Scott Frank is one of Hollywood’s most prolific screenwriters but he still has perpetual anxiety about his job security. Scott and Marc talk about the impulse that keeps him grinding away, whether he’s working on original screenplays, rewrites, or his limited series like Godless, The Queen’s Gambit and his new Netflix show Department Q. They also talk about Scott’s mentors, his influences, and the construction of his most well known screenplays, like Get Shorty, Out of Sight, Minority Report, and Logan. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Chapter 1: Who is Scott Frank and what are his accomplishments?
He's the writer and director of the Netflix series Godless and The Queen's Gambit, as well as the new crime thriller Department Q, which I watched all of. You know, I've never been a binge-watching series guy, but I've had a few guests lately where I get it. I get how it's satisfying. And Department Q was very satisfying. And I also watched Friends and Neighbors.
92, 93?
Somewhere in there. And... We don't stay in touch as much as we should because sometimes, you know, friendships, it's not even that they get strained. All of a sudden you just, time flies. Not even like that. Time, you just kind of realize one day like, oh fuck, I haven't talked to that guy in a month or two or three or six.
I can't even really remember the last time we hung out, but it had been a while. Und es ist einfach ein interessanter Moment, wenn du noch nie einen Freund gesehen hast und deine Vertreter, und du siehst ihn und denkst dir, wow, wir sind alte Leute. Und schau, ich sage nicht, dass ich alt bin, ich weine nicht darüber, aber ich bin 61.
Weißt du, als ich 15 war und mir jemand sagte, dass ich 61 war, war ich so, holy shit. That guy's almost gone. But now I'm 61 and Jack's a couple years older than me. My buddy Steve, who I've known since college, he just turned 63. There's a zone of aging that seems to happen in, you know, around 60 to 65, where you make this one of the major turns physically. And that's just my speculating.
But it just was this moment where I'm like, oh, oh, man. Because Jack doesn't have kids either. And so we can't really judge ourselves against their growth or anything else. So there's some part of us that are still 1994. There's some part of me, I think, that's still like 1980. But I think there's some part of me that's 1972. They all exist within me.
And a lot of them haven't really aged, but there is this current of, I don't know if it's youthful thinking, it's just not really knowing, if you're just spending most of the time alone or with one other person that you see a lot, you just don't know until you see a pal you haven't seen in a year or so, that like, oh my, it's happening, dude, look at us.
Because so many of the cities I've lived in have changed dramatically over time. So many of the people that I knew are either gone or have disappeared to where I don't even know where they are. He was talking about San Francisco and we were there in the 90s and how amazing it was before it all crashed. COVID really knocked the shit out of that place.
And all this stuff that him and I were brought up on, you know, I grew up in I mean, in terms of formative years. So I graduated high school in 81. And I was 10 and 63 and 73, 15 and 78. And all the stuff that we were picking up was the stuff left over from the 70s. And everything that San Francisco represented, all the free love and sort of celebration of weirdness and the embracing of...
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Chapter 2: What are the challenges of writing in Hollywood?
I catastrophize over everything. And then it stays in my brain. And then I also... Spend the day with it. Why not? I would sit down to read a book. And I would still feel anxious, like maybe I shouldn't be doing this. Maybe I should be working. Maybe I should be... And then in our world, our business, nothing is secure. And especially with kids and everything. And this is
It didn't get better, it started to get worse as I got older. Just pile it on. Yeah, that's what's happening. It's worse.
Yeah, everything gets worse as you get older. I know, but the odd thing is that now you're financially more comfortable. Right. It's not necessarily that you have a guarantee of a job, but it seems like you do alright. At some point you've got to look at your resume and go like, I've never stopped working. Right.
But still, it's like telling a manic depressant to just cheer up. Is it though? I think it is. I do. I think it is. I think that for me, I couldn't, I tried meditating, I tried a lot of different things. And I hear meditation is great. I was probably the wrong time to try it when I tried it.
I mean, I've tried it. Yeah, I think if you get a practice going, like in, you know, like my late partner, you know, she would do it twice a day. She was TM. Twice a day. Aber ja, sie war ein striktes Team. Ich meine, das ist, was du tust. 20 Minuten zweimal am Tag. Und 20 Minuten zweimal am Tag, das ist nichts. Ja. Und es ist, es sind einige Dinge, die so groß in meinem Kopf werden.
Ja.
So I am the same way. And I feel like 20 minutes in the morning, are you fucking kidding me? I need to get going. That's my good writing time. That's my, you know, and especially when I started directing too, you know, everything was too big in my head. I realized, and my son said to me, my son, who's sober, a lot of people in my family are, and he would say to me, you're not...
Dad, you don't enjoy anything. You have all these things, you have this great life, and you don't even seem to really enjoy it. It's like you're in, you know, fight or flight all the time.
Yeah, I don't know if I'm in fight or flight, but I don't, my whole new special that I just recorded has to do with this, about the inability, some of the jokes, inability to identify happiness. Right. And, you know, anxiety and SSRIs. But like you're saying, this idea of identifying happiness, number one, and then sort of like experiencing joy, number two, I'm like, that sounds like bullshit.
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Chapter 3: How does anxiety affect Scott Frank's creative process?
But there's, you know, when you're 11 years old and you read in a screenplay, which I'd never read before, I'd never read a screenplay before, and it says, Butch delivers the most aesthetically exquisite kick in the balls in the history of modern American cinema. And that was Goldman? Goldman. I went, I'm 11, I'm a young kid, this is what I want to do.
That and Dog Day Afternoon was the other one that did it.
Dude, I can't stop watching it. I had them screen it at Cinematek, because they asked me, like, you know, you want to host a screening, and I'm like, yeah, let's do that.
He's one of my favorite directors as well, the other Sidney, and there's no score in that movie. There's just the Elton John song at the beginning, and then no music for it. And also it's just one ride. Yeah, it's one ride. It all happens in real time. Yeah, and then makes this fucking left turn in the middle of it. Yeah. And the audience goes with it. They go completely with it.
With the lover? Yeah, he's got a wife. Yeah. Who's a guy. Yeah, yeah. But it's just so, the intensity of it. And just like that moment where Casale, is that how you say his name? John Casale, yeah. Casale. He's like, did you mean it? I'll do it. I'll kill him. And he realized, oh no, he's got to manage that guy. What country do you want to go to? Wyoming.
And the fact that it's a botched robbery from the second the movie starts. Right, the kid who was supposed to drive, he says, I can't go, I have to go, throws him the car keys.
And the gun. Oh mein Gott. Und dann versucht er die Box zu öffnen mit der Flasche, mit der Waffe in sie und in der Bank und es ist ein Mess, als er versucht.
Du lachst so hart und ich erinnere mich, dass ich da in der Audienz sitze und du lachst am Anfang und wenn er zu dem Punkt kommt, wo er schreit Attica, du weißt, Attica, jeder in der Audienz applaudiert und schreit mit ihm und dann wird es dead silent an einem bestimmten Punkt in der Audienz. Es wird super ruhig. Es war unglaublich, wenn man sich umschaut.
Ich erinnere mich an drei Filme, die ich als Kind gesehen habe. Als ich ein Kind war. Ich glaube, ich war 14 Jahre alt. Es gab das, es gab Harold und Maude, die das gemacht haben, weil Hal Ashby einer meiner liebsten Direktoren war. Oh mein Gott, um zu sehen. Shampoo.
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Chapter 4: What influences Scott Frank's screenwriting?
Almost four years old. But you're the kid, you're interested in the arts early. Yeah, very much. So you're getting a pounding by them from day one.
No, only when I wanted to take it seriously. Only when it was, I'm going to school and I'm getting a lot of, you know, doctors can write too. Michael Crichton is also a writer. You know what, being an airline pilot, that's good. I know a lot of pilots who are writing at the same time.
You have to get something with security.
What are you going to fall back? I had a great teacher at Santa Barbara, which was not a famous film program or anything, but he was great. He used to be a vice president under Harry Cohn at Columbia Pictures. He was teaching screenwriting. He was a great teacher. He said to me, you're 19 years old. If you have a fallback, you're going to fall back. You don't have a family. You don't have this.
Just go for it. Let's see if you know how to write. If you can write, then you should chase it.
And then you get to the point where there is no more fallback. There is no more fallback. And you know what the fallback always is? So when things get dire, let me guess, I could teach. I could teach.
I could teach. And they are. Yeah, I could teach. I mean, and so that is, that's the thing. And so you just realize that you have to at least try. Let the universe tell you that it's not going to happen. You know, not, you know, as a parent, you want to, I feel like,
But if you're delusional, which you have to be to pursue a creative life, you're going to push back on the universe. Well, I would say reasonably delusional. Okay. So how does that unfold? Do you study screenwriting? I studied film studies, which is... Yeah, I did that.
I minored in that. It's good. And so at Santa Barbara, because it didn't have a lot of money or production facilities, that's super interdisciplinary. So you're taking art history...
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Chapter 5: How does the film industry handle writer credits?
And what had happened, the way he got me on Wolverine was he sent me a comic book. And I'd never really read any of these comic books. And it was a different one. It was called Old Man Logan. And it was Logan as Clint Eastwood. And I loved it. And so he sent me another comic book. And it was him with this little girl who has claws coming out of her hands for this one. And I thought, oh, fuck.
It could be a super violent, like, paper moon. What if we did that? And so it kind of, I despite myself. And so I said, okay, what if I write the opening scene? And Jim is, he's the best writing partner imaginable. He's so good. And he's so, and even if he's not writing, he's just giving you, you know, guidance as a director. He's so smart. A big brain. And he kind of is...
Er ist immer sehr klar mit seinen Intentionen. Es ist für mich eine Art 1-in-1-ist-3-Situation. Ich genieße es wirklich, mit ihm zu arbeiten. Ich hoffe, wir schreiben noch ein paar Dinge. Er ist einer der wenigen Direktoren, für die ich noch gerne schreiben würde. Aber das letzte, was ich sagen wollte, war, dass ich die Eröffnungsszene schreibe.
Und wenn du es nicht magst, weil es die Schlüssel der Lieder sein wird, dann machen wir das zusammen. Und er sagte, warum? Was denkst du? Und ich sagte, ich wollte immer einen James-Bond-Film machen, der nicht mit einem riesigen Stunt beginnt, aber er bekommt den Scheiß aus ihm. Und das ist, was ich hier machen möchte. Und er sagte, zeig mir, wie das aussieht. Und ich begann, es zu machen.
Und ich war so traurig, dass ich gesagt habe, ja.
Als ich schreibe, und ich weiß nicht, ob ihr das jemals erlebt habt, aber es kommt in der Schreibung heraus, bin ich so wütend, dass ich literally stoppe und schreibe diese zwei oder drei Paragraphen obnoxious as fuck Manifesto über dieses Film wird nicht so sein, es wird nicht so sein, es wird so sein, wenn jemand aus einem Fenster fällt, werden sie fucking sterben.
Es war wie diese schreckliche, dumme Sache, die noch heute in der Schreibung steht. Und dann habe ich die Eröffnungsszene geschrieben, die im Film ist. Und sie waren so, ja, lass uns das machen. Lass uns gehen. Und dann haben wir es einfach wieder und wieder gemacht. Wir haben es einfach, er war in Kalifornien, wir haben einfach das Skript wieder und wieder gepasst.
Und ich habe immer Dinge gesagt, wie, ich habe gerade eine Szene geschrieben, in der diese ganze Familie massakriert wird. Es gibt keinen Weg, dass jemand das machen will. Und er war so, ich liebe es. Ja. Was war das für ein Element?
Du weißt, der Mentor, der violente Mentor und dann der junge Junge und die Art, den Ton von Shane für das und auch die Art Western-Feel, weil Jim Westerns liebt und so bin ich. Und ich dachte, das war eine wirklich gute Idee. Es war so klug. Und dann hatte ich diese seltsame Idee, die mir eines Tages herausgekommen ist, als ich es nur geschrieben habe, was ist...
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Chapter 6: What was the inspiration behind 'Little Man Tate'?
Chapter 7: What are Scott Frank's views on mentorship in screenwriting?
So it's not really a personal thing for him. It's just like, I need this done. Can this person get it done or can that person get it done? Right.
And then the interpreter working with Sidney, that was a book?
No, it was an original script. By you? No, I came in later. Charles Randolph wrote an original script. Und das Problem mit dem Skript, aus Sidneys Sicht, war, dass es eine sehr überraschende Endung hatte. Eine Art 6-Sense-Endung. Das war, als sie all die Vogue an der Zeit waren. Es funktionierte nicht mehr, um so einen Film zu machen. Es war nicht eine menschliche Geschichte.
Es war, aber es hielt auch auf diesem Zwist an. Alles wurde auf den Zwist gelegt. And so what Sidney wanted to do, which was, I think, a great idea, what Sidney really wanted to do was make a movie about someone who believes with her whole heart in diplomacy, but ends up with a gun in her hand at the end. How do you do that? How does that happen?
And he thought, and I agree, I think that was a great idea. And he wanted to shoot in the UN, no one had ever shot in the UN, and he was fascinated with... You know, the way diplomacy works and how it's getting a bad name and how the UN was getting a bad name. So in the original script, her family weren't victims? They were. They were. All of that was there in the original script.
But it was a very different kind of story. And I think that what he wanted to do also was focus on the relationship between the two of them. And so I think that was a big thing for him, that he really wanted to... What is the dialogue they're going to have, the running dialogue they're going to have as this...
um movie goes on and is she really mysterious do you really could she be involved we want to know might she be involved what what happened we keep learning things about her that make her more and more suspicious she's acting like she's afraid of something and in the script All the threats against her were fake. She was making it up.
And so you had to believe that she was pretending to be scared by herself sometimes. And so the big change that we made in the film was to make it, she's really under threat and yet he's not sure, he's trying to find out the mystery of who might be after her and why. Also mussten wir einen neuen Subplot mit anderen Leitern aus dem Land erstellen.
Und wir mussten den Mann, den sie wollen, zu retten. Wir mussten ihn als echte Person erstellen. Ich habe viel über Mugabe gelesen. Sie nannten ihn der Lehrer und all diese Dinge, die ich liebte. Er hat sein Land verdoppelt. Und so sind wir immer tiefer und tiefer gegangen. And Sydney guided you there. He guided me there. But we also, it was hard and I felt like I couldn't deliver for him.
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