Screenwriting 101: Billy Wilder
“When I started in America I couldn’t speak any English, so I did need a collaborator. I was lucky to find some very good ones and I found…
“When I started in America I couldn’t speak any English, so I did need a collaborator. I was lucky to find some very good ones and I found them very helpful. When I became a director, it was always good to have another pair of eyes and ears that could kind of check and double-check as to what I was doing. And for all of you here, for the ones who are writers, you will find out that writing is a very dull and boring, dreary thing. One of the best things about the collaborator is that he stops you from committing suicide, unless you’re smart enough to work on the first floor.
“It’s fun, you know? You arrive in the morning and you have forty-five minutes of bitching about your wife and how lousy the food was, and you saw a picture and it stunk. It establishes a good atmosphere before you get going on your own crap.
“It’s such an exhausting thing, you know, facing that empty page in the morning. And then you always need help when you’re arguing with the front office. You need somebody there, preferably somebody with a machine gun around his shoulder. You have to have specific talent to be a collaborator. It’s like a marriage.”
— Billy Wilder
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