THR’s Writers Roundtable: Jordan Peele, Daniel Kwan, Chinonye Chukwu, & More
Writers Chinonye Chukwu (Till), Daniel Kwan (Everything Everywhere All At Once), Jordan Peele (Nope), Martin McDonagh (The Banshees Of Inisherin), Rian Johnson (Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery), and Tony Kushner (The Fabelmans) joined The Hollywood Reporter (THR) to talk about their respective projects. Serving as moderator for the roundtable interview is Scott Feinberg of THR.
I’m always shooting for something that’s impossible to pull off. To try and craft something that shouldn’t work, but you’re taking all the precautions, you’re taking all the care and love to put yourself into. To try and honor the audience; give the audience a true journey and adventure the whole time.
Feinberg begins the interview asking the writers about the inspirations they had for writing their films. He first questions Tony on how he and Steven Spielberg decided to write The Fabelmans. Tony recalls the first time he and Spielberg worked together twenty years ago in Munich. Despite not knowing each other, Tony approached Spielberg the first night of shooting and asked him why and when he chose to become a filmmaker. Spielberg told Tony several stories, one of which is the central incident in The Fabelmans. After hearing about that incident, Tony suggested Spielberg to make a movie out of it.
As time went by and the two continued to work on projects together, the desire to film the incident was repeatedly brought up. By the time filming of West Side Story was completed, Spielberg’s mother had passed two years prior, his father being 102 years old at the time of her death. At this point in his life, Tony reveals that Spielberg confided in him and was already bracing himself for loss. Both he and Tony quickly proceeded to jumpstart the creation of The Fabelmans by conducting formal interviews for casting and staff, meeting up a minimum of four hours for three days of the week, and pitching rough drafts for the scripts.
Continuing with the discussion about Spielberg, Feinberg brings up past interviews of Jordan Peele where he claimed that his latest film Nope is partly inspired by Spielberg’s films, particularly around the idea of looking up at the sky. Also citing Peele’s desire to “make a movie that couldn’t have been made five years ago,” Feinberg asked for clarification. Peele explains that he desires to constantly test the limits of cinematography, hoping to craft something believed to be difficult or impossible. This drive to go beyond is rooted in Peele’s goal of satisfying the audience with an unforeseen adventure.
Feinberg then focuses on Chinonye’s inspiration for writing her angle of the tragic murder of Emmett Till, asking her how she decided that Till was a story people needed to hear. Chinonye reveals film producer Barbara Broccoli first reached out to her about the project roughly two months after Chinonye’s last film premiered at Sundance. Chinonye’s initial response was refusal, claiming to not be in the emotional space for such a story after adjusting to filming Clemency. Thankfully, Barbara was persistent and convinced Chinonye to meet the other producers, one of which was actress and comedian Whoopi Goldberg.
Chinonye recalls the meeting as an extraordinary experience where she felt seen, heard, and appreciated. According to Chinonye, the producers stated their belief in her artistry and requested she tell the story of Till in whatever way she believed it needed to be. Chinonye suggested Mamie, Emmett Till’s mother, should be the protagonist with the story focusing on her emotional point of view. All producers immediately agreed to the pitch.
This movie [Everything Everywhere All At Once] is a way for me to honor the relationship I have with my mother, but also trying to be honest with all of the ways I’ve made her life hard.
Daniel Kwan becomes the next focus of the interview, with Feinberg asking about the inspiration behind Everything Everywhere All At Once and how Kwan and his industry partner Daniel Scheinert started working together. Kwan admits that he and Scheinert initially didn’t get along when they first met in class. It wasn’t until both ended up at a camp thirteen years ago that things changed. The summer camp was a filmmaker’s summer camp where both Kwan and Scheinert were tasked with exploring Boston with kids and cameras while also trying to inspire the children to push outside of their comfort zones. During the expedition, the two encountered each other and had a sudden understanding of having similar energies and attractions to the filmmaking process. Kwan and Scheinert quickly became friends who shared a similar goal, now working together for twelve years.
According to Kwan, Everything Everywhere All At Once came about from his desire to put everything possible in a movie before, in his mindset, production ends due to unforeseen circumstances. Kwan admits to having anxiety issues, and his approach to the film is how he tackles those fears. Half of Kwan wishes to make the most entertaining, wild, and exciting movie that invites people to watch it in the movie theaters, and the other half wants to make sure that whatever he and Scheinert are tapping into felt nourishing to audiences. When filming Everything Everywhere All At Once, both Kwan and Scheinert aimed to portray the overwhelming feeling people have when it seems like several things are happening all at once with various narratives colliding and every contradiction passing through their minds. Essentially, a moment when someone doesn’t have the chance to process any single situation around them. And amid this chaos, a sense of hope can be found.
Daniel Kwan confirmed that he took inspiration from his mother who immigrated to the United States from Taipei for Michelle Yeoh’s character. He claims his mother’s journey was stereotypical of what an Asian American immigrant mother can be. He wished to simultaneously display the stereotype and push past it. As a child, Kwan’s mother encouraged him to become a filmmaker. Her reasoning was, “if you don’t like something, you’re really bad at it.” Kwan views his latest film as a means of honoring the relationship with his mother.
When I was writing this [Nope] in 2020, I was very distracted by this concept of ‘spectacle’ because I knew I wanted to finally do this. I wanted to make something that used all of my tools and I wanted to collaborate with the very best in the world. I couldn’t let myself off the hook with that. This had to be a movie about the human relationship to the ‘spectacle.’
Feinberg then asks Martin if an artist should be willing to give up everything for art and if Martin himself thought about this line of questioning. Martin agrees that the question is something artists and other specialties think about, at least while contemplating if time is being wasted that could be spent devoting to their craft. For Martin, the debate comes down to asking yourself, “do you want to be a jerk about being an artist and cut off other people,” or “do you want to be even-handed with both points of view as much as possible?”
Shifting toward Rian, Feinberg questions Rian’s reasoning to revisit the world of Benoit Blanc from Knives Out. Rian states that the biggest reason for creating the sequel Glass Onion stems from his love for the murder-mystery genre since childhood from reading Agatha Christie’s books. In his opinion, the genre is a manufactured means to engage current society through an ensemble cast being distinct in a way that represents a power structure. Typically, audiences see murder-mysteries as period pieces. Rian wanted to push past the norm like author Agatha Christie and create a world in Knives Out that reflects modern-day. Rian believes the greatest strength of a murder-mystery is its potent and malleable delivery.
Kwan and Peele praise Knives Out and Glass Onion for their cultural and modern-day relevancy. Peele states that he is inspired by works like Rian’s and Spielberg’s that attempt to move beyond the norms and reach for great heights to go for the “magic take.” In 2020 while writing Nope, Peele claims to have witnessed various things that he considers “bad miracles.” He reasons these miracles are people, events, and ideas often viewed as entertaining and thrilling to the point spectators are blinded to the dangers. Through Nope, Peele wanted to create a film that indicted the processes and industry that kept Black people out of the conversation about civil rights.
He believes film utilizes the idea of what photography and video mean to Black people while also being a weapon for civil rights. As a filmmaker and civil rights activist, Peele wishes to present the dangers of bad miracles and give his characters the weapon and agency to reclaim something they lost. He believes that if people don’t give spectacles the proper attention and only focus on the entertainment value, the dangers will be ignored and exacerbated. Tony chimes in to agree with Peele, feeling like modern society is in an era where “spectacle” has become a central feature of politics to the point of idolatry and leading to a troubling place.
One of the things I love about going to watch and re-watching your [Jordan Peele’s] films is that I catch different things all the time. And I never watch your film with thinking about that same kind of cultural and historical context of the power of the image in Black communities and for Black people. That takes the storytelling and the work you did to a whole ‘nother level.
Continuing with Peele’s mention of civil rights, Feinberg asks Chinonye how recent events like the murder of George Floyd made the story of Till even more relevant. Chinonye reveals that she has contemplated the differences between what Mamie Till did versus the video of George Floyd. For Mamie, Chinonye reasons Mamie’s actions are an extension of her critical care for the Black community and a call to action. Chinonye explains that Mamie had full agency and ownership of the experience. Mamie was very intentional from the photographer she chose to capture the image of Emmett’s death as well as her decision to make the funeral ceremony open casket.
These days, Chinonye feels if an incident like George Floyd’s isn’t captured, no one will ever know it happened. The intention, ownership, and agency for capturing similar incidents are different from Mamie Till’s, but the power of an image is still the same. Peele claims the work on Nope put him in the headspace to appreciate Till even more. Jordan believes anybody who asks what the need is for telling stories like Till becomes clear after watching them. He also states now it is more important than ever to share these stories due to many already being taken out of history books across the United States.
I look at ideation and all culture through the lens of memetics, so ways and ideas are battling it out constantly through natural selection to evolve. If you look at a single environment versus two environments, you have this ability to allow ideas to bounce back and forth, and basically challenge itself until you get to a place where the best ideas rise to the top at a much faster rate than one environment.
Returning to Daniel Kwan’s partnership with Daniel Scheinert, Feinberg asks Kwan to tell him about the challenges and rewards of writing with someone else and how to navigate the relationship. Kwan believes when working with one or more people, you can be braver with trying things out. While a person may fail faster in this situation, the goal is to let ideas die so that new ones can form naturally for a better fit. Using the Cohen Brothers as an example, Kwan reasons writing between two or more people enables the testing of genres in ways no one can do individually. Kwan believes he and Scheinert are allowed to be bold and take risks due to the two of them repeatedly pitching ideas back and forth, trying to find the thing that will connect with the audience in a new way.
Kwan feels the job of storytellers is to remind audiences of universal truths because humans are fickle creatures. The stories must remind viewers of these truths from a new angle and lens to prevent the disappearance of the ideas surrounding them. The disappearance is due to the “spectacle” burying anything that doesn’t appear entertaining. Kwan relates this theory to comedy. With comedy, there needs to be an avoidance of stacking a joke on top of another. If not, the original joke will no longer be funny due to layering too many concepts. Kwan and Scheinert’s favorite version of a joke explores how far one can go with it. As Kwan stated, a turducken of jokes won't be possible without understanding each ingredient.
You want to make the movie at its perfect length, and there’s no real number…But a bit of the writing, in some way from a directing standpoint, ends up continuing into the edit because you’re doing different things.
Feinberg asks Martin if there is a point where a writer decides to stop and focus on directing. Or is writing always overlapping? For Martin, he feels writing stops after a few weeks of rehearsals at the start of the shoot. Those first few weeks involve tweaking things based on the actors’ performances and opinions. When Martin got into directing, he desired to protect the scripts. Martin initially preferred operations conducted with absolute control in theaters, and no one changed anything significantly. Knowing the lack of such certainty in filmmaking caused Martin to work harder towards preserving the original, unaltered draft of scripts as much as possible.
Jordan Peele chimes in and explains how his background in improv placed him in a position where there is an infinite amount of good and bad ideas. This position gives a notion of freedom to the point where it’s difficult to finalize anything, especially since Peele prides himself on being a collaborator. Tony comments on his difficulty accepting improvising, believing the concept is challenging for most people. Tony feels he can discern from films when actors improvise, such as when they call each other by their character names on every line. He admits to having frequent arguments with Spielberg about altering the scripts while filming West Side Story and The Fabelmans. Tony was eventually able to come to grips with changes in the script after accepting from working with young actors in West Side Story and comedians on The Fabelmans.
Daniel Kwan claims to have accepted the inevitability Tony describes early in his career. Out of all his skill sets, Kwan feels writing is his weakest. When he and Scheinert write, they write the best they can while knowing changes will occur. In almost every step of rehearsals, Kwan and Scheinert give the actors one or two opportunities to do whatever they want in the hopes of surprising Kwan and Scheinert and giving them something they wouldn’t have thought of.
I definitely want the actors to feel like they are improvising. That’s when they’re doing their best…As a writer you’re trying to put the best script for it. As a director, you’re trying to be open and get energy out of it. As long as I get the protected version of the script done, then let’s also try and beat it.
Picking up from Peele’s improv background, Feinberg asks Peele if he condones improv in the sense of filming his movies. Peele says he welcomes improv on set if he has all the scheduled and non-improv scenes taken care of beforehand. Peele feels actors do their best when improvising and wants to harness that freeing and inventive energy to produce the best film possible. In short, Peele wants to film everything on script, but if something happens on set that is better, he will substitute it immediately.
Regarding improv, Chinonye shares her experience working with Whoopi Goldberg while filming Till. She believes Whoopi Goldberg is a master of the craft, and deciding to allow Whoopi to improvise on set was the best decision she could have made. Chinonye doesn’t claim to be married to the word on the script but believes more in discovering what is best for the film take precedence. Ultimately, working with Whoopi Goldberg on Till enabled Chinonye to be more open and fascinated with improvisation.
In the last few minutes of the interview, Feinberg proceeds to ask various questions to each guest. These questions involve asking about the weirdest jobs the guests have been approached on, preferring silence or a bit of noise while writing, whose opinion they value the most before locking in on the script, and who they consider being the best living screenwriter. Tony claims the weirdest job he was offered as a writer was being the 47th person to review and rewrite the script for The Flintstones 1994 film. Meanwhile, Daniel Kwan reveals that he and Scheinert were once contacted by comedian Jim Carry who wanted to make a found-footage horror film like Paranormal Activity with the backdrop of behind-the-scenes work on Dumb and Dumber To. Kwan and Scheinert were initially committed to the proposed project but backed down after getting the no-go from their producers.
While writing, every guest except for Chinonye and Peele preferred silence. Chinonye typically listens to her favorite TV shows or musical playlists she compiled in the background while writing. Peele prefers listening to music when writing horror content because he believes the exposure to different stimuli, in both nature and source, helps him land new ideas that are tonally more interesting. When seeking the opinions of others, each guest has specific individuals they turn to ranging from their significant other, colleagues, and close friends.
The interview ends with each guest stating their favorite screenwriters. Martin, Chinonye, and Peele favor Paul Thomas Anderson the most as a screenwriter for his ability to put scenes together that are “quintessentially cinematic.” Daniel Kwan looks up to South Korean director, producer, film critic, and screenwriter Park Chan-wook. Kwan feels Park’s works are always striking and is impressed by how Park expresses the tonality of his structures. Rian admires how the Cohen Brothers are wordy in that they are very much about the writing and written word. Tony loves how Spike Lee combines deep characterization with rich, complex politics and wit.