Interview (Written): Paul Haggis

A conversation with two-time Oscar winning writer-director.

A Film Inquiry interview with Paul Haggis whose writing credits include the movies Crash, Million Dollar Baby, Casino Royale, and Quantum of Solace.

As far as your work, I’d say when people hear the name, “Paul Haggis,” they think “unprecedented,” “record-breaking,” “award-winning,” accoladed,” and rightfully so. But for you, it must be a little different. Did you ever envision this amount of success for yourself in your future?

Paul Haggis: (Laughs) No, of course not. Of course, I mean, when you’re a kid, you dream of making movies, but it took me a hell of a long time to get to there. I worked in the mines of television, network television, for many, many years and tried my best many times; I just kept failing to come with a decent story for a movie. And then, I finally just gave up trying and said, ‘I’m only going to write things that I really care about and I don’t care if they’re commercial. I don’t care if they ever get made.’ And so I wrote Million Dollar Baby and Crash, and you know, no one wanted those. (Laughs) And rightfully so, I mean, Million Dollar Baby is about euthanasia and girl boxing. I mean, who’s gonna watch that movie?

And Crash is about a bunch of folks running around dealing with some racism in Los Angeles where people say it doesn’t exist; (laughs) or, at least like most of the people I knew, or [that it] only existed in certain segments, et cetera. And so, no, I was thrilled that it happened, and it was nice to be able to have those awards on the shelf. That’s for sure. But, I mean, it doesn’t help me come up with a new script every week (laughs), or write this new idea, I [still] bang my head against the computer. I fail.

As you were navigating through the industry in your early days beginning in television, do you remember a specific moment that you could call, maybe, your first “big break?” What would you probably say to new and upcoming filmmakers and storytellers to be the best way to conduct yourself if you’re a newcomer?

Paul Haggis: I mean, I was working as a furniture mover for Moishe’s Movers most of the time, 10 hours a day. And then I would come home and I’d write two to three hours a night. I had a family; I had a wife and a daughter and so I had to work to support them and myself. And so, I just kept going until finally, it took me five years of being there [and] doing that to sell my first script. And it took me a long time of getting good at it. I just wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote. And I did other things as well.

I had other odd jobs when there was no work for that, so it was piecemeal work. So, I worked doing other things as well, and then my wife worked at a hotel, and we just banged it out somehow. You just have to work 10 times harder than everybody else if you wanna succeed, and that’s the same in any business. I think it’s the same in yours and same in any industry position if you really want it. You gotta work 10 times harder than the next person.

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