Screenwriting 101: Guillermo Arriaga

“I’m not here for the money, I’m not here for the job, I’m here because I want things. I think that I have something to express, so I didn’t care about the money. I remember the day I was going to release Amores Perros, the day before I had a chat with a friend of mine, a screenwriter, who made a lot of concessions with his screenplay to make it commercial. I said, ‘Man, why did you make so many concessions to your screenplay, it was beautiful, now I cannot even recognize it.’ He said, ‘Because my friend, I’m going to be in Hollywood. Your shitty, arty movie about dogs is going to be seen by two people. Mine is going to bring me to Hollywood!’ No, my friend, that’s not the way it works. First of all you don’t have any will over the work. What I mean by this is you cannot decide if it’s going to be a success or not. There’s no way of deciding that. There’s no progress in art, your last work is not going to be better than your first work. So the best thing is to be authentic and honest with your own work.”

— Guillermo Arriaga

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