Interview (Written): Andrew Kevin Walker

A conversation with the screenwriter of the movie ‘Se7en’.

Andrew Kevin Walker’s screenwriting credits include the movies Se7en, 8MM, Sleepy Hollow, The Wolfman, and Nerdland. Here is an interview with Walker featured in The Talks.

Mr. Walker, as a screenwriter, is it ever okay to compromise on your stories?

Well, there’s a real conundrum to think about that. So much of my career was a result of the day that I happened to cross paths with David Fincher. Prior to him coming on to Se7en, I was working with another director and dutifully rewrote my original screenplay to fulfill that director’s vision of a completely different ending. It really wasn’t anything that I was happy with, but I felt that, you know, especially very early on, it was my duty to compromise.

But the story goes that when Fincher got on board for Se7en, he was sent your original screenplay by mistake — and only agreed to direct if that ending could be used.

Exactly! I mean, it’s kind of scary to think that you and I wouldn’t be speaking if that hadn’t happened. At the same time, I would have never met him if I hadn’t just bit the bullet and done this horrible rewrite, ruining my own script. But I feel like it’s a rare thing to have to have the kind of inclusive collaboration that I had with Fincher. Nowadays I find it very hard to just rewrite stuff at the behest of a director whose vision I didn’t share. Later in my career, I was more willing to step off of a project, or be fired off of it even, if I disagreed very strongly.

Like with Joel Schumacher’s 8mm?

Right, there are more often experiences where the director is the kind of person who’s making pronouncements and changes. And if I can’t talk that person out of those changes then I just have to let them proceed without me. 8mm is a movie that I’ve never even seen because I know that it diverts from my vision of it, which was meant to take a person into a kind of underground depravity along with a private detective, who, by the end of it, would come out as a changed person — not literally but figuratively. My version ended with the character being so changed by the experience that he basically just drove his car into a bridge abutment and killed himself.

As a reminder of Walker’s interest in ‘dark’ endings, the climax of Se7en:

For the rest of the interview, go here.

For more interviews with screenwriters and filmmakers hosted on Go Into The Story, go here.