Hey folks, Harry here with what I consider to be Quint's best interview yet. He sat down and did the interview bit with Steven Kloves and got him talking about his career as a screenwriter all the way through to the script he's working on right this very second... which is the second installment of the soon to be cinematic empire of HARRY POTTER... THAT'S right! Kloves is actually working on the second script right now... and Quint has the first details anywhere on that! So sit back and prepare to listen as this seaman has alot to spill....
Ahoy folks. ‘Tis I, the ever crusty sea salt, Quint, here once more, this time with a one on one I did just before the Golden Globes with screenwriter and sometimes director Steven Kloves. He directed Michelle Pfeiffer, Jeff Bridges and Beau Bridges in The Fabulous Baker Boys and he also directed Dennis Quaid, Meg Ryan, Gwenyth Paltrow and Jimmy “The Dream” Caan in Flesh and Bone.
But he’s most well known for his writing and has most recently written the critically acclaimed Wonder Boys and is currently developing Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone with Chris Columbus. As you will see in this interview, we spend the great majority talking about Harry Potter.
Now, that brings me to you readers. I have seen the talkback on Harry Potter stories degrade into a Lord of the Rings versus Harry Potter debate. I love both properties. You don’t have to love both, but please don’t feel you have to show your love of one by slamming the other. In other words, don’t be a dick. Both can live together in perfect harmony.
Also, before we get this sucka underway, I wanted to invite anyone who lives in or around Austin to come to my Birthday Celebration at the Alamo Drafthouse from 10am-5pm on Sunday, Feb. 18th. It’s free, present is optional and we’re going to watch two features, both of which rank extremely high on the geek-o-meter. It’s a surprise which films will be shown, but I will give you guys a hint. They are both considered classics and have a common star. So,you got two geek-loved films and an hour and a half of trailers from my personal 35mm collection being shown on the agenda. This is not Butt-Numb-A-Thon, but most if not all of the Austin AICN crew will be there. If you want to come, drop me an email at CLICK HERE TO EMAIL ME AND LEARN YOU WELP!!! and let me know.
Now, on to Part 1 of my interview with Steven Kloves. Enjoy!
Q: I JUST WANT TO SAY UPFRONT THAT I’M GETTING OVER A COLD, SO EXCUSE ANY NOSE-BLOWINGS, COUGHINGS, WHAT HAVE YOU.
Steven Kloves: I heard you couldn’t talk a few days ago.
Q: YEAH, IT WASN’T PLEASANT, BUT I’M BETTER NOW. WE READY TO GET THIS SUCKER ON? I THINK WE SHOULD START AT THE BEGINNING. WHAT WAS THE FIRST THING YOU DID?
SK: The very first thing... I wrote a script called Swings years ago. I was about 19, I guess. It got me attention around town. It was the first thing I wrote, an agent sent it out and someone over at Paramount wanted to meet me. I ended up getting a producer and from that meeting I really sorta lamely pitched this idea for a movie about two kids during World War 2 and surprisingly enough they paid me to write it. That became this movie, Racing With the Moon that came out years ago that Richard Benjamin directed.
Q: HOW DID YOU GET INVOLVED WITH WRITING THE SCRIPT FOR WONDER BOYS?
SK: I hadn’t really almost written a word in about four years, after Flesh and Bone. Scott Rudin sent me this book. You know, I had gotten use to saying, “No,” for four years and I assumed I would say no again, but then I started reading it and I realized that I was loving this book. There was something about Michael Chabon’s writing that I just feel sort of a kinship with. He’s really generous towards his characters, doesn’t take cheap shots at them and the humor was more behavioral and then, it sort of comes out in dialogue as well, but it’s all character based. That always speaks to me. Characters. And he had four remarkable characters in his book.
So, I said, “Yes!” I was kinda amazed anybody would pay me to write it. I don’t think Paramount was thrilled to pay... I don’t think they were thrilled to buy the book and they certainly weren’t thrilled to pay me to write it. Such is the power of Scott Rudin that it happened.
Q: THAT’S COOL. I WAS TALKING TO CURTIS HANSON LAST WEEK AND HE WAS TELLING ME THAT THE FIRST THING HE EVER HEARD OR READ OF WONDER BOYS WAS YOUR SCRIPT AND THAT’S WHAT DECIDED HIM ON MAKING THE MOVIE.
SK: Yeah, I think Curtis responded probably to the same things I did because the script is in most ways entirely faithful to the book, I believe. It’s certainly faithful in terms of the essence of it and also in many specifics. I really only cut one huge sequence out of the book and that took me a long time to do.
I tried to remain faithful to the book because I love the book. It was the first adaptation I did that sort of took me a while to even understand how to approach it. I thought it would be easy and it turned out not to be really easy. (laughs)
Q: WHAT WAS GIVING YOU THE DIFFICULTY THERE? WAS IT JUST WANTING TO PRODUCE SOMETHING AS GOOD AS THE ORIGINAL MATERIAL?
SK: Yeah, I think that’s probably the key thing. I remember I was a couple of months into it and I said, “You know, if I ever do another adaptation,” because everything I had done prior to that was original, “but if I ever do another adaptation, I’m gonna take a really shitty book and be the hero!” With this you could only fail. The book is extraordinary. It’s an extraordinary piece of writing and he is a writer of such profound talent that you... it’s not that you’re intimidated exactly, it’s just that Michael Chabon raises the bar for you every day so high. When you’re writing originals, it’s like, “OK, I’m the only guy raising the bar. If I’m having a bad day, I’ll set the bar pretty damn low or I’ll just go to Tower Records and peruse the Jazz section.”
Anytime you write, even if you’re writing stuff you do, ultimately I can’t write an 800 page script and you (Quint) can’t write something that’ll take up the entire website. You get use to, on some levels, killing your own little darlings and stuff you love that you wrote that you think is really cool and shows what a great writer you are, but on the other hand doesn’t really service the piece. But in this case, I was killing all of Michael’s little darlings, cutting all the stuff that made him look like a really good writer that, by the way, worked in the novel that there wasn’t room for in the script.
Part of it is learning how to take something, learning how to be evocative with economy, you know, to try to invoke all those great things Michael invoked, but do it in a little bit of a shorter stroke. I tend to write long scenes, so I had to really sorta battle myself at times. I’ve always done that. It’s always driven people nuts ‘cause I’ll write a 7 or 8 page scene. From the beginning I’ve done that. We’re in an era where you can rarely see a scene now that goes past a minute and half.
Q: HOW INVOLVED WERE YOU DURING THE SHOOTING OF THE PICTURE?
SK: I was never there, but Curtis and I probably talked to each other, I guess on average, two or three times a week. There were certain little, tiny isolated sections of the script that we were kinda going back and forth on. You know, I’d write stuff, email it to him, he would look it over and send me his notes, then I’d sort of refine, change or come up with something entirely new and send it to him and get his reaction. So, I was very much in contact with Curtis, have been almost from the day he came on. It was very sort of intense collaboration from the beginning.
Q: YOU’RE UP FOR A GOLDEN GLOBE...
SK: It comes as a shock that I’m up for one. I didn’t think I had a chance in hell of being nominated.
Q: YOU DIDN’T EXPECT THE NOMINATION AT ALL?
SK: I can honestly say it’s nothing I ever think about. It’s not something that happened... Well, it happened to me once, I got nominated for a Writer’s Guild Award on (The Fabulous) Baker Boys years ago. I always thought I was one of those guys that sort of stuff never happened to and I just never thought about it. Every single movie I’ve been involved with, basically, no one’s gone to. (laughs) So, Wonder Boys kept that streak alive. I feel bad for the people involved, but....
People have caught up with the movies I’ve done on video sometimes, it happened with Baker Boys, but for the most part it hasn’t happened, so I’m always shocked when there’s any kind of recognition.
Q: I DON’T THINK YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT KEEPING UP THAT STREAK NOW THAT YOU’RE DOING THE HARRY POTTER FILM. YOU HAVE TO ADMIT, THAT MOVIE’S GOING TO MAKE A SHIT LOAD OF MONEY.
SK: Well, you know... We’ll see. One of the good things about working on it is that no one assumes that and that’s the thing I worried about when everybody was getting together on it, that people would just assume that it was a lock. That’s just a dangerous way to work. Nobody’s assuming that and everyone’s just trying to make the best movie they can. I always thought that Warner Bros thought they had a lock, so just to even the playing field they brought a guy on whose never had anything to do with a hit movie, me, just to be fair, because they could have brought on one of those guys who writes nothing but hits.
Also, when I got involved with that it was a book that I had not heard of. It was told to me, I believe, that it was somewhat of a sensation for a children’s book in the UK. So, I read it and I said, “God, this is great!” I have two kids, so I thought this was the first movie I would do that my kids could see. Then, literally, three or four months after I said I’d do it, it was on the cover of Time Fucking Magazine here.
Everyone was asking me about it. I was just going, look... this is the first time in my career that that studio has really wanted me to hand in the script. Every other project I’ve done is like someone wakes up after a year and goes, “Wait a minute! We have a deal with this guy. Where is that thing?” With this it was like from day one, “How’sitgoin’? Howsitgoin’? Anything we can do to help? How’sitgoin’?”
Q: WHEN THE PEOPLE AT BUMBLE WARD, THE PUBLICITY OFFICE, CALLED ME ABOUT DOING THESE INTERVIEWS, THEY SAID, “WELL, WE WANT YOU TO TALK TO CURTIS AND STEVE KLOVES, THE SCREENWRITER.” I WAS LIKE, “SURE, SURE. I’LL TALK TO WHOEVER. SCREENWRITER? I’VE TALKED TO LOTS OF SCREENWRITERS. COOL.” I THEN DID WHAT LITTLE RESEARCH I COULD BEFORE MY COMPUTER REFUSED TO WORK ANYMORE AND FOUND OUT ABOUT YOUR INVOLVEMENT ON THE HARRY POTTER FILM. I SAID, “OH SHIT... I BETTER READ ONE OF THESE BOOKS BEFORE I DO THE INTERVIEW,” RIGHT?
SK: Right...
Q: I HAVE TO SAY, I FIRST HEARD ABOUT THIS INTERVIEW ABOUT A WEEK AND A HALF AGO...
SK: Right...
Q: AND I’M HALFWAY THROUGH THE THIRD BOOK RIGHT NOW.
SK: So, you got hooked.
Q: BIG TIME. MY LITTLE BROTHER HAD THE FIRST TWO AND I WENT OUT YESTERDAY AND BOUGHT THE THIRD AND FOURTH BOOKS, SO...
SK: Wait until you read four. To me, four is the best book because it’s big and Jo Rowling really had elbow room to work and showed what she can do. It’s really dark and it’s very cool. The series will be very cool because she’s already told me that... You know, she’s fearless and she doesn’t care...
Q: KEEPING IT DARK... THAT’S SO COOL.
SK: Well, she’s fearless in the sense that there’s some woman in South Carolina that keeps making noise about, “This is bad for kids, it’s about witchcraft,” and all this stuff. She just said to me, “Man, they haven’t seen anything yet. Wait until they get to last book.” The series is going dark.
The way you responded, the way I responded, and it was purely that sense, it was not a big book, it was not a big thing. I loved the world she made and the detail in the world, but also the fact that I just loved the three kids. I was like, “God, these are great characters.” I said to one of (the execs) in the first meeting, I said, “Look. I don’t want to be involved with this unless you share my feelings. The effects have to be great, all that stuff, but this movie will live and die on these kids. If we follow these kids, then the movie’s going to work, but it would have to be about the character of these kids, Harry in particular, and it can’t just be a roller coaster ride because it’ll disappoint everybody that knows the book.”
Actually, I didn’t even say that, I don’t think, at the time because I didn’t think anybody really knew about the books, but I said, “That’s not what it’s about, it’s about these three kids and it’s entering into this world. We’re all outsiders.” That’s what I think people, that’s what I responded to. The three kids are really outsiders.
Q: WHEN I WAS GOING THROUGH THE BOOKS, JUST LIKE YOU SAID, I WAS SURPRISED AT HOW RICH AND FUN THE CHARACTERS AND THE SITUATIONS WERE. WAS IT DIFFICULT TO TRY TO GET THAT ALL INTO THE SCRIPT?
SK: Yeah. The first book’s a bitch. I’m doing the second one, too. The second one is just a great story.
Q: I LOVE IT! THAT’S ONE OF THE BIG THINGS THAT SURPRISED ME ABOUT THE SERIES... I WAS FINISHING THE SECOND BOOK AND WAS LIKE, “DAMN, THIS IS DARK.” I DIDN’T EXPECT THAT... BUT, AS AN ASIDE, THE MOMENT DURING THE SECOND BOOK THAT REALLY GOT ME WAS THE DIARY...
SK: Ugh! Wasn’t that unbelievable!
Q: TO WRITE IN IT AND HAVE IT WRITE BACK TO YOU? HOW COOL IS THAT?
SK: It’s such a cool idea and when he puts his eye up to that kinda like window and falls into the past so he’s there when Tom Riddle’s there. It’s just... I know what you mean. The diary is what got me, too. There were little things that got me, like when they find the cat and then they see this little trail of spiders going out the window. Then they find Justin Finch... when he finds the Hufflepuff kid and then he sees that little trail of spiders. It’s just great, unnerving imagery and it should work great in the movie. You know, then there’s just fun stuff, like the flying car and all that stuff. For the kids, it should be a blast. I really love that book.
The first one’s a bitch, though. It was a bitch. You read the books, so you know. If you really break it down, the American version, I think, is about 309 pages or 311 pages and the actual plot kicks in around page 225, so as a screenwriter... You know, the first script I wrote was somewhat lopsided and long, but the other thing is we’ve sort of embraced it. It’s incredibly faithful. Hopefully people will love the world and stuff because we didn’t monkey with it. We didn’t say, “OK, now we gotta add something here in the beginning.” We’re just going to trust that the audience will hang with it. It’s really faithful.
Q: SO YOU DIDN’T THROW ANY CURVE BALLS FOR THE PEOPLE WHO KNOW THE BOOK INSIDE AND OUT? MAYBE A SCENE OR TWO OF YOUR OWN INVENTION?
SK: No... well, yeah. There’s stuff of my own, there’s dialogue of my own obviously, but all of it comes in a sense, it’s sort of extrapolating from what Jo writes. In fact, I anticipated a few things and that was a lot of fun because I anticipated something, I wrote it into the script, and she really reacted strongly. She was like, “Ah! You sense something that’s going on.” I also missed something. I put something in, I made reference to someone, and she said, “That’s great, but you can’t do that because something’s going to happen in Book 5 that makes that impossible to happen.” Little things like that.
She’s great. She’s told me a little bit of stuff that’s going to happen, but she won’t tell me what’s going to happen in Book 7 or any of that stuff, so I have to kind of trust her to say, “Hey, am I on the right path here?” She’s extremely helpful that way. She’s been really great.
Q: I’VE HEARD SHE’S A REALLY BIG FAN OF YOUR ADAPTATION. IT MUST BE GREAT TO GET SUCH POSITIVE FEEDBACK FROM THE ORIGINATOR OF THE MATERIAL.
SK: Yeah, it’s really true because I realized at a certain point... Two things happened. I’m really nervous for meetings in Hollywood. I usual hate them, so I don’t have them very often and when I was writing originals I didn’t have any meetings at all. On this, the first time Jo came to town about two years ago, I was really nervous meeting her because I realized I didn’t want her to think I was some Hollywood asshole, even though, we’ve already talked about this, but there was nothing on my resume that would suggest I was selling out to Hollywood. Very few tickets had been sold to anything I’d done.
We just sort of hit it off from the beginning. I realized that in the writing, probably who I wanted to please the most, and it continues to this day, is her. So far it’s been real nice. She seems happy and that’s been great because she’s really one of the coolest people on the planet. I mean, she’s just... it’s not what you expect.
I don’t know. When you read these books, you think, I don’t know, Angela Lansbury and then you meet this really cool chick who’s like 35 years old and she knows all your musical references and stuff. You’re just like, “Wow! This is just bizarre!” She’s so regular. From the day I met her to today, she hasn’t changed one bit. Even after selling 50 million books, which is really cool.
Q: WITH A MOVIE LIKE HARRY POTTER... IF I HAD WRITTEN IT, I KNOW THAT THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN A SET THAT THEY COULDN’T KEEP ME AWAY FROM. HAVE YOU SPENT ANY TIME AT ALL ONSET?
SK: Yeah, I spent an enormous time in London. I was there for 5 weeks over the summer the first time, then I was there another three weeks. That was all preproduction. So, I saw a lot of stuff. I haven’t been to the set since they’ve been shooting. I’ve been welcome to come anytime I wanted and I could have stayed there and written, too. But I got a family, I got kids.
A part of me, I guess because of Wonder Boys... You know, I never went to a set. It was interesting ‘cause I told you I was writing a little bit during it, it was interesting to write and continue writing the characters without really knowing the actors or anything, so I just kept writing James Leer and Grady and Crabtree and Sarah. I wasn’t writing for Michael Douglas or Frances McDormand. I never do anyway when I write, I never think of an actor.
I probably will go to set in the next month here. I’ll probably fly back to London and go a little bit. I have to say, I did see some really cool stuff before I left. I can tell you two things. The flying broomstick stuff should be amazing, at least the previsualization stuff I saw and what’s insanely great it seemed to me was the stuff they were doing with Hagrid, you know, the giant. It looked unreal how cool he looked.
So, yeah. There’s a temptation, but I think having directed I never... I don’t know... I’m not comfortable being on a set that I’m not directing. I’m just not because I always feel like, “What the fuck am I doing here?”
Q: YEAH, I’VE TALKED TO A FEW WRITERS RECENTLY WHO BASICALLY SAID THAT SAME THING. WHEN YOU’RE A WRITER ON SET YOU DON’T DO ANYTHING UNTIL THERE’S A PROBLEM, THEN YOU’RE NOT ONSET ANYWAY, YOU’RE OFF IN YOUR HOTEL ROOM WRITING.
SK: That’s exactly right because if you’re there, it’s really easy for them not to figure it out or make the scene that’s written work. I know as a director... You know, sometimes everyone resists a scene that’s right because it’s hard. I remember years ago on Racing With the Moon, Sean Penn and I had a really close relationship. I was on that set the whole time it was shooting. He use to come up to me, once in a blue moon, he’d come up and go, “You mind if I change this line slightly?” I’d always say yes because it made him more comfortable and it felt right, and he was very smart, Sean, he was good at changing a line so it sounded good.
Then he came up to me near the end of the shoot with a certain line, he says, “You know, I don’t feel comfortable saying this line.” I thought about it and I said, “You know, I think Hopper’s gotta say that line.” He went off for about 10 minutes and he came back and said, “You know, you’re right. The reason I’m uncomfortable is because Hopper’s uncomfortable saying it.” Then he went out and just nailed it. So, I think sometimes if the writer’s there there’s a tendency to say, “Hey, why don’t you go back to the hotel room and do it in a different way,” and that’s not necessarily always good.
Q: YOU SAID EARLIER YOU WERE DEEP INTO THE SECOND HARRY FILM, CHAMBER OF SECRETS.
SK: Yeah.
Q: WHERE ARE YOU RIGHT NOW?
SK: Pretty close. Sometime here in the next month or so I’ll probably have something. Depends on how I feel when I get off the end of it. Whether I’m a little long, which I always am, and how I feel about it. Just if I feel it’s balanced and it’s working right. But I really like it and I love that book, I like writing it. I mean, I never... writing’s a bitch, so I like having written it!
CLICK HERE FOR THE EXCITING CONCLUDING CHAPTER... QUINT VS STEVEN KLOVES PART 2!!!
