Interview (Part 5): Brent Delaney

My interview with the 2023 Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting winner.

Brent Delaney wrote the original screenplay “Brownie Mary” which won a 2023 Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting. Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with Brent about his creative background, his award-winning script, the craft of screenwriting, and what winning the Nicholl Award has meant to him.

Today in Part 5 of a 6-part series to run each day through Saturday, Brent talks about another key character in the script who acted as a kind of surrogate son.

Scott: It’s just so interesting how the real life events. I know you massage them from a historical standpoint, but they really do reflect this psychological change in her. This other character, this triad characters in terms of influences on her life, you’ve got Dennis, who’s like this Mentor figure. Then there’s this character, Jonathan West, who you introduce on page 24:

“A cherub‑faced boy from the Midwest with a mess of blonde curls and puppy dog eyes, wounded and abandoned by everyone who was supposed to love him. He’s now both stubbornly guarded and deeply vulnerable.”

In my character archetype lexicon, he’s an Attractor figure because Jonathan’s the one she’s the most emotionally connected with.

Maybe you could talk a bit about this Jonathan character. I know you did a little bit of shifting in terms of the historical thing, but that relationship in the story, how that plays out in terms of Mary Jane’s psychological growth.

Brent: Jonathan is the character that I took the most liberty with in terms of shaping his story because he’s not a public figure. He was Dennis Peron’s partner, but there’s not that much in the historical record about him. So, I had to fictionalize a great deal about his life.

I wanted Jonathan’s relationship with Mary Jane to symbolize the relationship she had with each of the dying kids she met. Over the course of the story, the way she brings Jonathan into her life is representative of hundreds of other kids.

She always called them that, you know?

Scott: Kids.

Brent: My kids. These are “my kids,” she would say. Jonathan West’s character represents the relationship she had with all of her kids, accepting them into her life and taking care of them as her own — after losing her only child.

Scott: He even says for the end of his own life, because he does end up dying of AIDS. He even says something like, “You’re the mom that I always wanted or needed or…”

Brent: There’s so many of those stories. Stories that I’ve heard in my personal life with my own family and friends — queer people who have been abandoned by their families. It’s heartbreaking.

In San Francisco at that time — you find this in Milk too — queer people ended up finding surrogate families. That’s how they survived. Jonathan West’s character shows that I hope — the very real and tragic reality of what these young people went through.

Scott: Also, very, very personal level, one‑on‑one, doesn’t he fill a void that was created when her daughter’s death?

Brent: Yeah. Jonathan’s arrival is the last thing Mary Jane wants, which is having to take care of another kid. But, through the story, she finally accepts him. She adopts him as her own. And that gives her a chance to reconcile the grief she’s been holding in for her daughter.

Scott: That’s another Pixar movie. That’s when Carl Fredricksen loses Ellie in Up. He doesn’t want anything to do with people. Then Russell shows up. Eventually, there’s that. It’s wonderful how these narrative dynamics show up in movie after movie.

I love the part where around 48, now she’s got all these bakers around and they’re making all these brownies. I’m like, it reminds me, of course, of Breaking Bad, which I thought…I don’t know if you ever thought of that, it’s such a great TV series. She’s the criminal mastermind.

She’s just doing criminal activities, but it’s all for altruistic thing. Did you ever make that connection at all?

Brent: No, I didn’t make that connection actually, but if somebody directs it in such a way, I would be very pleased. That show is excellent. There’s a comedic element to it as well. Mary Jane does have this Walter White angle to her, you’re right. She was making money, and she was happy making money, and she wasn’t shy about that fact in interviews. And then that switched after she went to jail for the first time and realized there was a greater purpose in store for her.

Scott: It’s like Fate intervened. She had to do community service and then she got involved with the group. Was that actual facts in her life story?

Brent: Yeah. The Shanti Project — where she did much of her community service — is still an organization that’s operating today. And it’s interesting because you can watch their old training videos from the early 80s on YouTube. I’ve watched hours and hours of them. So, when you see Mary Jane’s training in the script, it is very much true to life.

It was through those organizations and charities that Mary Jane came to know so many AIDS patients. The Shanti Project was a support group for cancer patients and different types of palliative care, but when the AIDS epidemic started to spread, it focused more and more on treating AIDS patients.

Scott: You know, it’s intriguing how, there’s that Jung quote. He says, “When an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside as fate.” You look at the story of Mary Jane as you depicted in the script, you get to see Fate at work so often. She gets busted. She gets five hundred hours of community service.

This introduces her to the Shanti group. That introduces her to these people who have cancer. Now, she can relate to that because she’s been using pot for her own maladies, physical ailments. Then that also introduces her to what they call gay cancer, the AIDS epidemic. That is really where she’s pulled into this persona that she becomes.

Again, it’s all these events unfolding, like the journey she takes is the journey she needs to take. Does that resonate with you?

Brent: Yeah, for sure. That quote is great. I find that resonates in my own life too. If I ever hold a belief too strongly, for example, I always find that the universe has some way of showing me the opposite. I find that fascinating. I first read Jung in my early twenties, and his work continues to be a source of inspiration.

Tomorrow in Part 6, Brent answers some screenwriting craft questions.

For Part 1, go here.

For Part 2, go here.

For Part 3, go here.

For Part 4, go here.

Brent is repped by Range Media Partners.

Twitter / X: @Brent__Delaney

For my interviews with every Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting winner since 2012, go here.