Written Interview: Tony Gilroy | Go Into The Story

Mike Fleming with an excellent interview with writer-director Tony Gilroy. First some interesting insight into the development of The Bourne Legacy:

DEADLINE: Ultimatum ended with Jason Bourne learning his identity and exposing his tormenters. And then Greengrass said no more, and Damon also said goodbye. What did you tell the producers?

GILROY: My advice was you could never replace Matt. These films sold integrity and authenticity for 12 years, and that was Matt. I left that meeting after 15 to 20 minutes, said I hadn?t seen the third movie but would watch and if I thought of anything, I?d get back in touch. I watched it, I spoke with my brother, and I said they?re really jammed and the only way they could get out of it is if there was a larger conspiracy. He said, tell them that, and I did. I came on in the beginning in one of weekly screenwriter things, where they pay you for a couple of weeks to come dig some holes in the ground. When you start digging, sometimes there?s nothing there. And sometimes, you get hot.

DEADLINE: How does that work, cracking the code?

GILROY: Mostly, you bounce around for a year in a room looking for something and then all of a sudden you find one little thing that starts a fire, and then it goes really quick. Here, I had that little idea, and everybody got excited simply because it was some oxygen. But I still felt the big hang up was finding a character who has an issue as fundamental and important and playable and interesting as what we had with Bourne. I thought that was where this would fall down. It could be sexy and cool and kind of fun but it?s not going to have Bourne. Should there be multiple people? I was playing with a lot of wacky ideas. And then, one day, it just drops on your desk. You just go, wow, here?s the guy that?s gonna be in this program, here?s why he would be in jeopardy. And where did he come from and?I believe there are like three days every year that pay for the whole year and that was one of those days.

DEADLINE: So basically you bang your head against the wall and then one day it breaks through.

GILROY: Yeah. The drag is, you gotta have your ass in the fucking room, and stay there until it happens. It was like, holy shit, here?s the guy, I got the guy! I remember calling my brother Danny up and going, is this as good as I think it is? And that?s really when the whole thing really fell into place. Then I took a meeting with them, where they were expecting me to present them with a progress report.

DEADLINE: Sounds like you had way more than that.

GILROY: I flew out to Universal and walk in with this 30-page document and said, here?s the whole movie, here?s the mythology behind it, here?s the guy, here?s how it ties in and here?s why you should do everything you can to preserve what happened in the past and keep the lines of communication open with Jason Bourne. And I also said if we were going to make a writing deal, it seemed like we might as well make a directing deal. The character got me really interested in a way that I hadn?t anticipated.

Check out Gilroy?s observations about the current state of screenwriting:

DEADLINE: Speaking of lean, it feels like it keeps getting tougher for screenwriters to make a living, with the Writers Guild just issuing a survey where writers overwhelmingly feel conditions have deteriorated to a point they?ve never seen before. It is now a business of sweepstakes pitching and step deals. What is going on?

GILROY: That?s a long, long fucking conversation. it?s really hard to put in a nutshell all the things that are going on. But I can remember that at one point in time, it wasn?t this groovy job that everybody wanted. There weren?t screenwriting sections in bookstores. There weren?t seminars and screenwriting programs at colleges. There was none of that. The people that went into it really had to fight their way in, in a really different way. I think it?s true for actors and it?s true for writers and probably true for directors. You had the draft, and WWII and the Korean War and a lot of people that came out of that had their lives turned upside down in a really amazing way. The guys that survived and came out and they all of a sudden were dragged out of their neighborhoods. A lot of people had their horizons expanded in ways they hadn?t anticipated. You got a lot of interesting actors out of that you never would have seen, and interesting writers too. A lot of journalists became writers. It?s a much better career path when you have people who really know about something. Learning how to write a screenplay is a lot easier than having something to talk about. Somebody who worked as a crime reporter for two years in Raleigh-Durham is gonna have a lot more interesting things to talk about that some 22-year-old kid who grew up in Brentwood, who wants to be a writer because he likes the way the life looks. That?s just one part of it, and the other side is a much bigger issue about the war on talent and the scale of movies. And Mike, that?s a four day conversation.

DEADLINE: Well, let me see if I can press you on one aspect. It seems to me that when a writer has to please a studio executive who?ll okay him to be paid for an extra step, that compromises any level of authorship that a writer is being paid to provide. This can?t be good for the quality of movies.

GILROY: I don?t want to get myself in trouble here, but there have been a couple of movies in the last 20, 30 years that were written by committee, that were absolute disasters all along the way, and they turned out really good in every way. And I think those movies became signposts for people to think that system works. In general, the movies that I like have a singular voice. You get some really strong point of view all the way through. The more concentrated, consolidated and ballsy that it is, those are our best films. And there are anomalies along the way, but in general, that?s what works and the system does not nurture that. The system now doesn?t respond to it, it doesn?t reward it, and is afraid of it.

DEADLINE: A young writer might get very depressed reading that, and absorbing the WGA survey. Besides stepping up to direct their own scripts as you now do, is there anything a writer can do to take back that authorship?

GILROY: Yeah. Don?t cash the check. Don?t raise your nut to the point where you have to take work you don?t want to take. Don?t trap yourself. Everyone talks about creative rights, but I never believed the Writers Guild should fight for creative rights. I was always against the whole creative rights thing and that we should strictly be about the economics. It?s no secret what a militant I am about that. But creative rights are something that you wake up with every morning. And when you endorse a check, you?re making a contract with yourself as much as anyone else. The idea is still king. Spend 90% of your time working on the idea. Have something so compelling and so in the pocket and so needed, that you can maintain control. If enough people want it, and if you?ve got the balls to hang on to it, and you haven?t mortgaged your life past the point of sanity, then you can make tough decisions. It?s really hard to do. You?ve got a family to support. It?s easier for me to say because I?m in a sweet spot right now. But this has been a navigating principle for me for years.

Spend 90% of your time working on the idea. Okay, that is hyperbole. However it?s nice to see top professionals saying what I keep yammering about: Make sure you write a script with the strongest, most commercially viable story concept possible. And the only way to come up with a strong story concept is to generate a lot of ideas.

For more of the interview, go here.

Source: http://gointothestory.blcklst.com/2012/08/written-interview-tony-gilroy-3.html

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