A Conversation with Scott Alexander & Larry Karaszewski

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[waves] [kids screaming] [wind] [witch cackling] [sirens wail] [gunshots] [dripping] [suspenseful music] [telegraph beeping, typing] [piano gliss] From Austin Film Festival, this is On Story.

A look inside the creative process from today's leading writers, creators, and filmmakers.

This week's On Story, the screenwriting team behind The People vs. Larry Flynt, Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski.

- We writes scripts for movies that we really want to see.

[Larry] Yeah.

[Scott] It doesn't, we've never thought about the marketplace.

Ooh, what do they want to buy?

We don't care what anyone wants to buy.

We just want to write a movie that we want to go see on Friday night.

- Yeah.

[paper crumpling] [typing] [typewriter ding] [Narrator] In this episode, Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, the screenwriting team behind Ed Wood, the People vs. Larry Flint, Man on the Moon, reflect on their career of writing biopics about unconventional figures.

[typewriter ding] - When I look at your career, I see two writers who are auteurs who go with some challenging characters and decide to turn them into, you know, just sort of like magnificent narratives.

And your screenplays are just incredible that way where you know how to entertain the audience with sometimes a questionable or dark subject.

- I think the reason Scott and I connected a big way in is that we really had no plan B.

There was really, for both of us, since we were very young, we wanted to be filmmakers and there wasn't, there was no other option.

Maybe we would have been crew members.

We probably would have been happy holding a mic or doing something like that, or just whatever.

Anyway, just be working on a 35 millimeter movie.

But, you know, we always assumed we were going to be filmmakers.

- So you have to earn it in this business.

And certainly you sat down, you wrote a screenplay together.

- We see a story in the newspaper and this became a theme for the rest of our career which was, we would see something terrible in the newspaper and we would start laughing, you know, and, and, and and Problem Child was about parents who have adopted a boy and it turned out he was crazy.

And, and the adoption agency in Orange County had hidden this information from them.

And he'd been passed around and other houses and he had burned down houses and killed the pets.

And, and they were, they were suing the adoption agency and, and we said, well, that's funny.

- Can I call you back in five minutes.

- He's all yours.

- Ben.

Flo.

Can we discuss?

- There is nothing to discuss.

- We're signing him back over to you right now.

- Bad parents make bad children.

- Oh, so now I'm a bad parent just because I hate my kid.

- Well, there is something very, very strange about that boy.

- You took him.

He's yours.

And that's because you conned us into it.

- What am I supposed to do with the little creep?

He's already been returned 30 times.

- Well, this makes 31, Charlie.

- And so a bunch of other writers or producers around town saw this story in the LA Times.

And everyone started pitching it as a horror as a Rosemary's baby, kind of a movie.

It's a horror show.

And then you got these two knuckleheads coming into studios with young producer, Bob Simonds, his first movie, saying it's a, it's a family comedy.

And we were writing an R-rated comedy about childhood.

[laughing] - What's so funny?

- You are you stupid [bleep].

- You see, he's wicked.

- You're not saying you'd rather not be in the orphanage are ya?

- Duh, think much, Pea-brain?

I want out.

- You see Mr. Peabody, the child is incorrigible.

- I'm what?

Why ya speak English lady?

- Look, maybe what the child is trying to say is that... - Maybe if I shrug my shoulders and move around my hands like this, maybe people will think I know what I'm talking about.

- Look, it's obvious that the kid's unbalanced.

I mean, I knew that from the start.

I was playing devil's advocate.

Devil, you know-- Anyway, on behalf of myself and the agency, this child is going to be removed from this orphanage as soon as possible.

- Well, hurry the [bleep] up.

I'm not getting any younger.

[bell rings] [typewriter ding] - Tell us about the inception of Ed Wood.

And then sort of working through that and, and and getting to Tim Burton.

- Up until that point, Ed Wood was considered a figure of, of derision and kind of he was someone you'd laugh at.

No one tries to make a bad movie.

Everyone worked so hard to make a bad movie and look at Ed Wood.

He made a bunch of movies and there were movies that he cared about.

And the movies that he was passionate about, they were they were sort of, you know Glen or Glendaism as an autobiographical art film.

And we thought, what if you look at Ed Wood sympathetically rather than, rather than, you know, make fun of him and.

and use Bela and Ed as kind of a love story.

- This story is going to grab people.

It's about this guy.

He's crazy about this girl, but he likes to wear dresses.

Should he tell her?

Should he not tell her?

He's torn Georgie, this is drama.

- Fine, shoot, whatever bologna you want.

Just make sure it's seven reels long.

- We were feeling a kinship to Ed.

So again, like Larry was saying, we started looking at Ed going why is everyone making fun of him?

You know, he had a dream.

He's a kid from Poughkeepsie who loves movies.

He moved out to Hollywood and he made a bunch of features.

And then, and what if, what if you just celebrate that achievement?

And, and the idea of making this movie was was really novel because, I mean, as far as we can tell, all the biopics Hollywood had ever made until then, we're about people of achievement or someone who had, who were smart and had, who had, you know, Louis Pasture, Mahatma Gandhi, Alexander Graham Bell.

That's just like, they've got, they've got like a big, a big winning claim and Ed's, Ed's only claim was that he tried hard and he pro he kind of, he kind of failed in a lot of his execution.

- So, are we going to be working together?

Really?

Worst film you ever saw?

Well, my next one will be better.

Hello?

Hello?

- We weren't that interested in those great men?

We would have books on cult movies.

We would have books on just the weirdos of life.

And so we sort of were like, why can't you make movies about those guys?

Those are the people that we're actually interested in it.

We've always had this thing where, if we're interested in something, there must be 40 other people who like it?

You know, maybe, hopefully there will be.

And so that's, that's how we've sort of managed our career.

- What scene in Ed Wood do you think sort of defines his character?

- I mean, I would say this is one that defines, uh, Bela's character but, and the funny story behind it is, is the night shoot.

That, when Scott and I was kind of our kind of meticulous in terms of writing outlines and figuring out what everything is going to be and blah, blah, blah.

But every once in a while, depending on the biopics there are things that we can't fit into other scenes.

And so we, we have usually have a sheet called fun facts.

We come to a scene that's, not necessarily a problem, but a thing that we don't really quite know what to do.

And it's like, we look at the fun facts.

Is this a place we could put that?

Or is this a place we could put that?

And one of the things we loved about Bela Lugosi was that he, he had turned down Frankenstein because, you know, he had played Dracula.

They offered him Frankenstein and he was like he doesn't even have lines.

Grrr, he's grunting, he's a disaster.

And we kept on, throughout Ed Wood trying to figure out, well was this a scene where he could talk about that?

No.

Does that seem, we've talked about it.

- That's always a theme in screenwriting which is how do you work in backstory?

And when it's done badly, you, you you want to cover your face.

And, and so, because why is somebody telling you a story that happened 20 years ago?

And, and, and, and so it, we, we kept saying how they bring in Frankenstein like how you bring in Frankenstein.

And then we stick them into Griffith Park at three in the morning in a cold pool of water.

And he's standing there and the crew has only six people and he's looking around and he's just he's-- and you realize he's started thinking about his life and how did I end up in this [bleep] cold pool of water at three in the morning?

He says, "You know I could have played Frankenstein?"

You know, you know because Karloff is living in a big house up in the Hills and Bela is living in a one room rental, you know, in Silver Lake.

- How do you turn this on?

- Well, somebody misplaced the Octopus motor.

So when you get in there and fight with him shake his legs around, it looks like he's killing it.

Okay.

[sigh] - You know I turned down Frankenstein.

- What?

- After I did Dracula, the studio offered me Frankenstein but I turned it down.

That wasn't sexy enough.

Too degrading for a big star like me.

- Bela, I have 25 scenes to shoot tonight.

- Sorry, don't let me slow you down.

- Okay.

- And, you know, that's a perfect example of the kind of thing that Scott and I, our signature thing is the mixture of tones where we do it's really funny, but it's really sad.

And it's very real at the same time.

So Bela has this monologue, which is really sad but it's in the middle of a comedy scene where he's wrestling a fake octopus.

So it's that weird thing that, you know if it's done badly, it's a disaster but we've been fortunate to work with some of the, you know some of the great directors of all time, you know whether it's Tim or Milos Foreman.

I mean Milos Foreman, used to say to us, like, you know, he loved the mixture of comedy and drama because that's what real life was.

You know, real life is just, you know your life is not a drama.

Your life is not a comedy.

You know, it's a, it's, it's all messed up.

[typewriter ding] - Almost a lot of our biopics have this thing about somebody who has a big idea that everybody is telling them that it's a horrible idea.

Or, you know, whether it's, whether it's Ed making a monster movies and, you know, "You're untalented, stop doing it," or whether it's Larry Flynt who gets this idea to make, you know the world's most outrageous porn magazine in the seventies.

And for, for us, you know, we were sort of, you know, kind of actively looking.

I mean, initially we were like, oh, we don't want to get typecast.

We don't want to, you know we should do something else, blah, blah, blah.

We shouldn't do two biopics back to back.

And our agent at the time, a guy named Tom Strickler was like, you know, you know, he really encourage, you know and some other people actually did too, is sort like, no, you guys don't understand you guys are the guys who can do this.

You know, people kill to have a, you know quote unquote brand, you know, and this is yours.

You have your own freaking lane here.

You, you-- - You're offbeat!

Yeah, you, you wanna, you wanna write a movie about the the porn king of the seventies who gets who gets assassinated and they got him because he, you know he gets shot at, he, he runs for president.

He, you know, he has this major, you know, major victory at the Supreme Court and we're not trying to make him a hero or anything like this.

But we just find his, his life was so interesting that it, you know and the reason it hadn't been covered anywhere was because of the sub, you know, because of this magazine.

But we thought like, take that out.

And this is amazing.

It's this amazing only in America tale.

And once again, it goes back to being college roommates.

When we were in college, it was the period where Larry Flynt was throwing oranges at the judge.

And he had the he had the, you know, the, the DeLorean tapes.

And so we used to read that Metro section of the LA Times and just laugh our heads off because the stuff about the court thing was like reading a Marx Brothers courtroom.

You know what I mean?

Because Larry Flynt had so little respect about being, you know, what happens in a courtroom.

So we left our heads at off and we thought, "All right, the way we sort of got typecast as the guys who write crappy comedies like Problem Child we knew that after Ed Wood-- Ed Wood won Academy Awards and things like that-- we knew that we had this opportunity, maybe, to get one more of these weirdo movies through the system.

And so we, we, we wrote The People vs. Larry Flynt and, you know, originally it was, it was, you know, we looked around like the way Tim Burton was the perfect person to direct Ed Wood because the iconography matches up.

We thought who would be the perfect person for this?

Ah, Oliver Stone.

He's a guy getting controversial material made during this time period.

So we took it to Oliver and he responded but by the time we finished the script, he was off doing Nixon and they needed somebody else to direct it.

And, you know, whatever, once again the mixture of tones things.

We were like, well what about what, you know, we had, we had big ambitions.

What about Milos Forman?

They're like, Milos Forman?

The guy that does Amadeus, why would you think he would want to make a movie about this?

And so they, you know, he hadn't made a movie in a while but we thought maybe he would dig it because it's the same kind of, it was the correct thing.

He's the same kind of outsider as McMurphy.

He's the same kind of outsider as some of these other people.

- All of Milos' movies are about outsiders.

- Right.

- Milos considered himself an outsider.

- You know, coming from a communist country, he totally understood the idea that, all right, you know, the government wants to shut down, you know, speech that doesn't go with the system.

And he thought this was an amazing way to do that story because the speech is outrageous.

And not necessarily a lot of people would make this kind of movie about someone who is righteous or doing the right, you know, like, but, but, Milos saw like, no, this, this proves the point about how important this free speech is.

When even, I think if we have a line in the movie even a scumbag like me, you know, is protected by it.

- Relax, relax.

- Mr. Flynt, is that an American flag you have on there, sir.

- I have fashioned this American flag into a diaper because if you're going to treat me like a baby, I'm going to act like one.

- Larry Flynt, I am ordering you arrested for desecration of the American flag.

[typewriter ding] - After we wrote Larry Flynt, we sort of became known as those guys.

And we both knew and loved Andy Kaufman.

And we looked at Andy Kaufman and then we said, no, it doesn't work.

It doesn't, it doesn't work because you can't, you can't know him because he's just, he, he's a, he's a cipher and he's a bunch of put-ons, and, and, and then it just sort of ends with him dying.

And, and so we basically said, "Nope."

And we, we, we, we took the little research we'd done and we throw it into a file and we moved on and then, I don't know, a couple of years go by.

And then one day we get a phone call from Milos saying, "What are you doing?"

And he says, "I have something special for you.

Danny DeVito is going to be calling you.

I'm like DeVito.

We're like, okay.

So Danny calls us up and he's like, "We want you guys to, we want you guys want you guys to do Andy Kaufman."

And he's all excited.

He's like, I was buddies with Andy.

I know all the stories and I can, I can get you.

I can get you to everyone.

Everyone will get together with you.

And Danny is so excited, we're like, "Okay, we'll we'll think about it."

And we hang up and we look at each other.

We're like, oh [bleep], well, we don't think it works but we've got Milos Forman who's got two Oscars for best director, two best pictures.

And we got Danny, in 1998, Danny was the biggest, he's the best producer in town.

I mean, Jersey Films, Pulp Fiction Get Shorty.

I mean, they, they were just like on fire.

I mean, most importantly it was Zmuda and Lynne Margulies who live with Andy during the final years.

And like we did on Larry Flynt, we spent six months as journalists, just taking people out to lunch, tape recording the interviews, going to the library, pulling up lots of old stories and just try trying to figure it out.

And after six months, we panicked and we said we don't know who the hell Andy Kaufman is.

And if he's not knowable, how do you make a movie about this guy?

And he basically I'll just use good, nice language.

He's just like, don't, I'm ignoring you.

Don't be chickens, keep working.

And, and he hangs up on us.

And so we were really panicked that, that Danny and Milos were like, really hoping for something great out of us.

And we literally could not figure out what to do.

And we call up Lynn who, who, who who's really bright.

And she had made a documentary about Andy and she had a lot of insight.

And we said, we don't know how to make this movie work.

We, we, we don't know how to write this because we don't, we don't know.

We can't figure out who is the real Andy.

And she says, guys, there is no real Andy.

And we're like, Oh, Ooh - It was chilling.

It was chilling.

The woman, the woman who basically held his hand as he died was, you know, she was like this real person doesn't exist.

And so we were just like, wow.

- At the time we were saying we're doing Citizen Kane in reverse.

Citizen Kane is about, let's talk to a bunch of people and get to know this man and find out who he was.

And at the end you find out he's the boy who lost his sled Rosebud.

And he's always had his heart broken.

And so what if you're, you're like tearing layers off an onion and you're finding out, oh, he's actually an extroverted Elvis impersonator.

No, he's not.

Actually, he's a shy little boy.

Actually, no, he's not.

Actually, he's kosher and he's really Jewish.

And he doesn't eat bacon because he's an observant Jew.

And then you tear it off.

And the next scene, wait, now he's going to Denny's with one of his girlfriends and he's ordering bacon and eggs.

I don't-- and you keep taking these layers off and then you get to the end of the movie and you tear off the last piece of the onion and it's hollow inside and you go, oh my God, that's terrifying.

Like, there's, there's nothing at the center.

And then that sort of became the thesis of the script that we were writing.

- Yeah, I mean, a lot of people have described our movies as antibiopics, but, you know, but Man on the Moon is an antibiopic.

I mean, you know, Milos was great, as he was coming out, he turned to us and said, "It was very unusual.

Because when you, when you go into the film, you know about Andy Kaufman, when you come out, you don't know anything about Andy.

You know, less about him coming out of the movie than before you go in."

- The one item that we all agreed on, which agreeing with Andy was that our audience is the antagonist.

- Right.

- Which was Andy's thesis for his life.

The last scene is that Andy has died and it's one year later.

And he had a character named Tony and that one year lat-- and this really happened-- one year later Tony did a tribute concert to Andy.

And I remember when the ad showed up in the LA Weekly and I wanted to go back in the day but it was a hundred dollars and I didn't have a hundred dollars.

I couldn't go.

And it was just like, how can how can it be a Tony Clifton concert?

This is impossible because Andy died.

This is insane.

Oh my God, he did fake his death.

Everyone said he fainted.

He faked his death.

And the closing scene is, is Tony on stage doing the old insults, telling the old stories.

And then we pan the audience and then Zmuda has played Andy and played Tony in many scenes of the script.

And then you pan in the audience and you see Zmuda is sitting in the front row, watching.

You go, what?

And then you, and then you cut the black.

And we, we wrote that scene before we wrote this rest of the script.

We always knew that was the perfect way to end this movie because it just says to the audience, all right, this is, this is what we think right now is like.

We want you to just start arguing with your friends as soon as you leave the movie theater.

That is our intention because that's what Andy would have wanted from this film.

[mumbled signing] [audience cheering] [drum beats] [soft rock music] ♪ Mott the Hoople and the Game of Life ♪ ♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ ♪ Andy Kaufman in the wrestling match ♪ [typewriter ding] - With each collaboration with the filmmaker, is there that moment where there's always some light bulb moment or a aha moment or were you all collaborating with the filmmaker?

- I think the key to our writing is that we take these eccentric characters and we make them the star of the movie.

I mean, a lot of people, it sounds that sounds obvious but a lot of people would give an audience what's called an access character.

Would give them sort of you know, and Larry Flynt's a great example.

They would make Ed Norton's character, the star.

As as young idealistic lawyer who runs into this guy like-- - That was suggested, that was suggested for five minutes by the studio and we shot it down.

And then the studio never brought it up again.

- You know, a guy, the audience can identify with and these-- because how are we going to get them to identify with a pornographer?

- We wrote Larry Flynt for Oliver Stone and Oliver, we, we, we love Oliver, we're giant fans.

Oliver was the guy who made JFK.

He made Born 4th of July.

These movies are just like punching you the face in the face saying, I gotta, I gotta I got something I'm trying to sell you here.

And you better just put it on your seatbelt and pay attention, because this is what I want you to think.

And we were fine with that, it's like, I think JFK is one of the greatest movies ever made.

I love it.

And so the first draft of Larry Flynt was very much, this is what Larry is about, and Falwell's a hypocrite and all this.

And, and, and like, we're taking down America.

We're taking down all these, all these DAs and these local judges and the prosecutor, and they're all full of [bleep].

Okay, well then Milos comes aboard and Milos says, "Let me tell you a story.

When I grew up in Czechoslovakia, they would show us propaganda.

It would be a little government made short before the feature.

And it was very obvious that it was propaganda because all the bad people were ridiculous and all the good people were too good.

And all of us, we were children.

And we would laugh at the propaganda because we knew it wasn't true."

So his lesson to us was trust the audience.

The audience will understand.

- Yeah.

- And so we pulled out some of our more extreme partisan left and right kind of comments in the script and the movie was better for it.

[typing] [typewriter ding] [Narrator] You've been watching A Conversation with Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski on On Story.

On Story is part of a growing number of programs in Austin Film Festival's On Story project.

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