FADE IN:

WELCOME LETTER - MARCH Put all of this alongside the ongoing lessons on Dialogue and Character What do Drew Carey, Russell Brand, from Robert McKee, and you will find and Mark Whitney all have in com- yourself full of story knowledge for an- mon? They make people laugh. This other month. angry art – famous for its difficulty in execution – is the focus of this month’s Write the Truth, issue. Zander Robertson & Matthew Lutz

Drew Carey – is there a more down-to- earth master comedian on earth? We think not, and McKee’s interview with Carey will make you fall in love with Zander Robertson him if indeed you haven’t done so yet. Editor-in-Chief

Russell Brand’s strange and wonder- ful comedic mind paired with McK- ee’s sharp insights will also continues to amaze this month, and while Mark Whitney may not be as much of a Matthew Lütz household name as the other two, he Creative & Editorial is a true student and master of the sto- Director rytelling craft – as one must be to stand on stage for an hour, telling a riveting and hilarious story to a live audience.

Robert McKee knows the craft as no one else alive, and you’ll find his inter- views with these three masters to be illuminating, inspiring, and deep.

We don’t stop with the comedians, though. In addition, we have another installment with Steven Pressfield – an interview that features so many insights into Pressfield’s world-class process we lost count long ago. Also, Shawn Coyne tells us the story of a novel writer who continues to shoot herself in the foot by trying to fit her novel into a formula rather than disciplining herself to mas- ter the form.

Story Magazine // Issue 005 CREDITS:

ZANDER ROBERTSON

Editor-in-Chief

MATTHEW LÜTZ

Creative & Editorial Director

MIA KIM

Executive Editor

REBECCA KING

Graphic Designer

ZANDERLÜTZ

Marketing Agency

TWO ARTS, INC.

Publishing Partner

Story Magazine // Issue 005 MCKEE

Story Magazine // Issue 005 ROBERT MCKEE, A FULBRIGHT SCHOLAR, IS THE MOST SOUGHT AFTER SCREENWRITING LECTURER ON THE PLANET.

He has dedicated the last 30 years to educating and mentoring screenwriters, novelists, playwrights, poets, documentary makers, producers, and directors internationally. Peter Jackson (writer/director The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, The Hobbit) has lauded him as “The Guru of Gurus.” For the writers of Pixar (creators of Toy Story 1, 2, & 3, Finding Nemo), McKee’s STORY Seminar is a rite of passage. Emmy Award-Winner Brian Cox also portrayed McKee in the Oscar-nominated film Adaptation.

McKee’s former students include Morning News, BBC, Channel 4 in São Paulo, Santiago, Buenos Ai- over 60 Academy Award Winners, UK, RAI (Italy), CBN Weekly News res, Bogota, Beijing, Brussels, Rio 250 Academy Award Nominees, & Morning Glory (China), MBC de Janeiro, Moscow, Seoul, Istan- 170 Emmy Award Winners, 500+ TV, KBS & Arirang TV, Korea Times bul, Hyderabad, Mexico City and Emmy Award Nominees, 30 WGA (South Korea), Kiev Weekly, Kul- many cities regularly. Some nota- (Writers Guild of America) Award tura Moscow, all major TV, Radio ble writers, directors, and actors Winners, 180+ WGA Award Nomi- and/or newspapers of Argentina, such as Peter Jackson, Jane Cam- nees, and 26 DGA (Directors Guild Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Cana- pion, Andrew Stanton, Geoffrey of America) Award Winners, 52+ da, Chile, Colombia, Germany, Rush, Paul Haggis, Akiva Golds- DGA Award Nominees.A winner France, India, Israel, Mexico, New man, William Goldman, Joan Riv- and nominee of BAFTA for his Zealand, Portugal, Russia, Turkey, ers, Meg Ryan, Rob Row, David popular Channel Four series REEL Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, Bowie, Kirk Douglas, John Cleese, SECRETS, McKee also wrote and and Switzerland and given semi- Steve Pressfield, Russell Brand, hosted 12 episodes of BBC’s FIL- nars in all of the above countries. and the writers of Pixar to name a MWORKS series.He was profiled few, have taken his seminar. McK- by Bob Simon of 60 Minutes for Since 1984, more than 100,000 ee continues to be a project con- CBS news. students have taken McKee’s sultant to major film and televi- courses at various cities around sion production companies such McKee’s articles on Story have also the world: Los Angeles, New as 20th Century Fox, Disney, Para- appeared in hundreds of newspa- York, London, Paris, Sydney, To- mount, & MTV. In addition, Pixar, pers and magazines around the ronto, Boston, San Francisco, ABC, BBC, Disney, Miramax, PBS, world including Harvard Busi- Helsinki, Oslo, Munich, Tel Aviv, Nickelodeon, Paramount, GLO- ness Review, The Wall Street Jour- Auckland, Singapore, Madrid, BOSAT, MNET and other inter- nal, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker Beijing, Shanghai, Barcelona, Lis- national TV and Film companies Magazine, Swiss Business Maga- bon, Malaga, Hamburg, Berlin, regularly send their entire creative zine, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, CBS Johannesburg, Rome, Stockholm, and writing staffs to his lectures.

Story Magazine // Issue 005 CONTENTS:

STAGE 32 HAPPY WRITER SPOTLIGHT CHARACTER CREATION: PART 4, BUILD A Learn how membership with Stage 32 has COMPLEX CHARACTER AROUND A NEED helped one screenwriter make a career In his ongoing series on character creation, for himself. Robert McKee explains how a character’s need will affect the character’s choices. ROBERT MCKEE ON DIALOGUE, TRIALOGUE EXAMPLE: THE GREAT GATSBY FILM REVIEW: STEPHEN CHOW’S In this installment of his series on Dialogue, JOURNEY TO THE WEST: PART 2 Robert McKee shows us how F. Scott Fitzgerald Robert McKee explains the ways Stephen expertly uses the third thing to dramatize a Chow hits and misses the mark. spousal conflict. ROBERT MCKEE INTERVIEWS STEVEN ROBERT MCKEE INTERVIEWS RUSSELL PRESSFIELD : PART 3 BRAND ON COMEDY: PART 2 In this final part of Robert McKee’s interview McKee and Brand discuss the origins of come- with Steven Pressfield, we learn about the dy in part 2 of this interview series. genesis of Pressfield’s beliefs on war – its in- evitability and virtues. YOUR OWN WORST ENEMY : FORM OVER FORMULA ROBERT MCKEE INTERVIEWS COMEDIC Shawn Coyne tells a story that illustrates the LEGEND DREW CAREY: PART 1 best example yet of why form beats formula Robert McKee and Drew Carey discuss what every single time. makes a good joke, the structure of a joke, and some of Mr. Carey’s comedic challenges. ROBERT MCKEE INTERVIEWS ONE-MAN SHOW LEGEND MARK WHITNEY : PART 1 HOW HOLLYWOOD WORKS, PRODUCERS: Mark Whitney occupies a unique place in the THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY world. As a successful entrepreneur with a one- In this month’s exploration of the inner work- of-a-kind background (including a jail stint) he ings of Hollywood, Ed Saxon explains how decided to undertake to become a life perform- producers think. er. Mark is a keen student of the human expe- rience and writes the truth into his live shows. ASK ROBERT MCKEE In this edition of Ask McKee, we learn why unknown writers should try to sell a whole screenplay, not just a treatment.

Story Magazine // Issue 005 CONTRIBUTORS:

SHAWN COYNE Shawn Coyne is an editor, publisher, literary agent and writer responsible for helping his clients and writing projects generate more than $150 million in gross revenue (in North America alone).

CRAIG WALENDZIAK Craig Walendziak is a Harvard Educated screenwrit- er hailing from Boston, Massachusetts, beginning his writing career as a financial columnist for Seeking Alpha, Yahoo Finance and Morningstar News.

RUSSELL BRAND Russell Brand is an award winning English come- dian, actor, having played leading rolls in Forget- ting Sarah Marshall” and “Get Him To The Greek,” radio host, author, and political activist.

DREW CAREY Drew Carey is one of the most successful television comedians and game show hosts of the past 20 years, starting in The Drew Carey Show which be- came one of the most popular sitcoms on television.

STEVEN PRESSFIELD Steven Pressfield is a Best-Selling author and cele- brated screenwriter of The War of Art, The Lion’s Gate, and The Legend of Bagger Vance.

MARK WHITNEY Mark Whitney is a former jailhouse lawyer turned tech entrepreneur, playwright and award-winning political satirist who spins non-stop, subversive tales of political and institutional corruption and graft.

Story Magazine // Issue 005 Many of the articles in STORY Magazine are based on lessons, interviews, and lectures given. As such, they may not represent the author’s normal writing ‘voice’, but they are al- ways true to their word. This content isn’t available for free anywhere – Enjoy your access to this private collection.

Story Magazine // Issue 005 STAGE 32 HAPPY WRITER SPOTLIGHT BY CRAIG WALENDZIAK

Learn how membership with Stage 32 has helped one screenwriter make a career for himself.

Story Magazine // Issue 005 STAGE 32 HAPPY WRITER SPOTLIGHT

As a screenwriter, trying to break cess. He helped me hone my her credit, she helped guide me into Hollywood from outside of craft, and even pointed me in the and brought me onboard as her Los Angeles can be a daunting right direction for producers and client. I couldn't be happier. The task. Unless you know someone managers that were looking for “Search for New Blood Contest” who knows someone, you are left my genre. He was a tireless ad- that Stage 32 and Kailey host to- staring at your finished screenplay vocate. During this process I also gether is a great avenue for new wondering, "What next?" Trying had support from creatives all writers to get their work reviewed to get a manager, agent, studio, over the world inside the Stage by industry professionals! or production company to read 32 Lounge. your material can be nearly im- Kailey and UnLTD Productions possible. On Joey’s recommendation, I were kind enough to sing my submitted a written pitch for The praises around town, leading to While listening to a podcast, I Devil's Hammer to Producer Da- two other writing assignments found out about Stage 32, and vid Harris. A short time later I re- that should begin production in realized there might be hope yet. ceived an email from Joey that 2015. For this, I can't thank them Founder & CEO, Richard Botto, simply stated, "Call me!" I did. enough. talked about the community and David Harris had read the script the various offerings for all cre- and "loved it". Joey set up a meet- None of this would have hap- atives. It seemed like the perfect ing between David and I, and we pened without the help of Stage place for people like me to gath- immediately hit it off. He agreed 32 and their incredible network. er online and make the ever-elu- to shop my script. I’m eternally grateful.. sive “Hollywood” seem just a lit- tle bit closer. As if this wasn’t enough, Da- vid and his partners at UnLTD When I signed up to Stage 32 I was Productions, offered me writ- WANT TO LEARN immediately drawn to the Stage ing assignments on a few proj- 32 Happy Writers, which offered ects they had in development, MORE ABOUT unparalleled opportunities for one of which led to a co-writing STAGE 32? writing, including exclusive pitch credit on a psychological thrill- sessions with Hollywood exec- er named A Dying Art, directed Go to Stage32.com utives. I could pitch my screen- by David Moscow. The film goes and join for FREE. plays to managers, agents, direc- into production this month and Established in 2011, tors of development and other it was announced in the Holly- Stage 32 is the world’s big decision makers. It allowed a wood Reporter – it was incredibly largest social network no-name writer 2000 miles away exciting to see my first credit an- and educational hub get in front of some of the big- nounced to the trades. for film and television gest movers and shakers in Hol- creatives with over lywood. I took full advantage. And, I would be remiss not to 400,000 members mention that I met my manag- Joey Tuccio, President of the er, Kailey Marsh, through net- worldwide. Stage 32 Happy Writers, guid- working on Stage 32. I kept her ed me through the pitching pro- in the loop on my career, and to

Story Magazine // Issue 005 Craig Walendziak is a Harvard Educated screenwriter hailing from Boston, Massachusetts. He spent the majority of his youth touring in hardcore punk bands across the world. Craig began his writing career as a financial columnist for popular investment websites such as Seeking Alpha, Yahoo Finance and Morning- star News.

Later, Craig's love of the horror movies ushered him into the world of filmmaking. Craig's first screenplay, The Devil's Hammer was featured in issue #275 of Famous Monster of Filmland. His Second screenplay, Hard Time, was a finalist in the prestigious

HAPPY HAPPY Page International Screenwriting Awards.

Craig has two projects set for release in 2015, IFC Films Con- tracted: Phase II and UnLTD Productions, A Dying Art, directed by David Moscow. In addition, Craig has three projects in vari- ous stages of development.

Craig Walendziak is a proud father, devoted husband, and de- vout animal lover and is represented by Kailey Marsh, of Kailey

WRITER Marsh Management & Production.

Story Magazine // Issue 005 ROBERT MCKEE ON DIALOGUE Trialogue Example: The Great Gatsby BY ROBERT MCKEE

In this installment of his series on Dialogue, Robert McKee shows us how F. Scott Fitzgerald expertly uses the third thing to dramatize a spousal conflict.

The next example is a far more com- bootlegger. West Egg is home to the Jay Gatsby. It was a rich girl/poor plex trialogue from a famous novel well-to-do, but it is far less fashion- boy affair that broke up when Gats- by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gats- able than its very exclusive counter- by left to fight in World War I. Soon by. Let me set the scene. In chapter part across the bay, East Egg. after their breakup, the socially am- 1, we meet the story’s narrator, Nick bitious Daisy married the wealthy Caraway. Nick has come to New Nick’s cousin, the beautiful Daisy, Tom Buchanan. York to begin his Wall Street ca- lives in an East Egg mansion with reer. He has rented a house in West her wealthy husband, Tom Bu- In recent years, Gatsby has become Egg, Long Island. His neighbor is Jay chanan, a powerfully built former rich and scandalously famous. Dai- Gatsby, a fabulously wealthy young Ivy League athlete. In her late teens, sy has no doubt read and heard man who has made his fortune as a Daisy fell passionately in love with about his exploits. She may or may

Story Magazine // Issue 005 ROBERT MCKEE ON DIALOGUE

not know that he has purchased an on the table in the diminished wind. jumps ahead to describe the din- estate across the bay. In fact, Gatsby ner that ensued. The first beat trig- bought the home so that he could “Why candles?” Objected Daisy, gers the scene’s inciting incident. look across the narrow waters to frowning. She snapped them out Daisy discovers that Jay Gatsby has the lit windows of Daisy’s home. with her fingers. “In two weeks, it will moved nearby and that Jordan and One evening, the Buchanans invite be the longest day of the year.” She Nick know him. When Daisy asks, Nick over for dinner, and there Nick looked at us all radiantly. “Do you “What Gatsby?” she knows full well meets Miss Jordan Baker, a female always watch for the longest day of it’s Jay Gatsby, but she cleverly uses tennis star who, like the Buchanans, the year, and then miss that? I always the question to conceal her genu- is also upper-class. watch for the longest day of the year ine surprise to learn that her former and miss it.” lover is now her neighbor, and her F. Scott Fitzgerald tells his novel friend and cousin know him. in the first-person in the voice of “We ought to plan something.” Nick. The action begins as the four- Yawned Miss Baker, sitting down at The realization that Gatsby has some—Daisy, her husband Tom, the table as if she were getting into moved close to her, undoubted- her cousin Nick and her friend Jor- bed. ly drawn to West Egg because of dan Baker—sip drinks before din- her, upsets the balance of Daisy’s ner. I’m going to read the scene to “Alright,” said Daisy, “What do we life and arouses in her the desire you exactly as Fitzgerald wrote it. plan?” She turned to me helplessly. to see Gatsby. Daisy’s fluidly fickle It begins when Jordan Baker turns “What do people plan?” nature makes her incapable of de- to Nick and says, “You live in West cisive plans, but this much is clear: Egg,” she remarked contemptuously. Before I could answer, her eyes fas- Her super objective throughout the “I know someone there.” tened with odd expression on her lit- whole novel is to, at the very least, tle finger. see Gatsby. How much more she “I don’t know a single…” might want, who can say? “Look,” she complained, “I hurt it.” “You must know Gatsby.” This puts two critical values at con- We all looked, and the knuckle was flict in Daisy: marriage versus pas- “Gatsby?” Demanded Daisy, “What black and blue. sion—the security of her marriage Gatsby?” versus her passion for Gatsby. She “You did it, Tom,” she said accusingly. must risk the former to gain the lat- Before I could reply that he was my “I know you didn’t mean to do it, but ter. So, in a split second, she must neighbor, dinner was announced. you did do it. That’s what I get for decide whether to keep the marital Wedging his tense arm imperatively marrying a brute of a man, a great peace or to go to war. She decides under mine, Tommy Buchanan com- big hulking physical specimen of a…” to go to war with her husband. pelled me from the room as though he were moving a checker to anoth- “I hate that word, ‘hulking.’” Objected Daisy’s problem is that she cannot er square. Slenderly, languidly, their Tom crossly, “Even in kidding.” just pick up a telephone and call hands set lightly on their hips, the two Gatsby; her pride and vanity won’t young women preceded us out onto “Hulking,” insisted Daisy. allow that. What’s more, if her hus- a rosy-colored porch open toward the band and the rigid, snobbish society sunset, where four candles flickered That ends the scene, and Fitzgerald she moves in were to discover that

Story Magazine // Issue 005 ROBERT MCKEE ON DIALOGUE

she pursued the notorious Gatsby, swer it, however, she instantly and Notice the trialogues. Husband and the scandal would ruin her. So in- literally wraps the conversation wife do not talk or argue directly, stantly, instinctively, she decides to around her little finger. but they carry on through a series put on a show in front of Nick and of third things: Gatsby, candles, the Jordan Baker so that one or both Daisy next accuses her husband of summer solstice, Daisy’s little finger, will carry a message to Gatsby—a bruising her. Again, Fitzgerald gives and, most importantly and climat- message that says the Buchanan Tom no visible reaction, not a word ically, the word “hulking.” Notice marriage is in trouble. of protest. Daisy, then, with cool iro- also the dialogue pattern. ny, insults her husband for the third Daisy decides to humiliate her time with a special emphasis on the Daisy asks a question that opens husband in public. As soon as she word that she knows he hates: “hulk- up what could be a general topic hears about Gatsby, she goes after ing.” Finally, Tom objects and orders for conversation with the others, her husband through third things. Daisy not to say the word again. but then without a pause, before Her husband has had the house- anybody can answer, she instantly hold staff set the dinner table with Now, when I say order, bear in draws them back to herself. Fitzger- candles. He may have done it for mind that these are educated, very ald repeats this pattern in Daisy’s Daisy’s sake, or perhaps he intend- upper-class characters, so I use the dialogue not only in this scene, but ed a romantic touch to encourage word “order” to name Tom’s subtex- throughout the book. In ways that Nick and Jordan Baker. Indeed, in tual action. He is too well-behaved are at times amusing, sympathet- time, Nick and Jordan will have a to say, “Damn it, Daisy, never use the ic or even mysterious, Daisy con- summer affair. But whatever Tom’s word ‘hulking’ again.” But under the stantly steers all talk back to herself. reason, as they step out to the table, phrase, “I hate that word” is an indi- In other words, without saying it on Daisy frowns, objects to the candles, rect command. So Daisy climaxes the nose, Fitzgerald wants us to un- snuffing them out with her fingers. the scene by defying her husband’s derstand that Daisy is a very beau- But Tom simply hides the hurt she implicit order and repeating the tiful, very charming narcissist. has caused and says nothing. hated word with emphasis. “Hulk- ing,” she said. In reaction, Tom once Looking even deeper, what is the So, when the candle insult gets no more takes her insult in silence and real reason Daisy creates this scene? reaction, she tries another tactic. says and does nothing. Why can’t she just defy her hus- Daisy starts a conversation about band, break social convention, and the summer solstice, but, before So Daisy wins her marital power go to Gatsby herself? Why must anybody can respond to her strange struggle and humiliates Tom. This she send a veiled message through question, she reacts to her own ac- duel between husband and wife, Jordan and Nick? Because narcis- tion and ends the topic by referring Tom’s defeat and Daisy’s victory, sists call attention to themselves. it back to herself. would not be lost on her audience, For Daisy, it is critical that Gatsby the very sensitive, observant Nick see her out. Gatsby must come to Jordan Baker starts the next beat by and the gossipy Miss Baker. Daisy her. Fitzgerald uses these beats and suggesting that they should plan to knows this; she knows that her little many others elsewhere to express do something. Daisy simply con- war has had the effect she wants, the dual spines of action that inspire tinues that action by repeating the and now she hopes that these two his novel. The Great Gatsby is about question twice, but, not to her hus- characters will carry the news to Gatsby’s obsession with Daisy and band, to Nick. Before Nick can an- Gatsby. Daisy’s obsession with Daisy.

Story Magazine // Issue 005 ROBERT MCKEE ON DIALOGUE

Robert McKee continues his ongoing series on dialogue in the next issue of STORY Magazine.

Story Magazine // Issue 005 ROBERT MCKEE INTERVIEWS RUSSELL BRAND ON COMEDY Part 2

McKee and Brand discuss the origins of comedy in part 2 of this interview series..

Story Magazine // Issue 005 MCKEE INTERVIEWS RUSSELL BRAND

Robert McKee: I’ve always said RB: Not in all cases. where do we go with our sexual- that it’s great fun on both sides ity? In that moment when you’re of the stage. People in the au- RM: [laughs] Then in Shake- caught up in your sexuality, with dience, of course, are having spearean times, they just wore that thing that’s either an animal a great time when the work is what was called a codpiece, or a child, if someone can touch going well, but so is the comic. which was like a jock strap on you there, there’s an, “AH!” And Doing it is great fun. the outside of your costume. you’re going to laugh, and it is Then with Victorian repres- just so private. Russell Brand: Yeah. Yeah, when sion, it became Charlie Chap- it’s good. lain’s cane, Groucho Marx’s ci- RM: You might be the first tat- gar, Woody Allen’s glasses, and tooed comic. RM: Yeah. There’s another en- on and on. Do you recognize ergy in comedy, as old as com- the sexual energy of comedy, RB: Yeah, that’s just one of my edy, which is sex. The first great and if so, what is your phallus— claims. performers, comic performers your surrogate phallus? on stage, wore a phallus down RM: That’s sexual. to their knees just so that the RB: Well, for me, there is con- audience understood what the stant use and reference to sexu- RB: Yeah, in a way. I think they’re real source of energy was. ality because of its explosive na- sort of like clowns as characters. ture, and because of the implied There’s like a topless sexuality— RB: I didn’t know that. privacy and the odd contradic- it’s a chaotic sexuality. In terms of tion of the sanctity of sexual re- reputation, sexuality has always RM: You didn’t know that? lationships and the profanity of been sort of part of what I do. It was literally down to their sexual relationships. For me, I’m knees, and then over the… constantly referring back to that On stage, for me, the sexuality is energy. I suppose because of its about the juxtaposition and the RB: Was this commedia dell’arte literal biological explosiveness of explosion between the profane or what? Earlier than that? the active ejaculation. and the sacred. That’s where that stuff comes from. In terms of con- RM: No, this was Aristophanes; My symbol of the phallus is the tent, it gives you access to things this was the Greek. phallus. You know, I am forev- that are very intimate and private. er grinding my hips and swirling RB: Euripides and all the frogs around up there and referring to When I talk about my sexuality, and all that stuff. sexual energy, but I actually have it’s always in a humiliating way. never really translated it. Sometimes I’ll make very bold RM: This was old comedy. Flies, show-off statements, but then frogs, all the bugs, and all that But I use sex quite a lot, even in I’m always deflated. The humor stuff. This was 2000, 600, and a show like Messiah Complex. If is surely coming from the flaccid 500 years ago. Then over the it becomes theoretically dense, I phallus, not the erect phallus. centuries, that phallus got will explode it with sexual con- smaller and smaller. Then by tent. In terms of the frequen- One of the jokes I’ve always had, the Shakespearean… cies of consciousness we know, actually, is that it’s nice when

Story Magazine // Issue 005 MCKEE INTERVIEWS RUSSELL BRAND

women send you photographs Belfast. I do a mime about anal told me not to do that, but they (this is when I was a single man, sex and Jesus. When I finished the stood up and cheered. They were before I had the great gift of love). bit in Belfast and they laughed, I like, “Yeah!” I was taken aback. It’s always nice when women said, “Oh, thank you. I felt scared This is why I love live perfor- send you a rude photograph like doing this in Belfast.” Then they mance, because you never know of their boobs or whatever. But laughed again. When I was in Is- what’s going to happen. The au- how do you respond to that as a tanbul, I was talking like it was a dience got on its feet. man? Your only option is to send Muslim audience, but they loved a photograph of your penis, but it. But, you know what, I was do- RM: Cheering for you or for then what choice? If you send ing some stuff… him? it flaccid, it’s too pathetic, like a Smurf’s hat, and it looks kind of RM: Wait, they loved it? RB: For me. They hate their lead- like how Groucho Marx looks ill. er; they hate him. You can’t send that to someone. RB: They loved it. It was interest- If you send them an erection, it’s ing, Bob, because I do stuff, such RM: Yeah, they hate the guy. too, “ROAR!” It’s too much of a as talk about Che Guevara. I say, powerful message. “What’s happened to us that our RB: So it was amazing; it was leaders look the way they do?” For amazing. I had to leave the ven- Look at our culture. In New York example, in our country, David ue very quickly afterward be- City, we’re surrounded by em- Cameron. I mean, Barack Obama cause people said, “If that gets blems of the phallus. It’s ines- is good—at least he’s sexy, I guess, out, you’re going to be in a lot of capable in our culture—the phal- and he’s a black fella so at least trouble.” lus worship—but I suppose the he’s countercultural in terms of phallus itself is contradictory. It pigmentation, if nothing else. RM: Indeed. knows two states. It is proud, it is thrusting, it is bold, and then it is But like I was saying, I show RB: Your intention is what’s im- limp and impotent and hopeless. pictures of the country’s lead- portant in comedy. People always Usually it makes those decisions er. I show Che Guevara and say, say, “Oh, you do jokes about Je- itself. “What have you said about Che sus. Would you make the same Guevara? His ruthlessness and jokes about Mohammed?” I say, RM: [laughs] Let’s, let’s see if his homophobic. That is what a “Well yes, I would, but not just we can find a subject that’s not hero looks like, that is the face of a to antagonize people.” I wouldn’t funny. Nationalities, cultures— leader.” Obviously people laugh, deliberately say, “Oh, here’s a de- is there any line that you would of course, because of the picture piction of Mohammed.” draw around those? of me looking somewhat similar to it nearby. And then I go, “This You want to provoke people as RB: No. I’ve been touring at the isn’t.” And then I show a picture a comedian, but what is it you’re moment. I did a show in Istan- of their leader. In Istanbul, Erdo- provoking? You’re provoking their bul, in Iceland in Reykjavík, and in gan is their leader. prejudice, their bigotry, and their Belfast. I was in all sorts of places, beliefs that they haven’t really and I was doing comedy about When that picture of Erdogan questioned. Humor is a good way common sexuality and Christ in came up, I was nervous. People of accessing those unaddressed

Story Magazine // Issue 005 MCKEE INTERVIEWS RUSSELL BRAND

hypocrisies. If your intention is, comedy lectures is that if you an absurdity in that, and it’s kind “How can I annoy Muslims?” Or, make a joke about somebody of a relief from the piety and ner- “How can I annoy homosexuals?” who’s deformed, it’s not for vousness we all feel around dis- I think that’s stupid. Comedy is a their deformity, it’s for the way ability. We know that as human tool to attack power, not to attack they think behind that defor- beings, we have to be compas- people who don’t have power. mity, because there’s a lot of sionate and loving to people, but really rude people in wheel- that doesn’t preclude our right to When I’m doing these things and chairs. be humorous. when I’m writing these things, I’m thinking, “Well, who is the target? RB: Yes, there are. It’s got to stop. For me, Bob, it’s about creating Who is the victim of this joke? the context where you earn the Who am I attacking here?” If it’s RM: So it’s the rudeness that’s right to say those things. I don’t the Muslim community, who by important, but a lot of people think you just go around saying and large are already subject to can’t make that separation. hateful, disparaging things. You a great deal of abuse, prejudice, have to create a context. I always bigotry and attack, then I don’t. RB: No. get in trouble when people take That’s not my side of the argu- the stuff I’ve said out of the con- ment. RM: Joan Rivers does jokes text that I’ve created and then about the Holocaust; she does say, “Well, see, that’s dubious that RM: Crippled children? jokes about blind people. It you’ve said that.” In those cir- kills me. She said that here in cumstances, it is, but that wasn’t RB: Well, there’s some humor to New York, no blind person when I said it. That’s the other be had. In fact, I had to stifle a should have a view, right? thing about live work, because laugh when you mentioned the you hear when the audience is little bastards. It depends. There RB: Yeah. shocked, and you say, “Oh, God, are situations where a crippled I’m sorry; I didn’t mean it like this.” child could be humorous. Not RM: No, they should, and you As an artist, you create the con- when you’re dealing directly, but could just tell them, “Yes, you text, and then within that context it’s like the death penalty, right? have a view.” How would they you create whatever you want. People say, “Oh yeah? You don’t know? So the view is, for us, agree with the death penalty. the scene. I hope there’s truth RM: So if they groan, you apol- How would you feel if someone in that—that it’s really not the ogize? you loved was murdered?” I’d deformity. But that joke, blind want to kill them. That is when people shouldn’t have a view. RB: I sometimes tell them to fuck I shouldn’t be making legisla- off for being so pious. tion. So, like I say, the legislation RB: The key for me is… should be made by people who RM: Yeah. Joan Rivers just says, are even-tempered, even-head- RM: It’s not about their point “Oh, grow up.” Right? ed, and humor has a place in of view about their attitude; that, I think. it’s about their handicap. RB: Yeah, yeah.

RM: The excuse I make in my RB: I think it is. But in a way, there’s RM: Oh, grow up, get over it. I

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did a two-day workshop in Ma- somehow that you can see in you use that? drid with Spanish comics for these things comes back to you MTV and Paramount because as a form of embarrassment? RB: Well, yeah, but for me like… they, they wanted stand-up comics to develop a TV series RB: That you feel it. When I am RM: Because most of your in Spain in the Spanish lan- embarrassed, my first impulse is, comedy seems to be social. guage. I was surprised by how “Oh my God, I’ve got to flee this good they were. My first take, feeling. This is the worst thing RB: Yeah, I think you start big, because I’m full of prejudice, that has ever happened.” My sec- but comedy comes from par- was, “Well, Spanish stand-up ond impulse is to write it down. ticularity and specificity. I don’t comics…really?” But when I I know that from the embarrass- think that you can be funny in got there, they were great, and ment, that’s where the comedy a general way. There has to be a their favorite subject was reli- is coming from. These things are specificity. Even the Joan Rivers gion, and they did some won- always going to be universal— joke that you used has a specif- derful material. They sent me a that the culture is an operating ic cultural attribute. A hundred whole DVD called Divine Com- system. years ago, people wouldn’t have edy, and it was all great jokes cared about that the disability, or about religion. If you had to be The way that it’s culture, the lan- it wouldn’t have been a release restricted to one subject like guage may differ, but we are de- because you would have open- that—religion, politics, mili- scribing the same universal ex- ly treated disabled people badly. tary… perience. This is why your system It’s a cultural view that’s particu- works, because all of us are part of larly pertinent if you live in New RB: Oh, I think I’d find that very the same grid. Joseph Campbell’s York and you understand what difficult. For me, if it was one sub- exploratory work in mythology real estate is like in New York. ject, it would be embarrassing. It demonstrates this. Jung’s work in would be something moral like psychology demonstrates this — So, for me, the specificity is what that. that we are operating from the it is. It is where the humor comes same template, but through cul- from. Understanding types is RM: That’s so English. ture it is expressed differently. So very helpful. For example, when if I prove something as embar- I’m doing my work on leaders, RB: In the end, you can’t escape rassment, you have access to the I was able understand, “Oh, I’ll it. Sometimes I think I’m very essential ingredients. fuck everybody.” Regardless of radical, avant-garde and very whether it’s a secular or sort of a broad-minded, and so mystical RM: That’s all about institu- Muslim-tending country, or sort and spiritual and New Age, but tions and social behavior. What of a sect-like a country driven really I’m just an English person. about individuals, personality apart by sectarian violence like For me, that embarrassment is types. Moliere built a whole the North of Ireland, they all feel the fulcrum of what we were dis- career out of savaging certain this sense of disparity and dis- cussing earlier—the inner voice personality types, such as the satisfaction from their leaders. and the outer voice. miser, the hypochondriac, and For me, it is like a recognition of so forth. Do individuals get types—a recognition of corrup- RM: Yeah. That incongruity your ire? Do you notice or do tion. These things are just sym-

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bolic language. So yes, certainly RM: To get back to the actual of them, and I think it’s because I recognize types. interview, jokes are two parts— it’s all about arithmetic to com- setup and punch. edy; it’s about formula and the RM: Yes. So, somebody who is establishment of it. I’m working not stepping forward and tak- RB: Yes. on a script at the moment with ing power, such as an individu- Jemimah, as a matter of fact. The al walking down the street with RM: If I see people who have important thing is the establish- a certain eccentricity, wouldn’t problems trying to write com- ment of this context and mak- necessarily draw your interest. edy, it’s that they focus on the ing sure that people are going to punch first. It’s all about get- know it. RB: No. But I do torment the au- ting the wit; it’s about the lan- dience at the beginning of shows. guage; it’s about the gesture. If If you’re doing a joke about a I do get out, and then there are… it’s a piece of business or what- person that’s overly dependent ever, they’re always in search on New Age nonsense and as- RM: Individuals? of the punch. It’s the punch, trology and believes in that kind the punch, the punch. Then of hocus-pocus stuff, you have RB: Absolutely. And then there are they want to work backwards to make sure that you’ve prop- certain systemic things that occur to the setup. I argue with them erly established that. Otherwise, regularly. I say, “Well, I know this that no, no—if you’ve got a great your jokes later on in the script, type of person.” A certain type of setup, you’ll find 10 different when that person gets into trou- young boy that’s ultimately in- ways to punch it. Pick the best ble as a result of that belief, will nocent, a certain type of male, a one. not pay off. certain type of older women, and actually always people in electric RB: Yeah, you’re right. For me, it’s like the context of wheelchairs. I get in that electric the joke is very, very important wheelchair with them, and I sit RM: That energy gives them the to make sure that you estab- on their lap and I drive it. People setup, and the anger or what- lish that, “Oh no, not only is this love it. People love the relief of ever the subject is. When you happening, but it’s happening to like, “Oh, my God, he’s going to have a really powerful setup, this person.” Tina Fey does that fucking crash the wheelchair.” you can punch it many times lovely joke—a normal person over without setting up again. will laugh at a man dressed up People are so excited when as an old lady falling down some sometimes it doesn’t crash. It’s RB: Yeah, yeah, it’s all in how you stairs. Comedians will laugh at not so good when it does crash. deliver it. an old lady falling down some There have been lawsuits, but stairs. what are you going to do? You RM: So it’s really all about the can’t be double in a wheelchair. setup. There is a refined brutality to You’re already in a wheelchair, so comedy. Do you know what I what are you worried about if we RB: Completely. There is a dispro- think, Bob? The jokes take care of did crash? What have you got to portionately high number of co- themselves. They’re there ethe- lose? I’m the one that can walk—I medians that are good at mathe- really waiting for you to reach should be worried, so shut up. matics. I’m unfortunately not one them. You just have to choose

Story Magazine // Issue 005 MCKEE INTERVIEWS RUSSELL BRAND

the way that you’re going to get just a mystery to me. Throughout the film, we see peo- there. You create the correct ple looking at each other through characters, you create the cor- RB: It’s like hypnosis, I think. You’ve windows, between doorways. rect circumstances. When that planted. You’ve told them that it The makers of the film under- has a strong base, you can re- is funny. Sometimes I use neuro- stand that there’s stuff that they turn to that so many times; you linguistic programming, or like can’t do with language that they can keep coming back to it. physical gestures with comedy. can do with symbols, but these So when I’m setting up stuff that symbols can be created linguisti- RM: Yeah we have a name for I know needs applause, I use this cally through non-visual medium it—we call it callbacks. hand that you will be applaud- or through an erratic medium like ing when I’m doing this gesture. stand-up company or through a RB: Yeah, callback, stitchback, Then whenever I go back to that written screenplay. You just have you know. stuff, they automatically applaud to know this symbol—that’s just because I’ve tied it in with that how the phallus works, because RM: Stitchback, I like that. Is gesture. So you have to sort of we have a presumed knowledge that English? plant these symbols throughout of the phallus. We have an innate your work. understanding of its inconsistent RB: Yeah, we use stitchback, back nature, and the possibility of cas- reference, and then callback be- We watched a film the other day tration all tied up into that sym- cause there’s so much cross-cul- in preparation, like the film East bol that applies as well in Africa tural pollination. is East. Do you know that movie? as it does in Northern Europe or It’s sort of a cross-cultural mov- wherever you use it. RM: All three mean the same ie about Asian families living in thing? the UK. It’s a slice of life type film RM: In order to get to that per- including rites of passage for a formance, let’s talk about your RB: Yeah, pretty much. couple of sons. What’s really in- stand-up work to begin with teresting… before we go to fiction. Let’s RM: That’s a fascinating phe- talk about the process. Do you nomenon—the callback. Don’t RM: Got by me, sorry. sit down and write? you think? You can’t call back to something that didn’t get a RB: Well, I’m using your language, RB: No, I don’t. I collate expe- laugh the first time. so you should know roughly what riences that I know have been I mean from the shorthand. It humorous and impactful. With RB: No, you can’t. uses symbols brilliantly. The fa- Messiah Complex, I knew that I ther wants his sons to go through could talk about whatever I want- RM: Right? So, you set up and with these arranged marriages, ed to talk about. It was like, what you get a joke, and you leave it so he has this chest in which he do you find most fascinating? I in the ground for 20 minutes, keeps their arranged marriage thought it was genuine heroes– a half an hour, and then you paraphernalia. But that chest is Che Guevara, Malcolm X, Jesus punch it again, and for some that man’s heart. The youngest Christ, Gandhi. reason, they laugh without son won’t ever take off his hood, having the setup again. That’s he stays within there. I thought I would have to take

Story Magazine // Issue 005 MCKEE INTERVIEWS RUSSELL BRAND

them as a starting point. I re- Malcolm X are both religious, searched those four areas. Any- so there’s sort of a connection thing that I thought was funny, I there, but I won’t impose. I don’t made a note of. Then I did shows say, “No, that’s the only way.” I’m in front of small audiences where open to the idea of changing. I talked about the things that I thought were humorous. Any- The theme is something I won’t thing that sort of got laughed at, fuck with, if I know what the theme I would put to one side. Anything is. We all have the capacity to be that didn’t, unless I was really cer- great. We all have the capacity tain there was something in it, I for heroism, and we have more would let go. of a chance of achieving that if we focus on heroism. That won’t RM: So you had an outline. Was change, and that’s sort of a guid- the outline just in your head, ing principle. or did you sit… RM: Right. I’m still trying to RB: I work mostly with bullet get it down to what is in your points, but there’s not a struc- pocket when you walk out on ture at this point. I don’t have stage. You’ve got these four a climax or anything like that. I characters, these four person- just know, “Here is a list of things ages. You’ve done research, I think are funny, and here are meaning you’ve read up on ways that they may relate to one them or looked at Gandhi in another.” But I don’t presume to the magnitudes and him giv- know. I let the thing be what it’s ing speeches or whatever you going to be. did. Do you take notes, physi- cal notes, out of that research? RM: Okay, we’re getting mysti- cal now, let the thing be what RB: Yes. it wants to be. RM: Does it ever get formal- RB: Well, if I sort of say, “I’m going ized on paper, or does it just to go talk about Gandhi because go into your head and stay Gandhi was historical or first Je- there? sus, and then Gandhi.” I don’t say it is going to work chronologi- RB: I record the shows and go cally. I can see there’s a similarity back, but I do make notes on the between Hitler, who was in the inexplicably mandatory yellow show also, and Che Guevara be- legal pad. I also make notes on cause they’re both militant fig- those, but bullet pointed and in ures. I can see that Gandhi and very short form.

Story Magazine // Issue 005 MCKEE INTERVIEWS RUSSELL BRAND

Stay tuned next month for the third and final part of Robert McKee’s interview series with Russell Brand.

Story Magazine // Issue 005

YOUR OWN WORST ENEMY Form Over Formula BY SHAWN COYNE

Shawn Coyne tells a story that illustrates the best example yet of why form beats formula every single time.

Story Magazine // Issue 005 YOUR OWN WORST ENEMY

A few years ago, a very talented I walked her through The Story it most certainly did not work. It line-by-line writer came to me Grid, how I work, etc. and she never paid off the promise of the for help. was over the moon. It turned out hook in an inevitable, yet surpris- that she was as much of a story ing way. She did not disagree. A publisher I respected had rec- nerd as I was. She had read and ommended her to me. The pub- studied many of the same Story I ran it through The Story Grid and lisher believed (rightfully) that experts I had, so we spoke the then we sat down to go through the woman had what it took to same language. She immediate- the places where it went off the write bestselling thrillers. The ly understood my principles and rails. Weeks later, I thought we publisher had passed on a num- jumped right in to the process. had a very clear understanding ber of her books – not because he that the new lead character for didn’t find them compelling, but We began by both agreeing that our reverse engineering project because ultimately they “didn’t she’d write a contemporary thrill- would not be based on the char- work.” er that would introduce a brand acter from her previous unsold new series character, a woman novel. The writer asked me to work with a Jason Bourne-like igno- with her from first idea to final rance of her past. While the ex- Rather, we’d use a few of the draft. That is, she wanted to start ternal genre was “spy thriller,” the scenes from the novel that re- from scratch – seek my opinion internal genre of the book would ally worked and perhaps adapt about the right kind of character be a “disillusionment plot.” (More them to suit as major turning to feature, the particular genre on this later) Coincidentally, she points for the new novel. I left her of thriller that I felt was the most told me that she had a draft of a with a working map of about 60 underserved and to basically en- book she’d written with a similar scenes/chapters that included all gineer a new novel from start to character in her closet. of the conventions and obligato- finish using The Story Grid. She ry scenes of the spy thriller form could not afford to pay my usual She suggested that we begin with (more on this later on). I thought editorial fee, but I too believed in that draft to see if there was any- the conventions and obligatory her, so we came to a profit-shar- thing salvageable from it. scenes that we’d sketched out ing relationship. were uniquely twisted and in- This is when I started to get ner- novative to a degree that would We would be business partners, vous. But I relented. Maybe the delight a thriller fan. just like a couple of scientists fig- manuscript could give us some uring out how to create a new direction – never say never, right? I even cold pitched the story, like kind of light bulb. I’d done this Why reinvent something that has Hollywood screenwriters do, to sort of thing before with narra- already worked? a few friends who held very high tive nonfiction as well as fiction editorial positions at Big Five and while the work requires a I read her abandoned book and it publishing houses. These friends multiple year commitment, I’ve had some really great moments. had purchased millions of dollars never regretted taking it on. I al- Innovative turns of phrase, some worth of stories from me before, ways learn something new. seriously frightening scenes. so I knew they had zero interest Overall, it gave me even more in humoring me. They wanted We got to work. confidence in her abilities. But me to give them the first crack

Story Magazine // Issue 005 YOUR OWN WORST ENEMY

at the book for their publishing her closet than I thought possi- the labor itself (writing a brilliant houses, so they were happy to ble. While scenes were changed, and innovative hero at the mercy give me quick notes and/or tell the very problems that made it of the villain scene no matter if me what worked and didn’t work unworkable a year and a quarter the book was published or not). from their point of view. This is before riddled the narrative. And She wanted to be a bestselling what happens at agent/editor an obligatory scene—the hero at thriller writer so badly, that she lunches sometimes and it’s the the mercy of the villain scene, decided that doing what BEST- only reason I still occasionally crucial to nail in a thriller—was SELLING THRILLER WRITERS did have them. gone entirely. was more important than abid- ing by centuries’ old Story form. I was now finished with my job as I took a deep breath and went the “creation editor/agent” and through her draft scene by scene In her mind, conventions and now it was time for my business again and confronted her about obligatory scenes were all well partner to do hers. We shook the lack of the crucial obligatory and good but because a BEST- hands and she walked away with scene. SELLING THRILLER WRITER was the road map to complete the able to ignore one or two in his novel. “Well, I wrote it, but then I didn’t novel and still become a best- like it, so I cut it,” she said. seller, she felt she must do that Keep in mind that it took us a too. No matter how hard I tried good nine months to get to this I explained that it was fine to do to explain that she couldn’t copy point. We debated scene af- the scene differently, but without what a BESTSELLING THRILLER ter scene until we both felt it it, the book wouldn’t work. WRITER did and get the same was the best solution we could result, she refused to change her come up with at the time. Were “That’s not true, I read THE LAT- mind. Over and over again, I told they turning correctly? Were we EST BESTSELLING THRILLER BY her that there was no Formula, mixing up the positive and neg- BESTSELLING AUTHOR X and he just Form. ative resolutions enough? Did didn’t have that scene…why do I we progressively complicate the have to? Her argument of course was Story effectively? Did we pay off that if a BESTSELLING THRILL- the hook? So here’s when I knew this proj- ER WRITER was able to break We both recognized that there ect would never come to fruition. the conventions of the form, she would be a very great chance I now knew the reason why this should be able to too. that what we anticipated to work, very talented writer kept getting would need to be completely re- to the one-yard line and was nev- Here’s a hard thing to grasp and thought after we had a draft in er able to score a touchdown—a I’m sure I’ll go to my grave trying hand, but as a reference guide to working thriller. Instead of dedi- to explain it. Just because a book write a workable thriller, it was cating herself to nailing the form becomes a bestseller, it doesn’t spot on. of the thriller/story, she decided make it something to emulate. that she was above it. There are myriad of reasons why She came back six months later some books become bestsellers with a book far closer to the orig- She wanted the fruits of the la- and still don’t work as Stories (See inal manuscript she pulled out of bor (bestsellerdom) more than The Emperor’s New Clothes phe-

Story Magazine // Issue 005 YOUR OWN WORST ENEMY

nomenon). Sometimes, there’s ironically what amateur writers it and still deliver the form? just a hunger for a particular kind really want is a recipe. And cer- of book (Vampires, Zombies, tainty. And guarantees. Thomas Harris did it in The Si- BDSM novels) based on some lence of the Lambs. He didn’t run ephemeral need in humani- Form scares the big bestselling away from it. Instead, he proba- ty’s collective unconscious that writers too. That’s why they of- bly wrote two hundred versions drive sales. Trying to write one of ten do write books that do not of it and none of them worked. those books that get swept up in abide the obligatory scenes and He probably didn’t really figure the tide or even, the ultimate for conventions of their genres. But it out until his tenth draft. What’s some, a book seen as the cause just because they have a wide important to remember is that of the tide is folly. It’s like sell- audience of people who will buy he didn’t quit until his thriller ing your house and putting all of whatever they write and make WORKED. And working means your money on number 7 at the those books bestsellers, does abiding conventions and oblig- roulette table because you have not mean that they wrote a story atory scenes of genres. a feeling #7 is going to hit! that worked. The writer/business partner and Chasing the vagaries of the best- In our desire to be unique and I never did get on the same page seller list (believing in formu- powerful, creative people be- about her thriller and we part- la and not form) is the mark of come their own worst enemies. ed ways. Unfortunately, it’s five the amateur. That’s putting the To abide by “rules” seems anti- years later and she still hasn’t by-product of the Story (money, thetical to why we’re artists in been able to get a publisher to fame, etc.) ahead of the Story it- the first place. So when present- take her on. I think about her ev- self. Your contempt for form and ed with things that look like rules ery day and have faith that she lust for formula may even give (form) we unconsciously rebel. will one day set aside her Resis- you what you want. You write the We resist it with everything we tance to form and create some- next huge thing that makes you have. And even when we talk thing remarkable. hundreds of millions of dollars. ourselves off of the “I’m not go- Now what? That kind of writing ing to write that scene because is equivalent to winning a lottery. it’s stupid” cliff, it’s really hard to actually see the form for what it Why not just play the lottery? really is—an opportunity. Form gives you the place to throw The truth is that I don’t think my down your best stuff. business partner really had con- tempt for Story form, I think it Take the Hero at the Mercy of scared her. She had the stuff to the Villain scene. It’s been done write a terrific Story that played to death. Try not picturing Bruce off of century old themes, but to Willis or Liam Neeson chained to do so requires adherence to fun- a pipe and being tortured when damentals. Not formulaic rules. you hear “hero at the mercy of Despite all of their desire to live the villain.” How do you not write by their own lone wolf ways, that set up, but instead, innovate

Story Magazine // Issue 005 YOUR OWN WORST ENEMY

Stay tuned next month for more on The Story Grid from Shawn Coyne.

Story Magazine // Issue 005

ROBERT MCKEE INTERVIEWS ONE- MAN SHOW LEGEND MARK WHITNEY Part 1

Mark Whitney occupies a unique place in the world. As a successful entrepreneur with a one- of-a-kind background (including a jail stint) he decided to undertake to become a life perform- er. Mark is a keen student of the human experience and writes the truth into his live shows.

Story Magazine // Issue 005 MCKEE INTERVIEWS MARK WHITNEY

ROBERT MCKEE: Mark, it is a of different situations. would really like), he talks about real pleasure to have an op- how I think this is probably true portunity to interview you. I’ve RM: Well, you used to sell vac- with a lot of different art forms, but seen, of course, your marvelous uum cleaners. particularly with stand-up com- one-man show, Fool for a Cli- edy. He said that it always starts ent, and it is, for the most part, MW: Right, exactly. That’s where I below the waist, then it moves to autobiographical, although it did my first one-man show—right the heart and then to the head. builds and builds into some- there in a living room. I was fa- When you get good at it, it moves thing quite universal. But my miliar with being on my feet from to the head and you really start first question is one of medi- acting in plays as a high school using your brain. When I started um. When people have com- student and at the local colleges in to get good at joke writing and pelling life stories that went the area, and I’ve always enjoyed joke performing and joke talent, I through great experiences, being on my feet having a con- quickly got bored with it. some often, of course, write a versation with people. I talk, they book about this or they want laugh; I talk, they cry. It’s a con- I got really bored with just rattling to write a screenplay to drama- versation. What I really wanted to off the same ol’ jokes over and tize it. They might even write a do was stand-up comedy, and I over again that were disconnect- play. But very few people ever grew up listening to—not listen- ed. When I got into the business, choose to get up on their feet ing—memorizing George Carlin. I threw myself into trying to learn and do a one-man show vent- everything I could about the busi- ing about their life and all the RM: Yes, yes of course—the ness—not just the creative side great implications in it. How greatest. but also the business side. Once did you choose that particular people learn how to do stand- medium of expression? MW: The best. And my mom is up comedy, how do they be- a product of a union between an come working comedians? How MARK WHITNEY: Well it was an O’Neill and a Mahoney, so there’s do they become paid comedi- evolutionary process. I’ve always that whole Irish Catholic thing ans? So I ended up at the HBO wanted to be a comedian and I there. But when I started getting Comedy Festival in Aspen. I think kind of got into stand-up come- serious about doing it, I didn’t it was 2006. It’s the biggest indus- dy—sort of the Rodney Danger- understand what was involved— try showcase there is. Everybody’s field model. Rodney started doing it was like this whole separate art there and their producers, the a little bit of stand-up in his ear- form. producers of that festival, scan the ly twenties, but then he stopped, universe looking for people that and he raised a family as an alu- RM: Yep. It is. It is. perform one-person shows. So minum siding salesman [laugh- they had a handful of them there. ter]. When his kids were grown, MW: So many people who do They had a girl that pretended to he went back into stand-up, but stand-up comedy tell the story of be the daughter of George Bush he really didn’t start stand-up se- how they just got up on stage and who did half an hour. Then they riously until he was about forty. I they just sucked, and I was just like had this guy who came out and started really devoting myself to that. My friend Curtis Mathew, I was sitting there. He comes out it when I was about 45, and I’m a who runs the San Francisco Com- and he sits down at a table, and guy that’s been on my feet in a lot edy College (a great guy, who you he’s the most unassuming guy I’ve

Story Magazine // Issue 005 MCKEE INTERVIEWS MARK WHITNEY

ever seen. He looks like the guy RM: Yes. Everything else was bullshit—the everybody stole the lunch money part with Bill Clinton coming out from in high school and spent a MW: He’s an accomplished writer. and then throwing the ball with lot of time being shaken upside the dog, and everything. down by his ankles. He walks out RM: Yes. and he sits down at a table with RM: Did you think that his strat- a three-ring binder and reads his MW: I got in touch with him egy of sitting at a table with a show to the audience! through his agent, Creative Art- binder and reading it was a ists, and we went and I bought credible technique in order to RM: Really? him a nice lunch in Beverly Hills. make it seem more factual? The first thing I wanted to know MW: Yes! He doesn’t even know is: Was it a true story? MW: I was familiar with Spalding enough—he’s not well-versed Gray, who is someone that has enough on the stage to know to He tells a story. It’s called My Bud- done that, and my friend Mike look left and right. I’m thinking he dy Bill, and he tells a story about Daisy, who is sort of like if Spald- must be right-handed because he how he and the writing staff of ing Gray and John Candy had sex would only look to the right. He’d West Wing visited Bill Clinton in then you would have Mike Daisy. look straight, and now and then the Oval Office. Buddy the dog He’s that kind of guy. he’d look off to the right, but he’s came in and piddled on the rug, reading this story and it’s hilarious. and Rick who has a “way with Mike Daisy does a similar thing dogs” said, “No Buddy! Bad dog!” where he comes out and sits at a RM: Yes. Bill Clinton wrote Rick Cleveland table and works from notes. I sus- a little thank-you note. pect it’s because maybe he’s just MW: It goes for half an hour but really enormous and can’t stand- feels like thirty seconds. The audi- Cleveland took this experience up. What I wanted to know with ence is on their feet and he wins and spun it into a show, and sud- Rick Cleveland was why he per- the one-person show competi- denly he’s smoking reefer with formed the show that way. tion at the HBO Comedy Fest! I’m Billy Bob Thornton and Bill Clin- sitting there watching this guy, and ton in Amsterdam. They’re down Here’s what he told me. He gets I was like, “You know, if you get off there at the library opening and to the HBO Comedy Festival. He’s your ass, and walk around a little he spun this story. The audience got a one-hour show, and he finds and use some hand gestures, you completely believed every word, out the day before that they’re only really have something here.” Well, and that’s what made it great. giving him half an hour. So, he had his name is Rick Cleveland. to rewrite, and so on the last min- With my show, the struggles in my ute, he just came out and read it. RM: Ah! show actually happened. What I learn from watching Rick MW: He writes with Aaron Sorkin. RM: How much of it was true? Cleveland was the power, not of Factual? a story well told, but a story well RM: Yes. written. It had no production val- MW: His story? The point where ue. This was a guy who does not MW: He wrote for West Wing. he received the note [laughter]. belong on stage, sitting at a ta-

Story Magazine // Issue 005 MCKEE INTERVIEWS MARK WHITNEY

ble reading, but he’s such a good minutes. They can do it obvi- MW: Of course not. Just ask him. writer that nobody cared. That ously. They do it all the time. He’ll tell ya’. [laughter] When I was an epiphany for me because would work out a lot at the San I saw what he did, and I stopped MW: Yup. My friend Mike Dai- Francisco Comedy College, my wanting to be a stand-up comedi- sy—I’ve seen him do three hours. friend Curtis Matthews would do an. I wanted to be Rick Cleveland He does a show on Steve Jobs for these round robin classes where standing up without a binder. three hours and it feels like five people come up with five min- minutes, and he’s sitting down utes of material. We’d perform for The show that you saw—the movie working from a set list. each other and everyone would of my show that you saw—that’s the comment. Early on, Curtis would result of five years’ work of touring. RM: Once you decided you’re always comment about what a going to do the one man show fearless performer I was—not fun- RM: I didn’t look at the cassette, format, how did you find the ny, but fearless. but how long is that show? material? As I said, it’s based upon your own life experience I think that’s the most important MW: The show was 90 minutes. to begin with, but it’s much thing—being willing to commit. A bigger than that. lot of people are scared to look RM: Ninety minutes? That’s back at their mistakes. We don’t three times what he did. That’s MW: It is. The chief theater crit- want to do that. To me, a mistake a feature length. ic of the Washington Post, Peter is just an opportunity. It’s all part Marks, who was one of the first of the process. MW: It’s a feature length and my major critics to review my show goal over the five years was to when it was in the 4-5 star time RM: This is the wonderful thing, have, not just ninety minutes, but of its evolution, he said that the I think, about stand-up comedy. to write so much that I was actu- trick of the one person show is to You say when you first started ally hopefully throwing out nine- deceive the audience into think- you sucked. Right? When ev- ty minutes or three hours’ worth ing you’re telling them something erybody first starts, they suck. of really good stuff. Just being left that’s going to help them, when Right? The difference is a stand- with ninety minutes of premium in fact you really just want to get up comic knows he sucks be- wine, you know where the whole up there and run your mouth. My cause they don’t laugh. thing is just— wife says I’m narcissistic. I’m like, “Why? Because I stand on stage MW: Exactly. RM: Do you give them an inter- for ninety minutes and say ‘look mission? at me’?” [laughter] RM: If they laugh, it works. If they don’t laugh, it doesn’t work. So MW: No. RM: I stand on stage for 32 you immediately understand hours. “I suck.” How many people sit RM: Great. in a study somewhere writing MW: Exactly, well there you go. page after page after page for MW: You just rip. [laughter] years, not realizing that they suck because there is no audi- RM: You just ripped for ninety RM: And I’m not a narcissist. ence; there is no response.

Story Magazine // Issue 005 MCKEE INTERVIEWS MARK WHITNEY

MW: You don’t have any way to out their shit. can go to sleep and not worry know. about it? RM: Because they have to RM: You have no way to know work. MW: I can’t do anything after except your own taste—your a show for about three or four own judgment. With stand-up, MW: They have to work. People hours. You’re just so pumped up, you get the message real fast, like Wyatt Cenac, who now writes especially if the room was full. real clear. When you make it, for the Daily Show, performed in The critical mass that you get out you understand immediately my theater. Anthony Jeselnik, who in some of these festivals is amaz- that you’ve made it. writes for Jimmy Fallon, performed ing. It’s practically impossible to down there. get anybody to get off their ass MW: Right. these days and get out from be- So all these comedy writers—they’re hind the flat screen and do any- RM: Because they laugh. It’s so not stand-up comedians; they’re thing. If you’re not famous and pure. comedy writers; they’re coming you tour a show, it’s very hard to down and getting up on stage to get people to come out to see the MW: It is. Like you say, if they’re not find out what’s funny,– getting up theater, but there are all these in- laughing, you’re failing. on their feet, because—like you say dependent festivals around the —you don’t’ always know if the hu- United States based on the Edin- I owned a comedy theatre in San Di- mor will come across . burg Fringe model. All these inde- ego for a while called the San Diego pendent artists pay 75 dollars for Comedy Co-op. I told everyone that Also, I still look at every perfor- a lottery and their number goes came there to perform—Hollywood mance as a workshop. Every per- into a hat; the producers have 50 headliners would come down to the formance is a workshop, so when slots for shows and six venues, so Co-op and perform in this. I walk back through the curtain af- if they pull your number out, you ter I deliver that last line, the first have a run and you’re going to go We put a hundred-seat theater in thing I do is grab a notepad and there and do 7 to 10 performanc- an old warehouse where Dream- write down the five or six things I’ve es in two weeks. Some of them are Works used to be and put up shows learned in that show. juried; the New York Internation- free for the community. We pro- al Fringe Festival is juried and so duced over 500 shows down there. RM: Do you record your shows? is the Midtown Festival.

I did that because I couldn’t get stage MW: Yeah, I record everything on The point is, up in Minneapo- time so I just got some platforms, audio. lis, they’ve had a festival running and some lights and some chairs. I there for about 20 years now, and thought, “Fuck it, I’ll have my own RM: On audio? How soon after they sell 50 thousand tickets at this stage.” People would come down the performance do you start festival. So if you go into town as from Hollywood to perform for free listening to yourself? an independent artist— because they couldn't get more than 10 minutes at the Improv. MW: The next morning. RM: Comedy festival?

So, they’d come down and work RM: The next morning. So you MW: It’s not a comedy; it’s essen-

Story Magazine // Issue 005 MCKEE INTERVIEWS MARK WHITNEY

tially a spoken word festival. So sell out the run! RM: Some things are pissing people are doing a play that they you off. wrote for 60 minutes or they’re RM: Of course you do. doing a rewrite of Shakespeare or MW: He walks out and says the they’re doing a lot of one-person MW: You make 20 to 25 thou- same thing every time: “I’m gonna shows. They’re fringe festivals, so sand bucks and nobody knows start tonight with a few things that people come in and they get an who you are. The same guy who are pissing me off.” hour and they’re uncensored— is reviewing the Broadway tour of Mary Poppins for the Washington RM: “Children.” RM: To do whatever they want. Post is reviewing your show. You end up with a portfolio full of re- MW: And then he’s off. Exactly. MW: You do whatever you want. views. Mark Twain meets Lewis You end up paying like 500 bucks, Black. Fine, I can work with that. RM: Children, right? Then he and you get to keep the money! starts in on kids. [laughter] Com- You keep the money—at least 70%, RM: That’s marvelous: the peo- edy, in my point of view, is the sometimes 100% ple, the opportunities. angry art. What motivates the comic is anger. RM: You lost me there. You pay MW: Unbelievable opportunities. to perform? MW: Yeah. Imagine a comedian RM: Now let’s talk about this. comes out for an hour and talks MW: You pay for the venue. That’s You get an opportunity and you about how great things are. Oh I basically what you’re paying for. decide you are going to go to really want to see that show! It’s usually about 500 bucks if you one of these festivals, or maybe get in. You pay an application fee there’s an open mic night some- RM: Now, you got a lot to be an- of about 50 bucks, they pull your where. Let’s talk about material. gry about because you got dealt name out of the hat, and you pay You want to be a comic. I think some really bad cards. But did about 500 bucks for your ven- that is a common ambition. you start with that when you ue. You get a tech person, some- Not for everybody, but there were a stand-up—when you first one selling tickets and they have are people—enough of them. started in the one-man show a website and people buy tickets. business? Did you start with The point is this— MW: There’s a lot of them. Like your biography—your autobiog- cockroaches. raphy—or something else? RM: With the tickets sales—you get your money back? RM: They want to be comics. MW: Yes, the one-man show was One of the questions I would always intended to use my story MW: You get to keep the money. always ask of anybody who as a metaphor to reflect back “ze- You get at least 70%, sometimes a wants to be a comic is, “What is ro-tolerance America” to the audi- 100% and the point is this: These pissing you off?” ence. That’s what it’s always been. are independent art festivals, which means 95% of it is pure shit. MW: That’s how George Carlin RM: From the beginning? When you go to one of these fes- started every one of his 12 HBO tivals, with a great show, you will specials. MW: Well, it’s taken me five years

Story Magazine // Issue 005 MCKEE INTERVIEWS MARK WHITNEY

to get to the point where I can RM: Yup, yup. why they talk about the fourth say that in a sentence. You know wall. It’s actually a wall between what I mean? I had a very unclear MW: He went out and he deliv- us and the audience. vision early on. I had a clear vision ered it the same way every time, of what I wanted to do, but I was word for word. RM: Indeed. I’ve directed over completely unclear as to how to 60 plays, and the constant note do it. RM: Why does that surprise that I gave to actors was, “No, anyone? no. Don’t you do it. Make him That was the problem, and this do it. Make him do it!” was very frustrating to me be- MW: I think the reason it surprises cause I’m a guy who has worked people is because there’s a whole MW: Perfect, that’s exactly what on radio shows, I’ve done a lot of contingent of people that perform I’m saying. TV commercials, and I’ve toured stand-up that say you need to be the United States doing semi- doing your writing on stage, RM: I don’t care what—“make nars for corporate America. I’m him do it!” As long as actor A is no stranger to being on my feet, RM: Oh yeah, yeah. trying to make actor B do what but the business of connecting character A wants B to do… my personal story to the universe MW: If you’re not writing on stage, really fucked with my mind for then you’re not doing it right, and MW: You’re telling them to push about three years. I just couldn’t what I wanted to do is to be able to each other, in a sense. figure it out. Everybody that does do both. So my one-man show is this says, “Well, there’s no road now a hybrid. I have the set piece RM: “Make him do it.” And that’s map.” I want a fucking roadmap! that is committed to memory, acting, and you’re right, stand [laughter] Okay, somebody give and I rehearse for every minute of up is… me a roadmap. So you’re just out that show. If I write a new minute, there—everybody starts with a I rehearse ninety minutes or two MW: So I walk out in the stu- zero sum game and everyone has hours to own that new minute— dio theatre there—the show you the story of how they figured out to really own it. watched. I got 250 sets of eyeballs how to do what they do. Well, for staring at me. They’re talking to me, what I wanted to know how When I say own it, I mean that I each other and they’re checking to do was I wanted to know how will be able to deliver it frontwards their pocketbook and she’s going, to—comedians disagree on this— and backwards with music play- “What did he say?” There’s all this Since George Carlin died, I have ing in my ears at a high volume shit going on and I’m trying to do learned by reading about him and my wife telling me to make a show. It’s like, “Can you people and stuff that he has written and the bed and all these distractions just dummy up and receive the that people have written, I have going on, because the one-man show, please?” learned that his HBO shows that show in stand-up comedy is very he performed were one-person different from acting. If you and It’s so difficult to master it at a level shows. It wasn’t stand-up come- I are doing an Oscar Madison or where you can deliver it at a high dy—he wrote it out in script form, Felix Ungar, we’re performing for level. I want to take it to another in Courier New, double space, each other; we’re not really per- level—I want to be able to leave and he committed it to memory. forming for the audience. That’s my script and be in the room like

Story Magazine // Issue 005 MCKEE INTERVIEWS MARK WHITNEY

a stand-up comedian. I want to I believe the way you think is of immersing myself into studying be able to leave the script and talk really the most creative way— how other comedians do what to the audience or if something the strongest way to work. The they do. comes to my head, I want to be other can just lead to spiraling able to say it and then be able to to hell. What I’m curious about RM: I’m going to interrupt you go back to the prepared material. is why would that be your first because I’ve seen your show, There is a joke in the show that idea and not the other way okay? you watched last night about Sar- around? How did you know ah Palin, and I wrote that joke on that that sort of structure that MW: Okay. stage in that performance where you could depend on would I say, “Sarah Palin, John McCain’s give you the freedom to impro- RM: I know a bit about your parting gift to America: note to vise because you could always life. Maybe you’re lying—I don’t the war hero—we’re even.” I wrote come back to the material you know—but I took it to be true that right on my feet, and it got an knew? Why did you know that that once you went to jail. You applause break, and that doesn’t that’s how it had to be for your- headed for the law library… happen every day. I thought, that self? was a keeper, but that was just or- MW: Right. ganic. The only way something MW: It was from watching Rick like that can happen is if that piece Cleveland. RM: …and you started educat- that you’re going to perform is so ing yourself about the law in much a part of you that you can RM: Never before that? depth and breadth in order to leave it and go back to it and be in be able to defend yourself to the room. Somebody says some- MW: You mean in terms of the get yourself through the sys- thing weird or somebody is laugh- medium? tem. To not be the victim of it, ing in the wrong place, and you but somehow to take charge. can make a joke about the wom- RM: I mean something deep- How many people would do an over here with Tourettes, and er than that. A lot of people a thing like that? Most people everyone can have a little chuck- watch Rick Cleveland, but they just lay down and say okay… le, and you can come back. That’s don’t necessarily come away really what I wanted to be able to with that kind of understand- MW: That’s what I don’t under- achieve as a spoken word artist. ing. What do you think it was stand. There were 900 guys there. It’s all a work in progress. I’m get- about everything that you did I say in my show that there were ting there. up to that moment in your life nine typewriters for 900 prison- that gave you the kind of in- ers, and I could always get a type- RM: That is kind of, in a sense, sight to realize, “First I got to writer. They thought I was crazy. backwards, right? Stand-ups find the arch, build the materi- They would say, “Oh ya, well, we are writers who perform their al, and then I can break off from understand you’ve got to do ev- material. They think the other that and do improv as needed.” erything you can do.” These were way around. But you thought Is there something about your people who plead guilty telling structure first and then improv; education or your experience? me I was crazy, okay? People on they think improv first, and out their second and third conviction of that you find your structure. MW: Yeah, I mean it’s just from sort telling me I was crazy.

Story Magazine // Issue 005 MCKEE INTERVIEWS MARK WHITNEY

RM: It suggests to me a kind of think deductively. They have powdered wigs and throwing tea mind. a premise—the law works this over the boat talking about how way in a democracy under they’re afraid of “Sharia” law be- MW: It’s about the questions. the constitution, right? Now, cause they care about the con- is that the case? This bit, that stitution—I’m like, “You couldn’t RM: It suggests to me a kind of bit, this bit, that bit, this bit. find a fucking constitution if it mind that looks at the totali- It seems to me that you think was in your ass! You worry about ty of it and begins to see a su- deductively. You start out with Sharia law—why don’t you learn perstructure, begins to see an a premise, you have a big idea, your own fucking law first, okay? abstract form that holds all of and then you start to fill it in, Why don’t you tell me, you fun- this together and then goes to as opposed to what most peo- damentalist asshole, what the fill it in. I think that’s genetic— ple do which is just let experi- first amendments is, okay? Tell most people don’t think like ence slap them across the face me that. Tell me you know that that. enough times until they final- and then you can lecture me ly get it. about Sharia law.” It’s like cogni- MW: There are people that say tive dissonance. So I live in this that. I’ve read stories about MW: With the law, I want to know alternative universe as a result of that—people who have letters af- how it’s meant to be, not how it my experience. ter their names and study these is. things and believe that the need RM: You start with the ideal, to really get down to what it is RM: Yes, that’s the premise. and then you find all the really and understand what it is. I’ve upsetting exceptions to that. read that mostly in the context MW: That’s what I want to know. of entrepreneurs, people who It’s like my show is all about how MW: Exactly. start companies, people like things were meant to be in con- Charles Ferguson who produced trast to how they are, and that’s RM: How do you know this is Inside Job—why does he wake what’s at stake in my show. There’s funny? A lot of people—once up someday and decide, “Jesus, a set of intangible ideals that are again, they don’t think like these people blew up the world at stake that can’t be measured you do. But there are people and I’m going to make a docu- by mathematicians and scien- who think like you do, but they mentary about it.” What is it that tists. Ideals that defy measure- don’t find it funny. makes him want to do that? ment and the ideals speak to the core of individuality. That’s what MW: There have been people RM: There are two ways to at stake to me, and as an artist, that have had some tremendous think, basically: induction and as an entrepreneur, and as some- influence on me in terms of that. deduction. Most people think body who has spent 30 years People who have given me per- inductively. This happens, that creating things from nothing, I mission to do what I do. If you happens, this happens and that don’t want to see that lost. That start with the world of stand-up happens—da da da da. There- is so upsetting to me to see that comedy in Southern California, fore, and they draw a conclu- lost, you know. it’s a poisonous world. You go sion or they try to make sense down to the Comedy Store on a out of things. Other people When I see people dressed up in Sunday night and you throw your

Story Magazine // Issue 005 MCKEE INTERVIEWS MARK WHITNEY

name in a hat. If you’re lucky, you are happy for you, and then they I think you can get away with a can get three minutes, and that’s say, “When I first took your sem- lot if you’re interesting. You can the world of stand-up come- inar, you started talking about, get away with not being very dra- dy. You get up there, and by the jeez, you know, you’re meant to matic, and you can get away with time you said, “Hello, my name be preparing things for an intelli- not being very funny if you’re in- is Mark,” it’s time to get off the gent sensitive audience.” I’m like, teresting. Then along the way, stage. It’s where comedy goes to “Really? You mean I’m not writing you find out how to be funny; die, and God help you if you kill for comedians and their drunk you find out how to be dramat- during that three minutes be- friends, that’s not who I’m writ- ic. The show that you watched cause the other comedians will ing for?” So that was an epipha- (this is really the first year that not talk to you. That’s the kind ny, too. Steve Rosenfield, at the I started to put some drama in) of awful, poisonous culture that American Comedy Institute, says, and the show that I started—it’s exists in the stand-up comedy “Nothing is funnier than you in really the first time… clubs in southern California, be- a struggle.” Fine, then I’ll list my cause they’re sitting there think- struggles, because I’ve had a lot RM: Wow. It builds and builds ing, “That guy is funny. He’s going of them. to something that is really to get the sitcom I’m not going powerful. to get.” It’s like, well you’re not RM: But that’s not my ques- getting a sitcom and I’m not get- tion. MW: That has been a work in ting a sitcom, so we’re meant to progress, so I guess the answer to be doing this to discover a big- MW: How did I know it was fun- your question, now that we are ger truth and communicate that ny? The audience laughed. kind of brainstorming togeth- and to have a conversation with er here in the room, is I know it the audience. RM: No, no, how did you know was interesting. As a result of my that there was comedy to be willingness to get up on my feet I go from that, and one of the mined out of the monstrous and tell people something that people that had a big influence injustices and unfairnesses in was interesting, it came—I found on me, who is the opposite of the legal system in this coun- the funny, then I found the dra- that, is Curtis Matthews at the try? ma. Through a lot of hard work, San Francisco Comedy College. it ends up being something that San Francisco has a very differ- MW: Umm, because… is interesting, dramatic, and fun- ent environment than the com- ny. edy scene down in San Diego. RM: Why didn’t you get a gun? San Francisco is all “Kumbayah” RM: Do you think that if you with everybody supporting ev- BOTH: [laughter] hadn’t gone through the meat erybody. It’s very Robin Williams. grinder of the legal system per- It’s intelligent and it’s smart. The MW: Oh. I see what you’re say- sonally, that you would still be smarter you are, the better, the ing. I think, to be honest, I didn’t upset about the way in which more everybody likes it and the know. That was something I dis- the legal system works? better you do. The people are covered through doing it. I didn’t patting you on the back. They necessarily know it was funny, MW: I would be upset from a 35 understand that it’s hard and they but I did know it was interesting. thousand-foot view standpoint

Story Magazine // Issue 005 MCKEE INTERVIEWS MARK WHITNEY

to see the way people seem to nections down there. She lived have abandoned their ideals and in Westport, Connecticut and let a bad act on a single day rede- commuted down to New York. fine our society. I would be upset I fell in love with a valedictorian at how willing people seem to be in the last week of school, and at the notion that an entire free then we had kids, and you give system should be reversed engi- them one meal and they want neered on the altar of something another. You know how they bad that happened one day that are, so it’s a 20-year timeout. To defies any sort of statistical mea- sort of flex my creative juices, I surement. So I would be upset ran an advertising agency for a by that, but I wouldn’t be able few years and I built these little to articulate in any great detail companies, but it was all cre- why I was upset. It would just be ative. Everything I created was a visceral feeling as an artist, as due to my ability to write, and an entrepreneur. it’s only the last couple of years that I identified myself first and RM: If you hadn’t gone through foremost as a writer. I look back the judicial system the way over my career of 30 years as an you did, would you think you entrepreneur and as a guy that would have still found your did advertising for years, worked way to wanting to do stand- in TV and radio and for a while up? did seminars across the coun- try and it’s all related to writing; MW: Absolutely. We moved to it’s all about the writing. With- Southern California from New out the writing, I wouldn’t have England in the summer of 2000. had anything. When we came to If you watch my show, you know Southern California, the whole that there are a lot of things that idea was that when my kids were we were moving away from, but grown, I was going to pursue a there were also a bunch of things career as a performer. that we were moving to, and one of the things that were moving to was being in an environment that had a comedy club and show business. When I was 18, the day I got out of high school I was go- ing to get in the car and drive to New York City and I was going to be an actor. I had an aunt who was a lead actress in the soap opera Another World. I had con-

Story Magazine // Issue 005 MCKEE INTERVIEWS MARK WHITNEY

Check out next month’s issue of STORY Magazine to read Part 2 of Robert McKee’s interview with Mark Whitney.

Story Magazine // Issue 005

CHARACTER CREATION Part 4: Build a Complex Character Around a Need BY ROBERT MCKEE

In his ongoing series on character creation, Robert McKee explains how a character’s need will affect the character’s choices.

The second major directive is to disillusionment plot, you will soon the three, four, five, or more di- build a complex character around realize that relatively uncompli- mensions of a richly complicated a need. If you’re working in one of cated characters of one or two di- protagonist. To achieve such com- the five character-driven genres, mensions cannot carry these sto- plexity, you must imagine beyond such as the redemption plot or the ries to satisfaction. They demand desire and ask this:

Story Magazine // Issue 005 CHARACTER CREATION

In addition to what my character with a dilemma: A choice between That is desire in action: the pursuit wants, what does my character himself and another man and that of something that exists outside need? Desire and need are not the poor man’s family. He chooses to the conscious private self. same thing. Every day you sug- sacrifice himself and save the oth- gest—the two terms are often syn- er man, because at heart, Dan- Next, let me define character need. onymous, but in the writer’s vo- ny is far more selfless than selfish. A major character need is some- cabulary, desire and need are two His unconscious desire has al- thing that does not exist within a very different ideas. ways been to do the moral thing, specific character. I define char- the right thing, and his moral de- acter need as a lacking inside of So first, definitions: character de- sire struggling against his immoral the self—a missing part, in fact, a sire. We’ve looked a good deal at desire has been pulling him apart critical but absent quality. In other desire, but let’s take our under- throughout the adventure until words, the character has a hole in standing of desire even further. his subconscious desire finally tri- his humanity. The ideal human be- A desire is an energetic inten- umphs. ing would have this quality, but this tion aimed at something that ex- particular character lacks it. Again, ists outside the character’s private Desire, however, conscious or sub- ideally, that emptiness should self. In all stories, the protagonist conscious, does not move through be filled, but it may stay vacuous has at least one conscious desire. the story in a straight line, of course. throughout the character’s life, un- In many complex characters, this Once the inciting incident has less, as in so many wonderful sto- conscious desire conflicts with a thrown the protagonist’s life out of ries, something comes along that subconscious desire as well. balance, the major character de- gives the character a chance to fill sire for his object of desire comes the hole in his humanity, to com- If, for example, you were to poll to life. The protagonist pursues his plete his nature. aside Danny Archer, Leonardo Di- object of desire, and to reach it, he Caprio’s protagonist from the film struggles against the forces of an- For example, a famous redemption Blood Diamond, and whisper in Ar- tagonism—what he wants versus plot, Sylvester Stallone’s classic tale cher’s ear, “Danny. You can tell me, obstacle after obstacle that blocks of Rocky, 1976. At the beginning of kid. What do you want?” Danny his pursuit. Each action he takes, the film, Rocky wallows in self-dis- would tell you his conscious desire. beat by beat, scene by scene, se- gust. He calls himself a bum and a Danny knows what Danny wants, quence by sequence, act by act, loser, and he is that, and worse in or at least he thinks he knows, and demands a new conscious desire fact. One of his part-time jobs is he knows what he wants at this mo- of the moment, what he must do breaking legs for a loan shark. So he ment, next week, in his life. Danny at that moment to match each new hates himself for the life he leads. believes that in this lawless world, confrontation. In other words, Rocky lacks a sense it’s every man for himself. He wants of self-worth. He lacks self-love. He to steal an enormous diamond so So it goes, turning point by turn- has a gaping need for self-respect. he can leave Africa and live some- ing point, as his story’s progressive There is a hole in Rocky’s heart where else in style. events zigzag from positive charge where self-esteem should be, but to negative charge, ending at story he fills it instead with self-hate. Consciously Danny wants riches, climax. Out of this final event, the but only for himself. Yet at the cli- protagonist either gets his object Now, he could spend his whole max of this story, Danny is faced of desire or fails to get it. The end. life in that state, but, by coinci-

Story Magazine // Issue 005 CHARACTER CREATION

dence, he gets lucky, and he’s giv- for the character to ignore it. Very and my book, I traced the art of en a chance to fight in the big time. likely, it transforms into something storytelling through all history and He doesn’t win his championship the protagonist wants. As a result, all cultures, East and West. While bout with Apollo Creed. Instead, the protagonist may chase this winding my way down the passag- he wins a victory of courage and new desire in directions his author es of the so-called Dark Ages (that tenacity for himself as he is stand- does not want to go. millennium from 500 A.D. to 1500 ing on his feet after 15 rounds with A.D.), from the fall of the Roman the champ. This fills his need for Suppose, for example, early in Empire to the rise of the Renais- self-respect. As Rocky puts it, he Rocky, the protagonist stopped sance, I searched through the writ- becomes somebody: a guy who putting himself down and came to ings of many medieval scholars, went the distance with Apollo realize that his problem is that he hoping to find insights that might Creed. lacks self-respect and, therefore, illumine the storyteller’s craft. needs to do something that will Some other examples from pop- give him self-respect. Not knowing At first, I found nothing, and that ular classics: in the opening pages what to do, let’s say Rocky goes to era seemed not only dark, but void of The Chronicles of Narnia, young his priest, who convinces him to of any serious ideas. Indeed, after Edmund is an immature, obnox- devote his life to good work, to join the Enlightenment of the 17th cen- ious, spiteful kid who desperately a monastery, and become a monk. tury, many historians thought that needs to grow up and find matu- So Rocky becomes a saint. It could the phrase medieval scholarship rity. Over the arc of the telling, he be a good story, but it wouldn’t be was an oxymoron. But, eventual- becomes King Edmund the Just, the Rocky we know and love. ly, the researchers of 20th-century a kind, loving, mature king. The medievalists, such as J.R.R. Tolk- same need for maturity is found In Middlesex, that excellent novel ien of The Lord of the Rings fame, in young Scarlett O’Hara in Gone by Jeffrey Eugenides, Cal, the pro- led to a critical discovery. What with the Wind and in Huck Finn in tagonist, has an unconscious need seemed like convoluted, mystical The Adventures of Huck Finn. for a true identity, and he has this babblings during the Middle Ages need from the very beginning of were, in fact, scholarly discussions When a story begins, only the au- his life. He was born as a hermaph- conducted in a kind of code. thor knows the character’s need. rodite and then raised as a girl, but In time, the author may or may he never felt at home in that sexu- The language of medieval thought not bring the reader audience in al identity. Eventually, he discovers was more metaphorical than factu- on the secret lacking inside the that his genetic identity is male. At al, more poetic than scientific, and protagonist. In some rare tellings, that moment, his subconscious so it needed to be deciphered. Oh, the author may make the charac- need for an identity becomes his by the way, no angelologists of the ter aware of his need, but if so, the conscious desire—a desire he is still Middle Ages ever asked the ques- author will withhold this revela- pursuing in the novel’s last chap- tion, “How many angels can dance tion to the very end of the telling. ter. This is one of the hallmarks of on the point of a pin?”; 18th-cen- For, if the protagonist were to re- a complex character: that his need tury Protestant critics invented that alize his need at the beginning of is subconscious throughout most, silliness, and they did it in order to the story, his need would become if not all, of the telling. taunt and ridicule medieval Cath- his desire. When a need becomes olic thinking and the torturous known to the character, it’s hard During my research for my lectures ways that theologians, such as John

Story Magazine // Issue 005 CHARACTER CREATION

Duns Scotus and Thomas Aquinas, tle ever happens in life that would As I read that, I thought, “The mind debated mystical theories. force us to plumb our depths, to worm is a writer.” This is what a live to our limits. writer does. The writer first bur- Nonetheless, it is true that when rows into the mind of his character, medieval minds wanted to discuss Realizing this truth, medieval schol- comes to understand him com- nonphysical realms, they would of- ars imagined a creature they called pletely, and then asks, “What would ten use angels, demons, and oth- the mind worm. Then they pro- have to happen to this character to er imaginaries to dramatize their pose this hypothetical: Suppose cause him to live a one-of-a-kind ideas. For example, when medieval there was an all-powerful magi- life that exhausts his birth-given scholastics turned their thoughts cal worm who could burrow into potential?” What story could I give toward what today we would call the mind of a human being and him that would force him to ex- psychology, they sensed—as all come to know everything in the perience his humanity in absolute fine minds have always sensed— man—his social persona, his per- depth, breadth, and in directions the shallowness of life. Shallow in sonal persona, his secret self, even that ordinary life would otherwise the sense that most of us live off his secret unknown self, along with deny him? How can I throw him the surface of our being. We rarely the totality of his life experiences. into a unique life that would ulti- explore, let alone exhaust, our full The worm would know everything mately and completely empty him capacities, our innate capacities. down to the smallest detail of ev- out? Not because we lack the wish to erything he ever said, or thought, experience life in its extremes, but or dreamed—everything ever done The writer finds the answer to because human nature is by na- to him or done by him. these questions in the story’s in- ture conservative. citing incident. To say it again in Once the mind worm understood different words, the inciting inci- The first law of life is the conser- the man in totality, it would then dent is the event that upsets the vation of life. Never spend un- know precisely what the man balance of the character’s life and necessary energy, never take un- lacked in his humanity and, there- propels him into a story-long ac- necessary risks. We are genetically fore, what he needed for fulfill- tion that will force him to use and compelled to act in the least and ment. What’s more, suppose the to use up his complete self so that safest way. Consequently, human mind worm had the power to by the end of the story, the read- beings never burn energy unless make things happen in the world. er audience comes to understand they have to, never take risks un- The worm could then create the this character utterly. Nothing in less they have to. They only do unique event that would set the him is left unused, unexperienced, what they must. Of course, what man on a path of experiences that unexpressed. constitutes “have to” and “must” is would cause him to explore himself as idiosyncratic as there are peo- to the very depth of his humanity, This is the ultimate achievement ple on this earth and as subjective to experience everything he could in the creation of a character: The as the six billion different dreams possibly experience, to live to the emptying out of all the character’s they dream every night. Nonethe- limits of his powers, to face the lim- qualities. This ambition takes us to less, because human nature is a its of his weaknesses, to change—if the heart of the deep differences child of Mother Nature, we con- he can possibly change—and final- between event-driven and char- serve life and skim the surface of ly exhaust his capacity for life be- acter-driven stories. In action/ad- our being. We make sure that lit- fore he dies. venture, for example, we rarely, if

Story Magazine // Issue 005 CHARACTER CREATION

ever, hide an unconscious need gins with this understanding: The crime, he blows the whistle on his behind an action hero’s conscious shape of all stories in all genres is employer, he leaves home, he be- desire. James Bond, for example, determined by how its characters lieves somebody’s lie, he searches lacks nothing and needs nothing; choose to act and react to what for the truth, etc. he is perfect and complete. The happens. As I’ve stated in lecture world is imperfect, and it is his job and in print many times, the events Of course, the writer does not al- to fix it. Rather, we create character of the story are created out of the ways have to choose between one need in genres that demand char- choices, actions, and reactions of of these two kinds of causality ex- acters with complex natures: love its characters. The characters are clusively over the other. The rea- stories, psychological thrillers, so- the kinds of creatures who would sons things happen in a story need cial dramas, family dramas, com- choose to act and react to what not be pure. Events, both inside and ing-of-age stories, and the like. happens in the way that they do. outside of the character’s control, If the writer changes the events, can be mixed and balanced, even. Among the many differences be- she must change her characters. If A story can be as character-driven tween event-driven and charac- the writer changes her characters, as it is event-driven, but generally ter-driven stories are these three she must change the events to fit the reason things happen tend to primary differences. First, an them. Event and character are just be more one than the other. event-driven story defines the pro- two sides of the same coin. tagonist by what she wants—a de- Stories of war, for example, often sire she has for something outside This understanding, however, mix these two causalities. Nicho- of herself. A character-driven sto- doesn’t answer the question of las Monsarrat’s World War II novel ry defines the protagonist by what who or what causes the story’s ma- The Cruel Sea is a wonderful ex- she lacks—an unconscious need jor events to happen. The greatest ample. Acts of war and the forces that, if she should fulfill it, would difference between event-driven of Mother Nature, of course, are complete her inner humanity. versus character-driven stories is beyond the control of the ship’s determined by the primary source captain and crew. But how they Second, in a pure event-driven of causality. Who or what is most choose to react and act in the face story, the hero/protagonist strug- responsible for causing the story’s of hurricanes and enemy attacks is gles to give the world what the critical turning points? always in their hands. world needs, which is expressed in values such as peace, justice, a In an event- or plot-driven story, Finally and critically, the writer of brotherhood, survival and the like. the major events, especially the a character-driven story seeks to In a pure character-driven story, first few act climaxes, are caused by fill the need that she created in the struggles of the protagonist to forces outside of the protagonist’s her character at the beginning and fill the hole in her humanity are control. Criminals commit crime, supply what the protagonist lacks expressed in values such as love, dictators declare war, plagues over the course of the story—to maturity, trust, hope, and the like— sweep through the world, aliens take the character to the limits of values that she lacks. invade Earth, the sun falls from the human potential, even if the only sky. In character-driven stories, the way that that protagonist can reach Most importantly, the third dif- major events are caused by forc- those limits and complete herself ference between event-driven es within the protagonist’s con- as a human being is to suffer and and character-driven stories be- trol. He falls in love, he commits a perhaps to end in tragedy.

Story Magazine // Issue 005 CHARACTER CREATION

Stay tuned next month, as Robert McKee continues his series on character creation.

Story Magazine // Issue 005 FILM REVIEW: STEPHEN CHOW’S JOURNEY TO THE WEST Part 2 BY ROBERT MCKEE

Robert McKee explains the ways Stephen Chow hits and misses the mark.

Story Magazine // Issue 005 FILM REVIEW

As technology and special effects our hero made a great mistake. the film, the protagonist—hand- have advanced so incredibly, any- It might have been more satisfy- some, pristine, and as unscathed thing—any image imaginable— ing if our hero took the romantic as a human being can be—says, can now be created. Therefore, love when it was offered. "I have suffered and that is how when special effects are brilliant, I learned." I looked at him and they are a triumph for the imag- It is difficult for me to believe thought, "If you suffered, it cer- ination. Mr. Stephen Chow has the last 10% of the film’s uplifting tainly didn't leave any marks. I created wonderful scenes, from spiritual message will really move didn't believe in his realization of the fish demon at the beginning anyone to become better and be higher and lower love and that to the pig demon through to the more spiritual. Because, first, Mr. all love is of equal value. climax of a monkey king, with Chow was having too much fun brilliantly imaginative imagery satirizing the theme of transcen- Journey to the West is in the that is very well produced. dent love. Second, when you are spirit of comedy genre. One of dealing with questions of spiri- the great principles of comedy The hero's quest toward love tuality mixed with magic, this is is that things don't really hurt. and achieving a greater love, a fantasy world. The powers ex- People can explode, people can and not the lesser or romantic ecuted here are magical powers. have limbs torn off, and suffer love, is very well portrayed until The whole point of fantasy and all kinds of hideous torments on toward the end when Mr. Chow magical powers is for fun—to screen and the audience laughs decided to stop dramatizing his imagine ourselves in that kind of and reacts "Yes, but it doesn't meaning and explain it instead. wonderful, extreme, super pow- really hurt." It is cinematic and The climax of the Buddhist’s tri- erful state. But we know it doesn't theatrical suffering. So when the umph over the monkey king was exist. So one has to use the fan- protagonist of this film says, "… predictable, because we know tasy genre to express something and I have suffered and learned that in the ethos of this film, or very realistic and concrete about this." I am sitting there thinking, most of the world, we believe the real world. I think you have "Not in this comedy—I am not that good will triumph over evil. an obligation. If you are going moved." At the end of the film comes a to create worlds that don't exist, rather tedious explanation that the story still has to be rooted Comedy tears the cover off of all there is no such thing as a high- in something that is human and things false and exposes the truth, er love and lesser love; that all expresses a meaning that trans- and the truth is always both pos- love is love. Because it is both ex- lates into reality. itive and negative. It is never sim- pected and explained, the end- ply one or the other. If it leans in ing of the film is anti-climactic; So ultimately, the validity of this any one direction, it leans overall it is a disappointment. But, get- story was in question. It could be toward the negative, because hu- ting up to that ending was full that Mr. Chow chose that kind man nature is not the most gen- of wonderful, highly imaginative of preachy, theme-heavy ending erous of spirits. At best, it is a bal- sequences that made a wonder- simply because he had to get ance of good and evil. The comic ful argument for romantic love. an ending. He really didn't leave mind knows this. So when comedy The argument for romantic love himself any room for an end- ends with this kind of rushed pure is so well-done that even though ing that could be a little more idealism, it strikes as false because a spiritual love wins, I feel that down–to-earth. At the end of the comic impulse itself is to de-

Story Magazine // Issue 005 FILM REVIEW

stroy that kind of idealism and to discover the real causes and the real human nature underneath all of that.

Kung Fu Hustle is one of my fa- vorite films of all time. I have seen it repeatedly. I laugh ev- ery time and thoroughly enjoy it. At the end of Kung Fu Hustle, the protagonist is, in some fash- ion, transcendent. But, he really earns his transcendence. There is a sense of fun in the climax that he grew and changed and that the filmmaker had his tongue in his cheek and we were having fun with that whole idea. But not so in Journey to the West. Here it got really earnest and preachy. The sense of the filmmaker hav- ing a wink in his eye saying, "All of this is to be taken with a grain of salt," was absent.

The best character in the film, without question, is the female protagonist, Miss Duan. She is great because she gets it. There are no transcendent values in her. She understands and wants the reality of love, so she sacri- fices herself repeatedly for this. She is the only one with her feet on the ground, realistic and bal- anced. Comedy is an attack on that kind of empty idealism. She loved him even though he was a kind of a childish idealist. Ulti- mately, when she was gone out of his life and out of the story, the movie was over.

Story Magazine // Issue 005

MCKEE INTERVIEWS STEVEN PRESSFIELD Part 3

In this final part of Robert McKee’s interview with Steven Pressfield, we learn about the gen- esis of Pressfield’s beliefs on war – its inevitability and virtues.

Robert McKee: There is a of view, but also gives you access son. So, when you’re in first per- third-person choice, which is not to their thoughts and even their son, which is your choice at the to be omniscient. unconscious thoughts that they way you do it, and how much could not articulate. access to the mind does that give Steven Pressfield: Yes. you and how much access do you SP: Right. want to the inner life? RM: To see it over the shoulder of your point of view character, RM: That’s the limited third per- SP: I’m not that interested in the in- gives you that character’s point son that pretends to be first per- ner life. I’m not like a Kafka type and

Story Magazine // Issue 005 MCKEE INTERVIEWS STEVEN PRESSFIELD

I’m not really interested in the deep acters are acting despite their SP: Well, I don’t. I don’t know about psychological stuff. I’m only inter- fear. However they act, whether that either, but certainly there are ested in thematic elements of a sto- they’re cowardly or courageous, plenty of characters that are ter- ry and how it will reflect. Then the they are afraid no matter what’s rified and tell you about it as they inner life will apply to that. going on. How, how do you get are relating the story. Particularly in us to sense that inner life. the Afghan campaign, the charac- RM: When I come away from ter of Mathias and that opening se- your novels, I have the impres- SP: Yes, with sort of the inner life quence where they raid the village sion that I have experienced a lot common to anybody, though. You and he has to kill the one guy. He’s of inner life somehow. and I would both be scared in the just coming unpeeled. same way. SP: Well, there is a lot in there, but it’s RM: Right, and he talks to the not like an exhaustive, Freudian sub- RM: Yeah, but there are scenes reader. terranean analysis of it. I really try to in your work, for example Alex- stay away from things like that, which ander in the Afghan campaign— SP: Yeah, and tells them that. I think is why I like history, because usually there are scenes where they’re that makes it real in a way because it’s simpler. The past is simpler. struggling just to move from one we all are scared. end of Afghanistan to another, I think, Bob, that even if you’re writ- and they’re going through a kind RM: I’m sure it does. ing in the first person as a charac- of pass or whatever. The physi- ter, the reader is also knowing that cal struggle—there are characters SP: People have said to me, “Why there’s still you, the author. There’s who are not afraid, and then there do you always write about war? Is still what the book is about above are characters who are afraid. life all conflict?” But I think it is. And and beyond the character, so the There are characters who are full I think that’s what appeals to me character’s voice is not the whole of energy, and there are charac- about it is that those stories, they book, or it is not expressing the ters who are plain exhausted. are metaphors. Life is a battle every point of view of the book. You can day to me. be looking at the character from up SP: Yes, they are different aspects of here, too, which I think helps. That’s the theme. RM: If we’re telling the story in something that you use, and that the first person and the first per- the writer uses. RM: You see all the variety of ex- son is talking to us, did he ever perience, and then when it gets write this book down? Does the RM: Just to get back to battle into action, you’re acutely aware logic of how does his memoir, so scenes for a moment. One of the of the fear involved. Is this some- to speak, get in print? qualities that you experience in thing that we’re reading into it? Is reading your action sequences it that you describe the scene in SP: That’s part of it, too, I think. I sort is fear. such a way that the fear happens of like those memoirs. In fact, that’s in the reader, and that they then a lot of what I read. With a couple of SP: Yeah, that’s very deliberate. know that this must be going on the historical books that I’ve written, in the character as well? Because sort of the conceit of them is that RM: You experience how damn I don’t recall you ever having a they are documents that somebody scary it all is, and how the char- character say, “I’m afraid.” found somewhere, and that they are

Story Magazine // Issue 005 MCKEE INTERVIEWS STEVEN PRESSFIELD

what a guy wrote back then. “Here, I found this. It’s not mine, I his mom and dad. just found it.” Then, as a writer, you RM: Yes, yes. That’s as old as Rob- can really get into it. RM: Yeah, whoever notices kids? inson Crusoe. RM: Then the audience is happy SP: And nobody notices him. He’s SP: I know, but that kind of works in to go along with it. Wonderful. there and he sees everything, and a way, I think. Now, the person is one aspect people will confide in him. So it was of a point of view. The other is no problem to negotiate him into RM: Do you know why? Do you the physical point of view, where a scene. I think when you’re using a know why this device first began? you put that person, what he first-person narrator, it is important sees, hears, and says and how he to find one that can seamlessly be SP: No. moves through space. You’ve got in every scene. an outline, where something has RM: What you do–you write nov- to happen. Then you imagine it RM: Yes, but it isn’t. This sounds els–300 or more years ago, that in its location, and then you’ve to me part of what we call cre- was thought to be photography. got your character. How do you ative limitations. That was thought to be the low- work the physical point of view est of the low, because real writ- in a scene? SP: Yeah. ing was epic poetry or history. It had to be factual. That some- SP: I’m not sure. I just kind of do it. RM: If you could only see the body would write something as I don’t know if this is answering it, scene from the child’s point of if it were history, and then it’s fic- Bob, but as you have said in your view, from the foot soldier’s point tion, was thought to be immoral. classes, a lot of times there will be of view, or from Alexander’s point cops, or detectives will be protag- of view because of that limitation, SP: Really? I didn’t know that. onists, or lawyers, or they’ll be the doesn’t that force you to figure point of view because it’s the nature out strategies of physical point RM: So, how did the writer get of them to investigate. They have of view that you wouldn’t have around with it? Defoe says at the permission to go into your house had if you were omniscient and beginning of Robinson Crusoe, “I and go through your stuff, and all could be anywhere you wanted? found this manuscript washed that kind of thing. up on a beach.” SP: Yes, it does. What’s great about So I think I will always, if I’m having a that, too, is that what is left out of SP: Yeah. narrator, which I always do, I will try the scene, the reader supplies, be- to make sure that he, as seamlessly cause the reader knows, “Well, this RM: Well, here it is. I’m just giv- as possible, can be in every scene. character is only seeing it through ing it to you. All kinds of lies and Like in The Legend of Bagger Vance, this one little stovepipe.” But the conceits opened novels in those it was the little boy, Hardy, who was reader is going, “Ah, well if I was days to say, “Hey, this is history,” helping out Bagger Vance, the cad- standing over here, I would see it a and so that device continues. die. As a little boy, it was the per- different way, or I’d see it this way.” fect device because he can go into And so the reader brings that to it. SP: Yeah. It’s a very liberating device the locker room, he can go out on It’s one other strength of first per- from a writer’s point of view. It’s like, a golf course, and he goes home to son, I think.

Story Magazine // Issue 005 MCKEE INTERVIEWS STEVEN PRESSFIELD

RM: When you’re working on a SP: I guess so. why not? scene like that, do you take a 360° point of view so that you see it RM: Do you even see a golf game RM: It sure is. and then know what you’re not and Bagger Vance as a crucible saying? for… SP: I’m a big believer in stealing any- thing you can. So that was the origin SP: Yes, I do. SP: I do. That was a war story, too, in of that. I’ve always loved the Bhaga- my opinion. vad Gita. I probably read it 12 times. RM: Right, so you’ve imagined it from all points of view. RM: He was a veteran. RM: But still, the leap from that myth to golf? SP: Yeah, yeah. SP: He was a veteran and, you know, it came from the Bhagavad Gita, which SP: It was pretty easy leap, really. RM: Then the third dimension of was a battle war and Krishna—Bag- point of view, of course, is your ger Vance—was a warrior god. RM: Well, to you, but not to oth- author’s point of view, which is ers, really. It wouldn’t be an idea what we have talked about so RM: Yeah, talk about the inspira- that would necessarily occur to far. Your subject is so often war. tion for that first book. You said anyone except somebody who And so when people ask you the that it was based on an Indian has played the game and under- question, “Why do you always myth. stands the caddie-player rela- write about war?” you just hit it tionship. because you think it’s a metaphor SP: There’s a Vedic Hindu scripture, for everything. Your book on Al- the Bhagavad Gita, which people SP: Let me go back to one thing we exander is called The Virtues of maybe have read in their com- were just talking about. War, and it seems to me that all parative religion classes. It’s sort of of your books somehow are dif- the Hindu Bible. It’s the book that RM: Sure. ferent aspects of the virtues of Gandhi used to free India, and it’s war, whether it changes politics a great book about a troubled war- SP: And that is the difference be- or not. rior named Arjuna (it’s a very short tween the ostensible point of view, book) who receives spiritual in- the narrator’s point of view, the story SP: I think that’s true, yeah. struction from his charioteer, who he is telling you, and what the book happens to be Krishna, i.e., God in is telling you—what the author and RM: Right, but it is a cauldron for human form. what the greater theme is talking testing that… about. Sometimes this comes back When I did Bagger Vance, instead to instinct for me whereby you finish SP: For the virtues of inner integrity. of a troubled warrior getting advice a book and you go, “Wow, I didn’t from his charioteer, I made it a trou- realize it was about that.” It just sort RM: Right. So your point of bled golf champion getting advice of took that form. view—except in the case of Bag- from his caddie, and the caddie was ger Vance—is that virtually every- God or was God in human form. I Like in Killing Rommel, my most re- thing is about the virtues of war. just stole that structure lock, stock, cent book is a story of this British and barrel. It’s a great structure, so patrol that goes behind the lines

Story Magazine // Issue 005 MCKEE INTERVIEWS STEVEN PRESSFIELD

in the North African desert, World forces men—human beings—to but you’re glorifying what is an War II, trying to kill Rommel, the act under pressure to either be- anathema.” head general of the African Corps. come a better person or a worse It’s told from the point of view of a person. That somehow there is SP: I would say that they’re not read- young British lieutenant who will a moral relationship between ing what I’m writing correctly, be- turn out to be an editor and pub- the choices that a person has to cause it’s not glorifying it. In fact, as lisher—a very literate, literary guide. make in life and death, and their you said, a lot of my story is showing destiny as a human being. Is that how terrible war is. But war is a met- The story seems to be a war story right? aphor, in this case, for the internal all the way through, and then in the conflicts. In fact, theBhagavad Gita end, there’s an epilogue that’s his fu- SP: Yes. In fact, I think that you could starts with two armies across from neral as an older man. He died in his even do a parallel to private eyes, each other. It starts with chariots in 80s. In the end you see how these as again, you’ve talked about, like a India—chariots, elephants, and ar- events in wartime changed him Philip Marlowe or somebody will chers and all this kind of thing. and made him fall in love with the have evolved a code of honor. Even novel and with the idea of sharing though he is in these mean streets, Arjuna, our hero, the warrior on one human experience. He had killed he has evolved a kind of code of side, looks across at the other war- some people in this thing that he honor. That’s what the author is re- riors and he recognizes people—un- felt terrible about, and he felt that ally talking about, in a way. cles and cousins. Each one of those the war really impressed upon him represents, in the interpretations of the fact that the enemy was human I think, “What are the virtues of war?” the Gita, certain vices. This one rep- beings just like we are. They could For me, they are things like patience, resents slothfulness, and this one have been friends, so why were they a capacity to endure suffering, loy- represents greed, and this one rep- trying to kill us? Why were we killing alty to friends, a love for the enemy, resents cowardice, and they all have them? And so his afterlife was sort chivalry, integrity, trying to hold to names, Indian names, Ayurvedic of a penance for that in a way. a higher standard. I think that these names that represent that. And so are internal virtues that we all need. that is a perfect example of how war When the book is all done, what’s As writers, we need them to face is actually a metaphor in the story. written seems to be a war story, but the blank page every day. As artists, it’s really about a literary man. It’s we need them. In relationships, we RM: Stepping back, though, you really about a man who was trying, need them. And that’s sort of my also have blogged and I know through art, to ameliorate some of point of view of life. That just as Philip you’re—as we all are—deeply the pain of the world and to bring Marlowe and the mean streets have concerned about the wars in Af- people together in a way. It’s really developed a sort of a code of hon- ghanistan and Iraq and about ev- sort of a peon to literature. or, that that is in place of religion or erything you’ve seen in history. what we might have, or you might Are you a fatalist? Do you think And I didn’t know that until the not have anyone. I think a lot of my war is inevitable? whole thing was over. books have examined those virtues. SP: Absolutely. It seems to be part RM: Looking back on all of it, if I RM: What would you say to an of the human condition. I don’t could suggest a grand theme, is antiwar person with that point of know how anybody can see it any would be that the virtue of war view, who says, “Yes, yes, all that, differently.

Story Magazine // Issue 005 MCKEE INTERVIEWS STEVEN PRESSFIELD

RM: So, you make a virtue out of SP: Actually. I do. When I find the SP: For Killing Rommel, which was what is inevitable anyway, and words that are right for certain World War II, I read a bunch of real see it as a condition of life that things, or slang phrases, like I said, I memoirs from that time—in that era we have to? have a file on slang and acronyms. and in that place, in that same cam- I’m working on a story that’s set in paign. I would copy or mentally try SP: When we were cavemen, we still ancient Athens or ancient Sparta. So to do my stuff just like they did it. I had to hunt, which was kind of the the voice to create, to make it be- would write down any phrase that same thing, right? A band would go lievable, is found by reading works rang a bell. The more details you can out facing predators and horrible that are written by Oxford and Cam- layer in, in vocabulary and every- freezing conditions. bridge dons. The translations of Xe- thing else, the more real it sounds. nophon or Thucydides came from RM: It’s worse than that. Remem- the early 20th century or the 19th RM: Of course it does. As I have ber that body they found in the century. So they’re very formal and stressed many times, an author Swiss mountainside. It’s 5000 that’s kind of the way Shakespeare is somebody with knowledge, years old, and somebody shot and Julius Caesar spoke. These an- and one of the things they know him with an arrow. cient characters speak in a flowery is the names of things. language, and so I try to create a SP: Right. hybrid of that and modern slang or SP: Yes. whatever. RM: There was a lot from hunt- RM: Last subject. When you do ing animals, I’m sure. RM: You do. You introduce the your outline and it gets worked modernism. into the novel, how do you break SP: Conflict is a part of life, right? Like the structure of the telling down? we just said, the coyote is coming SP: To try to make it seem real. The basic structure is a chap- up the driveway. It has teeth, fangs ter, but the chapter becomes a and it is out there to kill. The hawks RM: As if it was their slang, as if it book or a part, and then within that are cruising around here, that’s was their language. the chapter there are subchap- just their nature. God made it this ters where you space in order to way. SP: Yeah. To me, that’s my version of break a scene. When you’re work- it. I’ve read translations of the Iliad, ing, how do you know? Let’s just RM: Yes, and that is the way we all where they bring it so modern that start with the middle section, the understand it. How do you gather it loses a lot of the reality for me. middle thing, the chapter. How the vocabulary, especially when do you know when a chapter is you’re writing period material? RM: The Bible, too, has been over? How do you know? Do you The names of things? Verbs and translated out of all, you know… end it on a clear turning point? actions are pretty universal, but What punctuates it? there might be terminologies for SP: Yeah, I hate it when they do that. doing things that are unique to SP: That’s another great question. that period. How do you gather RM: Right. I’m a fallen Catholic, For me it’s about the negative space, the vocabulary? Do you have a and I hated it when the Mass went it’s about what you cut. They say special file in your computer just from Latin to English. I think a lot that movies are just made of shots for names of things? of people did. and cuts. So it’s the space between

Story Magazine // Issue 005 MCKEE INTERVIEWS STEVEN PRESSFIELD

the end of Chapter 4 and the start SP: A scene, although in a novel, of SP: No, I don’t. Although there prob- of Chapter 5. There can be a lot of course, you might have 30 scenes ably are hooks that I’m not even great empty space in there that really strung together in paragraph, para- aware of. I hope there’s momentum tells you a lot. You don’t even have graph, paragraph. going paragraph after paragraph, to write the thing. I also break it into but I don’t think that usually with- books. There might be four or five RM: Yes, because language can in a chapter. I’m not really trying to books in the course of a book, and expand and contract. turn the story in any way—I’ll wait. that’s really about where the cut is— I’ll wait until the end of a chapter. where the curtain comes down and SP: Right, and also you go off on then the next act starts. internal plots and stuff like that, so RM: Well, I remember that when it isn’t just like a movie where you I read Bagger Vance. It seemed RM: That book would be an act have to have a scene. to me that every chapter was a climax. sequence that had scenes that RM: But overall, would that be were spilling one into the other, SP: Yeah. What you’ve left out can your sense of things? That if but they weren’t pausing to pay really work great when you go from you’ve got a string of events in a attention to the turning points the end of one to the start of anoth- scene, so called, are those real- within the scenes. er. One of the greatest cuts ever, I ly events, or are they exposition think, was in the Deer Hunter where with a lot of action, or…? SP: Yeah, I think so. they went from this whole long thing about the Russian wedding SP: I think they’re thematically bound RM: The chapter was solid. in Western Pennsylvania, and then together. There may be three little it cut to choppers coming down scenes, one long scene, one mono- SP: Let me think about that until we in Vietnam. That space contained logue or something like that, but talk about it. all the training these guys went there is kind of this through line go- through, all of what happened to ing to it. A lot of times, it will boo- RM: It was the solitude, and every them, and you didn’t miss it at all. merang around and come back to one of those chapters was just a It left you thinking, “Wow, that was where it started from. I always like standalone kind of thing. There a great cut.” I try to do things like to end chapters with a little bit of a are other novelists who break that. twist—a little bit of something that chapters into subchapters, and gives you momentum and gives those units are really standalone. RM: Make a big leap like that and the reader momentum and propels then, by implication, the reader them into the next chapter. SP: Yeah, that’s true. Like scenes, has got to fill it all in. So if a book yeah. in your mind is the equivalent of RM: The common term is a hook. an act, the chapter then would RM: Yeah, but with language, be a sequence. SP: Yeah. you can compress so much and leap from one thing to the other. SP: Yes. RM: You want to hook your chap- Great, that’s all my questions. RM: And the subchapter within ters. Do you worry about hooks it would be a scene. within the chapters? SP: I have nothing left to say, Bob.

Story Magazine // Issue 005

ROBERT MCKEE INTERVIEWS COMEDIC LEGEND DREW CAREY Part 1

Robert McKee and Drew Carey discuss what makes a good joke, the structure of a joke, and some of Mr. Carey’s comedic challenges.

Story Magazine // Issue 005 MCKEE INTERVIEWS DREW CAREY

RM: One of the great principles DC: I had a United flight on on my face—the trunk lid on my of comedy I would love to talk Wednesday night—a redeye. You’ve face while I was packing the car to about is, if I ever write a book on taken redeye flights yourself, right? go to the airport. comedy, it’s going to be called Comedy: The Angry Art. RM: Yes, I have. RM: So one of the things we can be angry about and hate are DC: Yeah. DC: It leaves LA at 11:00 and gets kids? into DC at 6:00 in the morning or RM: The root of comedy is an- something like that. You figure ev- DC: Yeah. In my act, I go on about ger. To get started, I’m wonder- erybody’s going to snooze on the the government. I have a bit in my ing, what pisses you off? plane. So they got the lights up, act about Brad Pitt, because he’s they got the TVs on, they do full so good-looking and perfect. You DC: You know, I’m having a prob- service–full food service. I couldn’t know, stuff like that. lem with that lately, because I’m sleep a wink. If I get up and com- so satisfied with my life. I was writ- plain—I’m on this first-class and RM: Let me give you, for exam- ing my theory. If you notice, once United wouldn’t let me sleep—I’d ple, institutions. Five institu- comedians get to be rich and get sound like a putz. tions: government, religion, the their own shows, people say, “Oh, military, corporations, Holly- they lost their edge,” or, “They’re To combat that, as often as I can, I wood. not as funny as they used to be.” buy my own groceries, pump my That’s because they quit waiting in own gas, and do all that stuff as DC: Yeah, you can easily rail against line at the grocery store, they get much as I can just so I don’t lose all of those things. chauffeured places, and they’re touch, because otherwise, I will. not sweating the rent. My kid bums me out. My fiancée RM: What would you pick if you has a four-year-old. I love him, for had to? If you were on a desert All of a sudden, everything is the record, because I know he’s go- island and you had to do stand- okay. All of the best jokes, all the ing to see this one day. I love him up to a palm tree, who would best routines, are always the lit- like crazy, he’s the greatest thing, you attack? tle guy against something big. It’s but he is like the worst roommate I the small against the big. It’s the ever had in my life. There’s nothing DC: Well, if it was a desert island control against the uncontrolla- a four-year-old brings to the table with a palm tree, then religion. ble, and it doesn’t have to be an that’s good, besides he’s fun at a institution. It could be an insti- party and he hugs me and he says RM: Religion? tution, it could be traffic, weath- he loves me and then that makes er, God—something that controls up for everything. But I have this DC: Yeah, because you can’t see it. you that you can’t do anything thing in my face right now, you can If it was just me on a desert island about that you just want to yell barely see it because it’s covered with a buddy, I would be like, “Why at. So I’m pretty satisfied with my up by makeup. would God do this? What kind of life lately. God is this?” I used to have a bit in RM: Yeah, it’s a bruise. my act about the Pope. As he trav- RM: That’s really disappointing els and does parades, he has bul- to hear. DC: Yeah, he slammed the car lid letproof glass on the Pope Mobile.

Story Magazine // Issue 005 MCKEE INTERVIEWS DREW CAREY

Of all the people that are guaran- DC: My whole life, I’ve always hat- really has to be jokes like you’re teed to go to heaven, why is the ed rich people. Now that I’m rich… against the other and it’s exclu- Pope worried about taking a bul- sionary, which you can do. My let? What does he know that we RM: You see the other side of it. friend Greg Proops makes fun don’t know? Why does he get the of NASCAR people all the time. special protection? He’s the Pope, DC: Yeah. I still think, “What are It’s great. But to get the bigger right? He’s clear. He should be walk- you complaining about?” When I audience, it’s better if it’s some- ing down the street with his shirt hear rich people complain about thing that bugs everybody. off with no armor. We’re the ones something, I think, “What? Shut that need the bulletproof glass un- up.” Every once in a while, I think, That brings me to this point til we make a good decision in our “Oh, that jerk that does blah blah,” here. The key to comedy, or the lives, but he’s got all this bulletproof and I realize I do the same thing all key to a comic character, is what glass. the time. That jerk with the big car, I call a blind obsession. and I drive a Lexus. But my day-to- There’s a lot of stuff that about re- day car is a Mini Cooper, because DC: Yeah. ligion that bugs me. On a desert it’s easier to park in LA. The big car island, I would take religion. If we just drives me crazy. RM: They’re driven toward were in a city somewhere, in an something, but they just don’t apartment, I could go against the RM: But you’re still driving your- see it in themselves. local government. self, as you said. DC: Yeah. RM: Suppose I asked you to DC: Yeah, of course. The traffic work, like you were airing a sit- in this town sucks, but the Mini RM: What you’re saying is that if com, and we wanted to go af- Cooper makes it more bearable you’re going to nail one of these ter a certain kind of personality. because you can swing in and out personality traits, it’s got to be Not an institution, but an indi- easier, and if somebody scratches combined with something that vidual. Here’s a choice: rich peo- it, it’s no big deal. is obsessive and… ple, rednecks, arrogant people, dimwitted stupid people, and If somebody cuts me off, I think, DC: Yeah, like with the NASCAR wannabe intellectuals. “Who do you think you are with fan, if that’s all they care about and your big car? You think you’re bet- they’re just spilling beer on you, DC: Oh, you got me in there, that’s ter than me because I have a Mini saying, “Get out of my way; I can’t good. Way to define Drew. Well, Cooper?” I go right back to being see my wife today because I’m rich people would be kind of easy. in Cleveland again with my crap- watching this sport.” You can do But rich people aren’t always bad. py car when somebody would cut the same thing with football fans It would have to be rich and arro- me off. It’s great. or any sport guy that just ignores gant. You would have to give them his family for the sport, and is re- another trait. Some rich people do RM: Arrogance is good. The red- ally obnoxious about it. a lot of good. neck would have to be redneck and stupid. If it’s just a redneck RM: When you were doing The RM: Did you always think that who is simple and has good val- Drew Carey Show for nine years, rich people…? ues and likes NASCAR, then it did your character have a blind

Story Magazine // Issue 005 MCKEE INTERVIEWS DREW CAREY

obsession? comic flaw to give someone. Then DC: Yeah–tension, tension, ten- you can do all of these comedy of sion. DC: Yeah, mine was I had a strong manners things. You just give them sense of duty, and so it was always anything. For example, somebody RM: The kind of taboo subjects up to me to save things because takes their parking space or some- for… nobody else would. body bumps into them or serves them the wrong thing at a restau- DC: Well, it doesn’t even have to RM: So the blindly nice? rant; they go ballistic and can’t be taboo, but that’s why taboo control themselves. jokes work, but you can’t go over DC: I guess so. Bruce Helford, the the line. Freud wrote a really great guy I created the show with, talked You would put them in a situa- book about this comedy. I forget to executives and he’d explain my tion—this is all off the top of my what it was called, but I read it when character. He’d say I was a happy head, so it’s not necessarily the best I was in college. One of the things sack. I took this course once. This idea—like in a job interview or an he talked about was that in order guy, Sam Chistin, said—it’s a really important lunch where the big job for comedy to take place, every- good requirement, I recommend is at stake and the mortgage and body has to have a spirit of play. it for any actor—your essences are the family. The waiter brings the You talk about it in your course, things about you that only apply wrong thing or calls him “bub” in- your comedy course, with the idea to you. He gives you these phras- stead of “sir,” and you watch them of nobody getting really hurt. es to describe yourself, and one lose control and go off. Those are of the phrases that describes me really great because the whole au- RM: That’s right. was, “Gee, whitewashing the fence dience sees it coming and every- with those guys was really fun.” No body is like, “Oh, wait for this.” You DC: If somebody gets hurt, then it matter how many people took ad- need a lot of tension and content. violates the spirit of play. vantage of me, I didn’t mind, and I said, “Well, I’ll just go get them Tension is very important in com- RM: Yeah. tomorrow.” You could have a lot of edy. That’s why dirty jokes and fun with a character like that, and when comics go to the edge, peo- DC: That’s why guys come out in that’s really kind of what I want. ple say, “I can’t believe he’s talking funny suits sometimes and every- about this.” They get really tense. thing is a joke. When people go RM: Yes, and then you surround- And then if you hit it just right, you into a comedy club, they know ed yourself with some zanies in can pop the balloon and it gets a they’re going to laugh. Even the that sitcom—you could point big laugh. colors and stuff they use in comedy out their obsessions. movies are brighter colors, usually. RM: Yes, this is the next subject, Even the way they’re shot lets ev- DC: Yeah, Mimi’s thing was just of course: setups and punches. erybody know that this is not seri- hating me so much. She didn’t The setup, then, is actually hot ous. So there’s not a lot of depth of care what it took to get rid of me. stuff. field, and shots and stuff like that. The Mimi character was a big grudge-holder. Somebody who DC: Tension. With the taboo subjects, you can can’t let go of her grudge, or can’t take them right until the spirit of forget a slight, that’s a really good RM: It has to be tension. play is ruined. People that are really

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good that can go right to that point, DC: The tension is, “Isn’t it a bitch, ent ways? get the tension built up really big, as the one time you need a handi- long as you’re not hurting anybody, capped space?” First of all, you DC: Yeah, I could’ve ruined that and then you can let it go. can’t believe people are saying tons of ways. that. It’s all in one thing, so if you I did a benefit once that was for need to break it down, the ten- RM: No, no, not ruined it. Don’t some kind of thing. There was a sion is that I’m talking about it. If you think that’s such a hot setup bunch of handicapped people in you see somebody handicapped, that once you’ve got that, you the crowd. There must’ve been the thing is you just don’t mention could do a whole routine? 20 dudes in wheelchairs, a bunch it. The polite thing is to not say a of blind people. Half the crowd thing. DC: Yeah, you could act it out. must’ve been handicapped. No- There’s ways to do the joke. For body was saying a thing, like they I have a friend named Kip Addotta. stand-up, you can tell the joke, act weren’t handicapped. I got up on He doesn’t do stand-up anymore, out the joke. I could’ve told it and stage and said, “You know what’s a but he was funny. He said, “I think then done a thing, “Excuse me, I bitch? Like the one day you really that when you see a handicap per- can’t get a parking spot.” What- need a handicap spot.” son, you should walk right up to ever, I can’t think of a thing right them and say, ‘What the fuck hap- now, but you could definitely act. RM: Did they get it? pened to you?’ You know, totally There’s a lot of comics that have don’t ignore it.” that rhythm—they tell the joke and DC: I don’t know, they laughed re- then they act it out. Or they just ally hard. But you know, somebody RM: Well, I’ve always thought act it out, and some guys just tell has got to say something. that those handicap parking it and you have the vision in your places should be at the farthest head. RM: Right, there’s an elephant end of the parking lot possi- in the room. ble, because what these people When I told that joke, I had a vi- need is exercise. sion in my head of 10 handicapped DC: Yeah, you’ve got to talk about guys with cars looking for that one the elephant in the room. DC: Yeah, right? space but having to walk because the other handicapped guy got RM: When you’re building a joke, RM: You’re right up at the door. it before they did. Argue about if where do you put the most cre- I mean, that’s ridiculous. They you are more handicapped than ative effort—into the setup, into need to walk, you know. I am. Argue over who is the most creating a situation? You just handicapped and who deserves did a great joke in a room full of DC: The fact that you’re talking the space more. There’s ways you handicapped people and every- about it is the tension part. can go to get it going. body is ignoring it. So you’ve al- ready got our energy right now. RM: When you’ve got a great RM: I’m suggesting that the real setup, like an audience full of creative act is the setup. DC: Yeah, I’m just… handicapped people and no- body is talking, don’t you think DC: Yeah. The toughest part about RM: Having set that up… you could punch that 15 differ- writing the joke, is coming up with

Story Magazine // Issue 005 MCKEE INTERVIEWS DREW CAREY

subjects. That’s the hardest part. If on TV. Half my time is spent going DC: All this stuff about giving a you’re going to be a professional through Yellow Pages for different character a flaw and a blind am- comedy writer, that’s the toughest jobs, going through thesauruses, bition and all that stuff—it makes it thing. I have a writing exercise that dictionaries—any kind of collec- so much easier if you just lay that I tell people about if they’re doing tions of books. I spent a lot of time groundwork. Then you’re building stand-up: Try to write 10 jokes a just poring through those things. your house on brick, and the wolf day to try to get one good joke, I had computer programs that will never blow it down. because that was my percentage— would help, and that would help one out of 10. I’d think of 10 things, make word associations for me so RM: And yet, in the great eight- but only one was even kind of fun- I wouldn’t do the same old stuff. year television series, Whose ny. So I just write 10 jokes and try In the 60s and 70s, for a while ev- Line Is it Anyway? the structure to get one funny joke a day, five erybody was doing airplane jokes; there was they sort of had to days a week. One funny joke a day, everybody had an airplane bit. create the setup. five days a week. It’s tough to do. You get about 45 minutes a year RM: Yeah. DC: I was just watching it the other out of it that way for stand-up. night. It just happened to be on TV DC: Even Cosby had an airplane and I watched the whole episode. The tough part is coming up with bit, but his was really funny. We did a show called Newscast- subjects, because my rule was they ers, and Colin or somebody would had to be clean enough to do on RM: The little kid on the air- be the anchor, and he would give network TV, like a talk show, such plane. himself a funny name but he didn’t as The Tonight Show or Letterman. have to do a character, and then They couldn’t be topical, so I didn’t DC: Yeah, “Hope the plane don’t everybody else had to do a char- allow myself to do topical jokes. I crash.” acter. We would assign them the could write topical jokes and dirty character. jokes, but I couldn’t include them RM: It seems to me that a lot in my 10. I had to come up with of people who are struggling They didn’t know what they had to 10 things that weren’t topical—I to write comedy do it the oth- do, but the producers would think couldn’t talk about the Oscars, I er way around. They’ve actually it up. For example, Wayne Brady is couldn’t do a joke about the sports got what they think is a punch- a really good dancer, so we made game. I couldn’t do a joke about line, but they have no setup for him a background dancer in a rap what Obama just said. I could, but it and they go looking for setups video. “You’re a female background I don’t count them in my 10, and to match their punch. That will dancer in a rap video,” and he was that’s really hard. drive you crazy. doing the sports. We know he’s going to go crazy, and as soon as RM: Finding universal human… DC: You can’t do anything with we said it, the audience is laugh- that. How are you going to have ing because they know something DC: You run out of things. Like, you a punchline unless you know good is going to come out of it. know, the wife, the husband, sex. what you’re throwing a punchline Then you get dirty; you can’t do the about? All that Wayne has to do, then, is sex things. You want to, but you’ve that acting thing where you have to got to keep it clean enough to do RM: Exactly. let go of fear. The fear is the worst

Story Magazine // Issue 005 MCKEE INTERVIEWS DREW CAREY

thing an actor can have. Once you’re writing comedies, a lot of it cent that was practicing making you let go of any kind of fear, or is list-making. out with a girl. fear of judgment or anything like that, then you can do anything. RM: What does that mean— Brad Sherwood had to do his bit, So Wayne got up there and he list-making? then Wayne Brady had to do his just went crazy. He came over by bit, and then Colin. So Ryan had my desk and danced. He grabbed DC: Okay, I’m going to do and bit all these minutes—he had like a one of the other performers and about, let’s say, rich rednecks. So minute and a half to think, “What hugged them and danced all over you have the Beverly Hillbillies would an awkward teenager do them. It was just fantastic, and all kind of rich rednecks. So you make when he was practicing making you have to do is go for it 100%. a list: what kind of car would a rich out?” He did this move, and my redneck drive? You know, types of arms aren’t long enough, but he You have to have the basic thing cars they would buy. They would reached around and did that. He down there. We have a good pro- have a Daewoo with spinners. Just went to kiss two cameras. He had fession for them to be, we have a give me a Daewoo with spinners— like four or five faces, and that’s re- good situation, and then the rest of if you see that, then you can make ally all the bit was is he had to think it was just him going for it. So that’s 10 jokes about that. of like three faces to make, three the punch. He did all the punch- make out faces and three camer- lines, but we provided the ground- RM: Sure. as to go to, and then turn around work. That’s the secret of Whose and change his voice. Line: we provided the groundwork DC: It’s a pimp with one bitch, you for everybody in a really good way, know. You just make a list of things So really quickly in his head, he and then all they had to do was go that rich people do—things that only had to come up with like five for it. rednecks do. things. It’s pretty easy when you’ve been doing improv for so long. RM: I have watched hundreds RM: Yes, but how can Ryan or You just get trained to come up of hours of Whose Line is it Any- Wayne or those guys do that with things when you do improv way? All those guys—Wayne, from one minute to the next? a lot. The key to improv is called Ryan Stiles—it seems to me that Are those lists already in a file yes/and. it’s more than just letting them- cabinet in their head? selves go. RM: Called yes/and? DC: Yeah, they are. They are DC: Right, there is more to it. searching their RAM and search- DC: Yes/and. Somebody tells you ing their hard drive as fast as they something, and you agree. What- RM: They get into a great sit- can to come up with stuff. Then, if ever it is they tell you, that’s the uation—that’s the setup. Then you look at them on Whose Line, reality, and then the “and” is what they’ve got to find variations on when you give them the sugges- you add to it. So if we’re just meet- that theme somehow. I watch tion like, “Okay, you’re going to ing and there are no suggestions these guys and I think, “Where be a background dancer in a rap from the audience, I say, “Good does this come from? video,” and then I go to tell Ryan morning, Doctor.” You’re a doc- what he’s going to be. Ryan was tor. You can’t say, “I’m not a doc- DC: A lot of it is list-making. If going to be an awkward adoles- tor, I’m the salesman.” Now we’re

Story Magazine // Issue 005 MCKEE INTERVIEWS DREW CAREY

both screwed, because no mat- you’re thinking of the next “and.” use word puns. It’s all the things ter what I say, you’re going to say, “Boy, I wish I hadn’t been drinking.” they use in comedy writing, but in “Yes, Doctor.” And you say, “Hello, Now I have a drunk doctor on my improv, a lot of it is exaggeration Nurse.” Now I’m a nurse. You could hands and I have to think of what and making it bigger than it needs add to it and go, “You look lovely a nurse would be doing, and how to be or more dangerous than it in your dress today.” Now I’m a fe- to deal with the drunk doctor. As needs to be. male nurse. long as you keep adding to it, then you keep the scene going. RM: But I’m just thinking that in Okay, now the audience has to let the midst of… you pimp me a little bit. The au- RM: Amazing, but it seems to dience has a laugh because now me inside all of that, of course, DC: I didn’t answer the question. I have to change and act female, you’re building jokes. and I have to agree with everything RM: No, no. In the midst of an you say. “Well, let’s get the oper- DC: Yeah. improv, there has got to be a ation going.” So now we’re going sense that we’ve gone too long to operate. That doctor can do a RM: So you’ve got to be con- without a laugh. lot of things. They can do lunch, cerned about a number of but now I say we’re going to oper- things, and certainly the timing. DC: Oh, yeah. Right, a lot of time. ate. This is how you make the list. If we’re going to do an operation, DC: Right. RM: So then what? there’s scalpels and things. You’ve seen doctor movies, so you start RM: How do you build a situa- DC: Well, then you start sweating to do things in your head and just tion to a point where the audi- and maybe somebody from the move around stage making lists in ence’s attention is peaking, and back will come and help you out. your head. “I’m going to arrange then where do you get a punch We were doing a show and there my scalpels, I’m going to wash my to explode all of that tension? was two doctors—that’s what they hands, I’m putting my mask on,” so ended up being. They said, “Let’s that’s the list. DC: In improv, you’re not really operate on this guy,” and I ran up looking for punchlines, per se. The to be the guy they were operating But it’s only three or four things “ands” are really the punchlines on. I walked in, and I said, “Sorry you’ve got to think of, so it’s easy. back and forth and the actions. I’m late.” There was actually a lull, You’re not making a big list. To You’ll find yourself in funny situ- and you just reminded me. It was do a stand-up routine, you might ations. This little yes/and formula like a month ago, so there was little make a list of 20 things and real- really works some magic some- lull there, so I just walked in and I ly pore through some research, times, because, you’ll be thinking said, “Sorry I’m late.” I lay down on depending on the subject. You of an “and” to put in there and you’ll a stool, and I got a big laugh be- need three or four things just to add something ridiculous. That’s cause it was like, “Okay, well, time get to the next line because while where it really is—you’re looking to get operating.” And then they you’re doing your action—putting for a comic exaggeration or a min- realize there’s no body there. So your mask on—you’re thinking of imization or something like that. that’s the way you add things. the next “and.” You’ve agreed that you’re going to operate, and now There are also improv games that RM: There’s an expression in

Story Magazine // Issue 005 MCKEE INTERVIEWS DREW CAREY

stand-up that if you get them They’re allowed to do all these to laugh then you killed, but if things and you have a success. not then you died. If you’re doing a comedy or a DC: Yeah, yeah. It’s death and dy- stand-up and you don’t get a ing. laugh, then you fail. They can be surprised, they can be hopeful, RM: There’s a lot of death and they can be wondering what’s go- dying in comedy. ing to happen next, but if they’re not laughing, then it’s failure, fail- DC: “That was a knockout.” It’s ure, failure. You’re only allowed always violent words they use. to get a laugh to be successful. That’s the one thing about com- RM: Yes. But that sensation of edy that’s hard for me and hard dying—it is a physical thing, for people to grasp. I don’t buy it isn’t it? when people say, “Oh, that was a funny movie.” And I go, “Really?” DC: Yeah. I don’t know if you They say, “Yeah, it had that one ever told a joke—you guys who’ve or two funny parts.” And I say, ever been on a date or been with “Yeah, so what?” I go to a movie a group of people you just met, to laugh. and you go, “Oh, I have a joke.” And then you tell your joke and RM: My standard of a great everybody just stares at you, or comedy movie is how many they don’t laugh that much, or times I laugh so hard that, no somebody like the waiter comes sound comes out. by and interrupts before you can get the joke out and then ruins DC: Yeah. it. Do that for an hour. See how happy you are by the end of it. RM: You know, that convulsion where you… RM: That’s a nightmare. DC: Yeah. DC: You would rather die. That’s the thing in doing a comedy— RM: Six of those, and this is a you’re only allowed to have one great film. outcome. With any other kind of movie, such as a mystery, a dra- DC: I like it when everybody’s ma, or any kind of regular movie, laughing so much that I can’t hear people are allowed to feel excit- the movie—when I miss dialogue ed and then sad and then hopeful because everybody’s laughing so and relieved and then surprised. hard. That’s funny.

Story Magazine // Issue 005 MCKEE INTERVIEWS DREW CAREY

Drew Carey is one of the most suc- lowed, and then, in 1995, Drew cessful television comedians and joined forces with writer/pro- game show hosts of the past 20 ducer Bruce Helford to create years. Drew was born and raised The Drew Carey Show. Drew’s in Cleveland, Ohio. At an early age, loyalty to his hometown and ev- however, his father passed away eryman persona endeared him and his mother was compelled to audiences as The Drew Carey to work long hours outside of the Show became one of the most home. Drew found solace in car- popular sitcoms on television, toons and comedy albums. running for over nine years and 200 episodes. As a teenager, he enrolled in Kent State University, but crises in his In 1997, Drew published his au- personal life got him expelled tobiography, Dirty Jokes and twice. Finally, dropping out of Beer: Stories of the Unrefined. college, he found new direction In 1998, Drew began hosting and discipline upon joining the the improvisational game show, Marine Corps. His six-year mil- Whose Line Is it Anyway? The itary stint gave him new confi- show ran for eight years, winning dence and focus. an Emmy with four more nomi- nations. Upon leaving the service, a close friend of Drew’s, who worked at a In February 2003, Drew received radio station, asked him to write the highest of honors: a star on a few jokes to use on the air. From the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In there, Drew honed his wit and 2004 and 2005, Drew developed channeled his enormous ener- and starred in a whole new form gy into comedy, doing stand-up of television improvisation, Drew and working as an emcee at the Carey’s Green Screen Show on the Cleveland Comedy Club. WB network.

Drew’s career-defining moment In 2007, he was selected to host came in 1991 when an appearance the CBS nighttime game show, on The Tonight Show with Johnny Power of 10. Just as that se- Carson changed his life forever. ries was coming to an end, Bob After the set, Drew was called over Barker, the famous host of the to the couch to sit next to the great long-running game show The Johnny Carson, the ultimate coup Price is Right, retired. When CBS for any young comedian. offered Drew the job, at first he declined. But then, on The David A series of HBO specials and Letterman Show, he announced television appearances soon fol- that he was taking over. CAREY

Story Magazine // Issue 005 MCKEE INTERVIEWS DREW CAREY

See the next issue of STORY Magazine for Part 2 of our special interview with Drew Carey.

Story Magazine // Issue 005

HOW HOLLYWOOD REALLY WORKS Producers: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly BY ED SAXON

In this month’s exploration of the inner workings of Hollywood, Ed Saxon explains how pro- ducers think.

Story Magazine // Issue 005 HOW HOLLYWOOD REALLY WORKS

Let’s talk about producers. There who is doing essentially the same producer’s point of view. We pro- are certainly some bad producers thing, and you’re going to have a ducers have multiple projects at and some great producers. Gener- problem. any given time. You want to be ally, by and large, the people who your own best producer, which are in production are pursuing it So producers have a pretty de- means being a squeaky wheel and as a passion. There’s a tremendous cent sense of what’s fair and not pushing the producer, but you also amount of competition to be in fair. They want to keep their proj- want to listen to what the produc- the movie business. There is no ects unencumbered, so the idea er’s problems are in order to of- prerequisite for being a producer. that they will steal your ideas isn’t fer some help. It may be that he Producers are usually smart people so realistic, especially when you’re needs you to do some free writing, who could make more money do- working with people who have a and it may mean that you need to ing something else, but they have track record in the business. do a casting list. It could be any a passion for motion pictures, just number of things, but remember: like writers, just like directors. The movie industry is a very small the producer’s problems are your business. That’s a problem when problems because the producer is Most of the players in the movie you’re trying to break into it. How- trying to get your movie made in business are passionate players— ever, once you’re in it, the business the best way possible. they are people who want to pay tends to operate a lot on trust and for the material they have. They most of the people tend be ethical. Those are a few things to think may not have a lot of money to If a producer seems to be acting about when working with produc- pay, but they don’t want to steal shifty and is not giving you straight ers. people’s material just out of self-- answers, it’s a good idea to write interest. Stealing someone’s work, your questions down. An email WHAT PRODUCERS LOOK FOR especially someone who is just puts your question on record. If starting out and you could prob- you’re still not getting an answer, I am a feature film producer, so ably buy their work for not a lot you can send another email and what am I looking for? First and of money, is idiotic because you’re say, “This was unanswered and I foremost, when I read a script, I’m better off paying a little bit when need an answer.” looking for something I can get you have the money and not hav- made. Talent follows material, so ing a lawsuit later. You don’t want I also find that writing down ques- I’m looking for something that tal- to encumber your project with tions, even if you don’t send them, ent is going to want to follow. complications, and most produc- tends to help you crystallize your ers succeed because they have an thoughts in terms of what you re- An idea that is either fresh enough innate sense of fairness. ally want to know. Especially for or carefully and thoughtfully ex- writers, I generally encourage writ- ecuted—one that will cause a di- One of the things I had to learn ing down how you want your proj- rector to want to dive into—will as a producer starting out was ect and how you want to commu- be able to secure the needed fi- to pay crew members about the nicate with the producer. At least nancing. When I see a fresh idea, same amount. Someone might then you know what you’re hop- I look to see what the comparable need a job more and work for less, ing for. movies in the marketplace are that but eventually they’ll realize that have done reasonably well. Can I they’re getting less than the guy I encourage you to try seeing the point to any past successes in this

Story Magazine // Issue 005 HOW HOLLYWOOD REALLY WORKS

genre? Does this feel like it’s fresh etiquette or understanding of how Finally, what I’m looking for is truth. enough or original enough or true things work. I’m looking for something that enough so that it works? grabs me—something that is com- I’m also looking for scripts that pelling and true. Bob McKee says, I don’t want a total knockoff or don’t have any misspellings and “Write the truth.” He’s right. a derivative of something. If I’m are professionally formatted. I looking for a comedy, I don’t want look for character introductions to read a script about four guys to feel like real character introduc- who lose their friend and wake up tions. If a celebrity is supposed to in Atlantic City with a hangover, play that character, I would like to because that’s too much like The see some description of why that Hangover. I want something that’s character is worth playing, even fresh enough, but also feels like as he is introduced. I would like it’s current enough in terms of the to see things that are not all di- story. It’s going to feel like you are alogue or all scene description, pushing a big rock up a hill if you because that’s how professional get a big-- budget Western, since writers tend to write. Of course, nobody is making big-- budget there are exceptions. Westerns right now. What I am looking for may not be I want something I can get made—a what others are looking for. There script that allows me to imagine are producers who are looking for four or five actors playing the lead. slightly more derivative material, This is what producers are looking who make action movies with B-- for. They are looking for material level stars. There are producers that can get made, either because who are looking for big temple it’s distinctive enough to get the at- things, so they’re looking specifi- tention of financiers or it’s familiar cally at what the provenance is, or enough and true enough. whether they can control a piece of intellectual property, which I’m always looking for a profes- you may or may not have. There sional presentation. Most things are people who are looking for all are submitted electronically these kinds of different things. days within Hollywood, so if I get a script that has a spiral binding, One of the things I am definitely I think, “Well, this person is not looking for is something that pulls working in Hollywood.” My ex- me in with its first ten pages. If I’m perience is that people who are reading a script from a writer who coming from radically outside the doesn’t have any produced cred- system are much less likely to de- its, I’m going to make a decision liver something that’s professional pretty early about how good that because they don’t have the basic writing is.

Story Magazine // Issue 005 HOW HOLLYWOOD REALLY WORKS

Stay tuned next month, as Ed Saxon continues to share his insider knowledge of Hollywood.

Story Magazine // Issue 004

ASK MCKEE Should I try to sell my thriller screenplay with a treatment?

In this edition of Ask McKee, we learn why unknown writers should try to sell a whole screen- play, not just a treatment.

Story Magazine // Issue 005 ASK MCKEE

I would never try to sell the treat- whatever. Let them do that be- ment. Instead, just tell the story as cause, first of all, treatments are not vividly and succinctly as you pos- only very difficult to write, but it’s sibly can, because there’s nothing difficult to capture the story with you can say about a story that’s go- one. Second, you want to write the ing to make them want to buy it. screenplay, so you have to prove to You can’t make promises. You can’t them that you can write. say, “This is a story; it’s going to be wonderful because it’s got this and If you give somebody a treatment it’s got that.” You can’t sell that to and they like your story, and then if people because they’ve heard it all. they raise $30 million to make the film, they’re going to hire a $1 mil- But what sells it is the story. lion writer to write it.

Why did one producer or another If you’re going to write a thriller, it’s buy something? Was it a short treat- a good idea to write a novel. Get it ment? Well, who gives a damn? It published. Hopefully it becomes a doesn’t matter. Whatever happened great success as a novel, and then in another case is irrelevant to us. get film producers to option the We can’t pray for miracles. We just novel. As a condition of optioning tell the story in a clear way. In this the novel, you say, “And I must write day and age, I would never give a the screenplay, at least the first draft.” treatment to anybody for sale. At that point, when they want your novel, then you have the power to If you want to write the screenplay say what you want. then write a screenplay. If you’re an unknown writer and you sell a sto- ry from a treatment, they’re going to get somebody else to write it. It’s not going to be you, because you’ve never had a credit.

So, if you write a treatment that’s good enough to capture some- body’s interest, they’re going to hire another writer. It won’t be the un- known commodity.

But, if you say, “I’ve got this screen- play.” They will give it to a reader, who will read it and reduce it down to two paragraphs, two pages, or

Story Magazine // Issue 005

IN THE NEXT ISSUE

• Action Master: Zak Penn • Bassim El Wakil Breaks Down Guardians of the Galaxy • Margaret Nagle: Thoughts on TV Writing • More from Carey, Brand, and Whitney • Much, much more.

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