Interview (Part 5): James Acker

My interview with the 2020 Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting winner.

James Acker wrote the original screenplay “SADBOI” which won a 2020 Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting. Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with James 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, James answers some questions related to the craft of screenwriting.

Scott: To your credit, you do it well. Monologues are actor‑bait. I remember Ron Shelton talking about Bull Durham, and that whole, “I believe…” speech that the Crash does. Ron Shelton put it in there precisely to try to attract an actor. He said, “I never figured it would be in the movie.”

James: That’s interesting. I didn’t know that. Writing for productions is something I try not to do, but I always do anyway.

It was actually a concerted effort to give every character in “Sadboi” that shows up more than once something of a monologue. Something flashy that even though it’s a brief part, I could justify going out to a name. Everyone gets a little something to do.

Scott: If there is a nemesis or antagonist figure in the story, it’s Edgar’s mom. We don’t see her. She’s there psychologically, but not physically. Other than Edgar seeing her through the window, watching TV. Was that a conscious choice on your part, not to show her?

James: Mm‑hmm. This is funny because it took me halfway through writing the first draft to realize I hadn’t shown the mom. Then I decided, “OK, we’re not going to see her.” I didn’t go into my draft thinking, “Wouldn’t it be cool if we never show the mom?”

I really only went into the draft with one emotional anchor. One of the first things we hear about our main character is that he punched his mom in the face and ran away from home. The journey would be finding a way to redeem this character. That’s what I went in with. I didn’t go in thinking, “And what if we never saw the mom?”

Somewhere after my midpoint, I realized, “Edgar is coming up on a full emotional arc, and the mom has still not appeared.” I knew it was going to take a lot to introduce her in the second half and make it make sense pacing-wise. Then I realized it could be a very deliberate choice. I thought there could be something very haunting about his mom never showing up.

You’d think in a story like this, there’d be some big, cathartic moment where he addresses his problems with his mother, especially after what happened between the two of them. You’d think he’d finally stick up for himself or finally get to say what he’s needed to say. Maybe they’d find a way back to each other, and he realized he just needed to go home all along.

But that’s not how this story goes. That’s not how the story goes through for many queer youth, especially unhoused queer youth. Sometimes home isn’t the answer. It’s more about finding a different version of home.

But I wanted the mom to be a constant. I wanted her to be a ghost in the script. Edgar’s constantly checking in with his house, checking to see if she’s going to look for him or she’s going to leave the house. You don’t realize what’s happening until later why he keeps checking in on his old house.

That’s all he wanted. He just wanted his mom to come look for him. Which is why when he eventually finds Peter’s parents and learns that they were looking for him the whole time, they’re not looking to yell at him or ask him what’s wrong with him, they’re just looking for him, it’s what finally causes him to break down. That somebody was looking after him.

That puts him back on the road of being able to accept help. There are a couple of very obvious helping hands in the story that are extended to him and that he is deciding not to take. Morgan, Dennis. Reese Michelle’s whole point is that she could be a great friend to him if he’d just…

Scott: Open up?

James: …get over himself, honestly. Reese is intentionally annoying at first. That was the intent, but she’s not actually doing anything wrong. Nothing about what she presents is outwardly wrong or antagonistic, but you assume that she must be this Tracy Flick, Rachel Berry monster. Sometimes a friend is just a friend. Edgar, his big arc is realizing to just trust that.

Scott: It’s interesting, you say the word “ghost” in relation to the mom. I literally wrote that in my notes when I was reading this. It’s almost like a mythical character in a way. It’s almost larger than life in some respects but not seeing her.

Edgar goes through hell and back in this thing. Obviously, one of the goals we have as writers is to get the reader invested in the story. Primarily, that happens through the protagonist’s character. I think you did a great job. You mentioned earlier avoiding the melodrama. You did find a nice balance point between so much stuff that happens with this kid.

You feel sorry for him, and yet there are these moments of levity. I’d like to talk about this book. You start off with this idyllic summer thing with he and Peter two years ago. Edgar’s reading these series of questions from this book, “Are We Happy?” He doesn’t get it. He thinks it’s dumb.

Then he does find this surrogate family he’s got at the end. There’s Ronny. There’s Dennis. There’s Marlena. There’s Reese, all these people who are like a surrogate family. You come back to the book, and he actually reads the part after that he didn’t read in the beginning.

I’d like to read that dialogue from the book. “Are we happy? You can never tell for sure because happiness is a moment. It takes turns with the sad and the nothing. Happiness is a moment, one moment. So I couldn’t tell you yet, ‘Are we happy?’ Ask me at the end of the day. Let me count my moments.”

What were you going for there? How soon did you have that epiphany that this is what you wanted to end the story?

James: I knew I wanted to do this with the book. Opening and ending with it. I always had that opening in mind that Edgar would be earnestly trying to figure out poetry. Because that was a thing for me as a kid. I’d read these things that seemed so packed full of emotion, but they just read like, as in this case, a series of questions. Like I was taking a quiz.

That was Edgar’s problem. To not be able to connect emotionally to the play or, in a bigger sense, to anybody. He wasn’t able to connect to the material. And I always wanted the ending point to find him finally able to appreciate what the play and those questions were really asking.

The first half of that monologue was truly the first words I wrote down for this story. I wanted to set up his Edgar’s arc from the jump. He couldn’t answer the play’s questions because he didn’t know what he found beautiful. Or he couldn’t articulate it. And I knew I wanted to do the interrupted-romantic-transformation thing but, for Edgar, I wanted his bigger arc to be finding what’s beautiful to him. Being able to appreciate his life and its beauty and not just in a, “Oh, I like the way I look in polo shirts,” or, “I think this music is nice.”

On the surface, it might seem like a cheesy question, “What do you find beautiful?” But to honestly be able to answer that kind of question and to be able to acknowledge, “Yeah, I guess trees are beautiful. I guess having friends is beautiful,” and not writing off something that’s simple as cheesy, or lame, or something to distrust or fear was the arc I wanted for Edgar.

To be able to appreciate the things in this life and not be so focused on the things that he doesn’t have, the idea comes around in that second half of the monologue. At the end, we hear the second half of it and he’s able to emotionally connect to this idea. “Life is sad, but I can be happy.”

There’s no point in trying to declare, “I’m a sad person,” or, “I’m a happy person,” because things will always keep happening. Life will always try to prove you wrong so you need to be able to count up the good and bad.

Edgar being able to open himself up to the more complicated parts of life and find happiness in them instead of just suffering through the hardships was the big sticking point I wanted to land with that ending monologue.

On December 3, 2020 the Nicholl ceremony included a table read featuring excerpts from each of the five winning scripts. The actors: Stephanie Beatriz (“Brooklyn Nine- Nine”), Michael Peña (“End of Watch”), Lou Diamond Phillips, (“The 33”), and Taylor Russell (“Waves”). The ceremony was hosted by Aldis Hodge (“Hidden Figures”) and directed by 2011 Nicholl fellows Burlee and Abel Vang. Here is a video of the table reads:

Tomorrow in Part 6, James offers some advice for aspiring screenwriters.

For Part 1, go here.

For Part 2, go here.

For Part 3, go here.

For Part 4, go here.

James is repped by The Gotham Group and Fuse Literary.

Twitter: @JamesUmAcker

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

For my interviews with Black List writers, go here.