Interview (Written): Amy Holden Jones

Screenwriter Cole Haddon’s in-depth conversation with writer-director-producer whose credits include Mystic Pizza, Indecent Proposal, and the TV series The Resident.

In a Hollywood career dating from 1982 as an editor, screenwriter, director, and producer, it’s safe to say Amy Holden Jones has just about seen it all. Her film and television credits include Maid to Order, Mystic Pizza, Beethoven, The Getaway, Indecent Proposal, Black Box, and The Resident.

In this two-part interview, screenwriter and TV writer Cole Haddon (Dracula) provides an in-depth exploration of Jones’ fascinating career in the film and television business. Some excerpts:

COLE HADDON: This is a rare treat for me in this interview series because you have a career that spans a few chapters in Hollywood history, but also one that has fantastically evolved over the same number of years — most often around some very key moments. More, you’ve done it as a woman in an industry that did not always want you. Thank you so much for taking the time to have this conversation with me.

AMY HOLDEN JONES: I’m a bit worried about talking too much about myself, but eager to help. The arc of my career has seen many changes in how women are treated. Considerable progress has been made. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if the same doors now open for others had opened for me.

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AHJ: My passion for documentaries had to be abandoned for monetary reasons. One door had closed, but I’d climbed in a window to a whole new world. To this day, the eight weeks I spent on the set of TAXI DRIVER remain a highlight of my life.

CH: This feels like such a pivotal moment in your life, a clear before-and-after, that could’ve resulted in an entirely different you had you not written that letter. Has it felt that weighty in your memory of it, that consequential to your life, and did the result of that kind of audacity, that daring, impact how you made other decisions later in your career?

AHJ: It was a pivotal moment in every way. It was an incredible stroke of luck. Few directors would have even answered my letter, much less become a mentor to a clueless young woman right out of school. Luck matters a great deal, but you also need to have work to show, an example of what you can do. I had made A WEEKEND HOME. The letter I wrote was nothing without that film. But the film wouldn’t have done much either if Marty hadn’t been the kind of man he is.

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CH: By my estimation, we should be approaching the next big turning point in your career, the next fork in the road. Which is, of course, THE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE. How did that ultimately happen?

AHJ: When my daughter Emma was three months old, Spielberg called and asked me to cut E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL. I loved the script and was beyond thrilled. I’ll never forget that job interview. He was brilliant.

CH: Christ, what an opportunity.

AHJ: Yes, it was incredible. At this point, I was twenty-seven years old and still by far the youngest group one editor in Hollywood. Spielberg’s go-to editor, Michael Kahn, was occupied cutting POLTERGEIST, which everyone thought was the far more important film. E.T. was expected to be a small family picture. Spielberg’s attention when he hired me was very much on POLTERGEIST. That production was complex and was way over schedule. E.T. kept being pushed back. Meanwhile, I began reassessing my path in life.

AHJ (cont’d): I went back to Roger Corman to ask his advice on how I could one day get a chance to direct. He explained that if I was going to work for him, I had to prove I could make the kind of films he wanted to make. All his films needed at least one of three elements: humor, sex, or violence, and preferably all three.

CH: His best films always did.

AHJ: Nearly every blockbuster to this day has one of these elements. Every Tarantino film has all three. At this time, I was not a writer, but I needed a script to shoot. Rita Mae Brown had written a horror film for Roger titled DON’T OPEN THE DOOR and it was gathering dust on his shelf. I read the first ten pages and saw they contained a dialogue scene, a suspense scene, and plenty of action. I rewrote those pages to make them cost-effective, then I directed them using non-union actors and delivered a ten-minute reel to Roger of a script he owned. I saw it as nothing more than an example of what I could do. But after he screened the result, to my shock, he asked me to direct the film. I’d never even read the rest of the script!

This two-part interview is like a rolling snapshot of film and television business as it evolved in Hollywood, told through the unique perspective of Amy Holden Jones.

The entire interview: Part 1, Part 2.

Cole Haddon launched a Substack site called 5AM StoryTalk in April. It’s already established itself as a valuable resource for anyone interested in screenwriting, television writing, movies, and TV. You can check it out here.

For information on Cole’s debut novel Psalms for the End of the World, go here.

Twitter: @colehaddon, @aholdenj.

For 100s more interviews with screenwriters and filmmakers, go here.