What I need is discretion with this particular job.”

This idea that, “Who is the last person you’d expect to be asking for the help of these people?” I think that’s what makes it an interesting “Why now?” situation of they’re used to helping people who truly have no means, and they’re faced with the prospect of why should we even take this particular job? It’s a character who would really challenge Juno and Andi in that sense.

Scott: Could you just generally talk about how you created, or these characters emerged, this set of Foragers and then there’s these other ones that come in from outside the state, but how did that all process work out?

Sam: I think I wanted with “The Society” for characters to have their own sorts of code names, but ones that are really…I’m so drawn to place and that were really rooted in these small towns around America.

The selection from Oregon and then Northern Washington of Yakima, it’s just like a selection of these small towns. I wanted characters that conveyed with the feel or the atmospheres of those places, what that might look like and for each of them to represent a different approach to this particular profession.

Bandon is a total mercenary. Yakima might be a total lone wolf. John Day is this character who supposed to be the best of them all, and it’s like this legendary figure.

Then, Klamath Falls is a second generation in the world of foraging, which I thought would always be an interesting idea. What if your parent was a forager and it was something you wanted to get into as well?

I think they’re all grappling with this strange superhero duty in different ways, but with as hyper‑real as the setting might be, like a practical and human set of tools.

Scott: You said you didn’t do much in the way of outlining or did you work backwards? I know a lot of mystery writers will do that work. I’m just curious what your process was in that whole clue gathering thing.

Sam: The real challenge with a lot of writing for features is getting to act two and still being energized and delivering what this movie is about rather than having to feel like you’re just connecting the dots and trying to get people to what you think is a really cool midpoint or the way everything will tie together in act three.

With this one, at a few locations that I knew would lend themselves to fun sorts of action sequences and events, and I knew how they connected in real life just like the streets and the patterns there. I knew that there were certain characters that they could maybe meet along the way.

From there, I think you do the actual work of writing a scene a few times and writing the characters, be absolutely awful on the page in final draft for a version or two, but then you start to tease out the story.

I think we’ve all been in that situation where we’re in the file and the characters are having a conversation that’s gone on for three pages too long because they’re both trying to figure out why they’re there and what’s going on.

Anything that looks elegant in the script in terms of plotting, and I’m not saying anything does, but is really due to the power of revision and continuing to hone in and make things clearer and lead to one another.

Then those things have to be character moments, too. They to go to a strip club at one point or a gentlemen’s club, and they have to convince this one character to join them in their crusade. That character has to have a change of heart along the way, too, because there needs to be conflict embedded in that.

The plotting of it all is so hard. It’s even harder when you do what I did, which is not outlined enough leading into it, because then you truly have to do the wrong version a couple times or pray you get lucky.

Tomorrow in Part 5, Sam discusses some key plot choices he made and how his affection for screenwriter William Goldman influences his approach to screenplay style and Narrative Voice.

For Part 1 of the interview, go here.

Part 2, go here.

Part 3, go here.

To read my 2022 interview with Sam about his Nicholl-winning screenplay “Ojek,” go here.

Sam is repped by Rain Media Partners.

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