Interview (Part 5): Sean Harrigan

My interview with 2023 Black List writer for his script First You Hear Them.

Sean Harrigan wrote the screenplay First You Hear Them which was named to the 2023 Black List. Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with Sean about his creative background, writing his Black List script, and the craft of screenwriting.

Today in Part 5 of a 6-part series to run each day this week, Sean shares what it was like to experience making the annual Black List.

Scott: That period of time is so important because you’ve got to set up the ground rules and the characters’ understanding of what’s going on and give them specific mini-goals they will then pursue.

Also, it sets up for what happens later where you say, “OK. As long as they’re on the same wavelength, this is OK, but if they get disconnected, then that’s going to be a problem,” and you had that happen. It was such a great scene. The cops, they get stopped by the cops.

It all results in poor Javi getting busted. He has the packet of the pills. It’s like, “OK. They no longer have access to the drugs. Poor Javier is going be stuck in detention.” We’ve already seen what happened with Shae when she was locked up.

Sean: When coming up with the beats of this, it felt like there were certain hallmarks of addiction or just drug use that I had to hit. It’s like, “OK. If you’re going to tell an addiction horror, you’re going to have a drug horror, the cops have to be a part of that. How can you make it where you are putting the characters in the worst place at the worst time with it?”

That comes after they find Morgan and they learn that she’s died. You have that emotional moment. Then it goes right into this cop scene so they can’t sit in it too long. That’s the other component of the reprieves and character moments — you can have these times where they just took the drug, but you don’t want to sit in that too long.

They just got this drug. We think, “OK. This will be enough to carry them over.” Then you take it away from them and have them have to run away from the cops. And of course, Javi now being trapped in there with his haunting.

And from Javi’s arrest, all these dynamics that we’ve been setting up get propelled further, this conflict between Poppy and Javi and Carson with Shae in the middle.

Poppy and Carson argue with perspectives that are both correct really. With completely valid arguments that come from their unique viewpoints. Poppy saying, “We need to help our friends,” and Carson saying, “We need to stay alive long enough to do that.”

It puts Shae in the middle of that war, while also pulling her between Poppy, who’s a little bit more of this connection to her regular life, and Carson, who’s the connection to this addicted world and that temptation that she keeps going further down.

Scott: It’s great because it creates conflict because we have opposing views, both of the viewpoints are, in that particular case that you’re talking about with, “What are we going to do about Javi?” Both are plausible perspectives.

It’s an interesting thing because there’s this little, slippery slope going on here in terms of morality. Shae absconds with some jewels from her grandmother, and then hocks them because they’re ostensibly going to use that money to bail out Javi.

Then she says, “Well, wait a minute. We can get these drugs. We could actually sell them and make money.” Poppy’s like, “You’d put someone else through this?” You could just see Shae’s arc is taking her toward a very, very dark place potentially. Maybe you could unpack that, her journey, of Shae’s journey is really quite a compelling one.

Sean: It’s taking that character from one extreme all the way to the other. So, this person who didn’t want to do drugs is now going through all of the hallmarks of what addiction can sometimes lead to, the desperate things you do to get more and more.

A lot of the journey was setting up that slippery slope for her of how does she get more of the drug when she’s backed up against a wall? First, it is, “We need a little bit more money, Shae’s going to take something from her grandma.” Then it is saying, “OK, how do we get Javi out of jail? What if we sell it?”

Hopefully as we’ve gone on this journey with her, within the context and extremity of horror, these decisions become a little bit easier to empathize with then maybe it would be if this was a traditional, Trainspotting-style story, where sometimes I know at least, I can distance myself from the characters experience. Instead, we’re saying, “No, she’s doing this to survive.” And we viscerally understand because these things are terrifying and literally out to kill her. The addiction and actions are the same but can maybe be viewed through a different lens.

A lot of the ways that I get into writing is thinking about the character’s arc in a very broad emotional sense and their relationship, their view on the theme.

If we’re exploring addiction, how we take Shae from one extreme of not wanting to try drugs at all to this other extreme of doing things that are more and more desperate in order to be able to get more? That felt like the arc for her. So, it was just saying, what are the events that can motivate her to move in that direction? And what are the increasingly extreme ways she responds to them?

Scott: She becomes so active. She’s grabbing guns. Giving orders. She’s like a gang leader at some point. Of course, at the very, very end, and I don’t want to give away the ending, but she makes a decision on her own.

Sean: Yeah.

Scott: To do something quite dramatic, so she definitely…It’s like an empowerment story.Though it is not like this lovely, little, lyrical thing. She goes through hell to end up where she does.

The script’s ending, is that something that’s always been there, or did that go through multiple rewrites as you suggested with some of the others parts of the story?

Sean: I would say the set pieces stayed pretty consistent but the details within them changed a lot. I always liked the idea of a detox type of sequence, again hitting on those hallmarks of addiction. And then there was always an investigation to the source of the drug.

As far as the final moment, without giving anything away, it came down thematically to that these things are always with you. You don’t defeat them but you fold them into your life. And I think that came about in one of the earlier drafts. It felt like something that was true to the themes of the script.

With horror, there can sometimes be an ending where your character has gone through all of these terrible events, had this resolution, and then are suddenly killed in a surprise, twist ending. That can be effective but I’m generally not as drawn to that.

At the same time, horror that’s just a happy ending can sometimes feel not earned or not genuine. I personally gravitate to a middle place, if it feels right for the story, where the character survives, they become better for it, but there’s also something that’s lost along the way. That bittersweet ending is something that draws me and was what I landed on here.

Scott: It’s a terrific script. Let’s talk about the experience of making the 2023 Black List. Where were you on that Monday when they were announcing that list?

Sean: I had it on my radar because I knew from my manager that we had fans of the script. So I was on my computer that day but I think missed the actual announcement for mine. I learned about it from a text from a friend, who is also a producer on the script and really got the ball rolling on getting this script set up. He was also actually the person who I wrote my first scripts with way back in college.

Definitely, one of those bucket‑list things, as a writer, to be part of. Every year, I was always paying attention to the Black List scripts, the stories that were on there, and the things that people were gravitating towards. To be part of the list was such a cool experience.

Scott: You’re part of that whole cult now.

[laughter]

Scott: They’re a great outfit promoting screenwriters and screenwriting…

Sean: It really is.

Tomorrow in Part 6, Sean answers some craft questions, then shares his best piece of advice for aspiring screenwriters.

For Part 1 of the interview, go here.

Part 2, go here.

Part 3, go here.

Part 4, go here.

Sean is repped by Empirical Evidence.

Twitter / X: @swharrigan

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