10 Questions with BLUE CRUSH Screenwriter Lizzy Weiss
March 11th, 2004
by Christopher Wehner
What got you interested in screenwriting?
I was always a writer. I mean...way, way back. So it was just a matter of what to write. I considered journalism and being a professor, but those never seemed to really click with me. I loved movies.
After college, I went to NYU for a Cinema Studies Masters. I thought I was going to write about film but I just hated the program. They never wanted to talk about mainstream movies, just stuff way, way, way on the edge of film, and any time I brought up the movies that were actually impacting most of the country, it was like I had committed a huge faux pas. I mean, I can only watch so much of Andy Warhol's "Empire". So eventually I realized I wanted to be in the middle of it, not on the outskirts critiquing it, and I dropped out of the program. While in New York, I took Writers' Boot Camp and that Robert McKee weekend and read a ton of books and just sort of taught myself and eventually wrote my first script. And then another, and another, and another...
How long were you writing screenplays before you got your first big
break?
After about four or five years of ups and downs and close calls, MTV optioned a script of mine and paid me to do a rewrite of it. That was exciting, but they never made it, and I guess I consider all the momentum of my career to have come after Blue Crush, which was my first assignment. That was about a year later - or about five years after beginning.
Was there ever a time you wanted to give up?
OF COURSE I wanted to give up! It was a constant running conversation in my head - "Is there light at the end of this tunnel?" I'd get close a dozen times (I was trying to break into television as well as the feature world - so I was doubly rejected) and then be turned away. There were a bunch of really painful times when I thought -- that's it, I'm moving on, it's over. And then the next morning, I'd wake up excited to work on whatever script I was in the middle of and I'd realize I can never give it up. I just love writing too much.
I heard something once that, if it's true, makes me laugh. (I think it was Susan Sarandon, but it could be someone completely different) - let's just say someone like Sarandon said she just stayed in it long enough that eventually she HAD to make it because everyone else who started with her had dropped out. That sounds quite modest for someone with her talent but the sentiment I agree with: it's just about meeting enough people and sticking around long enough that people know your name and your work and eventually they'll think of you.
Your first produced movie is coming out, BLUE CRUSH, tell me what it's about and what led you to write it?
Blue Crush is a sports/action/love story/coming of age movie about surf girls. It's kind of a "one-girl---one-wave" movie about overcoming your fears. It's coming out August 16th from Universal.
Blue Crush was my first assignment - I wish I had been the one to realize what a great idea surf chicks is for a flick - but I wasn't. Imagine optioned an article from "Outside" magazine about a bunch of girls in Hana (a small town in Maui) who live to surf. A couple years before, I had written a spec about girls this age that some of the producers had read and liked, so I think I was probably on some sort of "coming of age" list that they turned to. They gave me the article and asked me to come up with a story. I pitched them and they hired me. I was literally jumping up and down in my apartment when my agents called with the news that they had picked me.
I guess the useful thing to remember here is that I had a specscreenplay (TWO screenplays, in fact) - and neither of them sold. I had spent months working on those scripts and when they didn't sell, I was really down. But they got me a ton of those meet-and-greet meetings around town, and eventually, one of those meetings (and both of those scripts) paid off in that they led, circuitously, to this assignment. Someone once said to me, "Career is a marathon, not a sprint" - and I think that's true. It's also true that nothing is for waste and it all eventually leads to something, even if it takes a long time to see what that something will be.
I assume you know something about surfing and that culture?
Well, I certainly do now. But no, when I was hired - my sole familiarity with surf girls came from watching reruns of Gidget. Initially, the studio hired me to do an ensemble coming-of-age movie (a la Mystic Pizza and Breaking Away), so surfing was more of a backdrop. With each draft, the movie became more and more specific and surfing-focused, and I became more surf savvy. You just jump in and get your feet wet (literally, in this case), and it all becomes clear eventually.
After I had written a couple drafts, the studio sent me and the director to Hawaii to soak up as much authenticity and texture to that world as possible. I met with the real girls from the article, interviewed housekeepers at all the luxury hotels, got all the great stories. I got all my best stuff from that trip.
How important is it to "write what you know?"
I don't really think it's that important at all - IF you're willing to do the research. I'm doing an assignment now based in the venture capital and finance world - something which I knew absolutely nothing about two months ago. But I've read a ton of books and interviewed bankers and VC guys and management consultants, and now I do. That's actually one of the most fun parts of writing, I think. I can be quite narrow in my interests, so writing about a brand new topic is a great way to educate myself on things which I never would learn about on my own.
You've also some assignments and rewrites. Tell me about your experiences working on the CRAZY/BEAUTIFUL screenplay?
crazy/beautiful is a love story about a white, upper-class teenage girl from the wealthiest part of LA (played by Kirsten Dunst) who falls in love with a Latino kid from East LA. The twist is that Kirsten's character is sort of the "bad kid" while the Latino guy is the hard-working, determined, A student who's just trying to keep his nose clean so he can get out of the projects and make something of his life.
I was in well into my second draft of Blue Crush, or (what was then "Surf Girls") when I heard a production rewrite was available on an interracial love story based in Los Angeles. I had never done production work, had no produced credits, and certainly wasn't the first one the studio pushed for. But I really, really wanted this job. I have a bit of a love affair with the Latino culture -- after living in Spain, traveling throughout Mexico and Central America, and working as a bilingual kindergarten teacher in downtown LA. The director, John Stockwell, read some samples of mine and then I went to his house on a Saturday and we just talked. I had dated a Mexican-American teacher at the school where I worked, and I told John about that and all the ways in which race and class had come between us, and I gave a ton of ideas for how to give Carlos (the Latino character) and his world a bit more authenticity. So we talked for a long time and I think he just got a sense of me as a person. John works very much on instinct, and if he likes someone, he'll take a chance on them. So he did. Lucky break, I guess.
Were you on set much during BLUE CRUSH's filming?
The studio asked me back for a one-week polish. The first night I arrived in Hawaii and ran down to the set was one of the most thrilling moments of my life. Meeting the actress who was playing the lead - after so many thousands of hours of imagining her in my head - was quite amazing. I wish I could've stayed longer but I was doing a pilot for FOX at the time and I had to get back to complete an assignment by the end of January. The interesting part about Blue Crush was that there were two entirely separate units - land and water. So some of the most spectacular footage - the surfing, of course - I wouldn't have been there for anyway.
What are you working on now?
I'm doing a comedy for Paramount called "The Glass Ceiling" about women in the workplace. I like to mix the security of assignments with the risk of pitching and spec-ing my own stuff. So I'm right now in the middle of a pitch about female war correspondents. And I have a thriller spec in my head that I just need a few free months to lay out, whenever that might be.
Any advice for aspiring screenwriters?
If you're doing it for the right reasons (i.e. not money or fame but because you love writing and movies), then it will eventually happen. You just gotta be willing to stick around long enough and work hard enough and go to a helluva lotta meetings.
I'd also say : get an agent, be nice to everyone you meet (as assistants become executives very fast in this town), and have a lot of supportive people in your life who prop you up when you're down.
For Movie Trailer and more info...
I was always a writer. I mean...way, way back. So it was just a matter of what to write. I considered journalism and being a professor, but those never seemed to really click with me. I loved movies.
After college, I went to NYU for a Cinema Studies Masters. I thought I was going to write about film but I just hated the program. They never wanted to talk about mainstream movies, just stuff way, way, way on the edge of film, and any time I brought up the movies that were actually impacting most of the country, it was like I had committed a huge faux pas. I mean, I can only watch so much of Andy Warhol's "Empire". So eventually I realized I wanted to be in the middle of it, not on the outskirts critiquing it, and I dropped out of the program. While in New York, I took Writers' Boot Camp and that Robert McKee weekend and read a ton of books and just sort of taught myself and eventually wrote my first script. And then another, and another, and another...
How long were you writing screenplays before you got your first big
break?
After about four or five years of ups and downs and close calls, MTV optioned a script of mine and paid me to do a rewrite of it. That was exciting, but they never made it, and I guess I consider all the momentum of my career to have come after Blue Crush, which was my first assignment. That was about a year later - or about five years after beginning.
Was there ever a time you wanted to give up?
OF COURSE I wanted to give up! It was a constant running conversation in my head - "Is there light at the end of this tunnel?" I'd get close a dozen times (I was trying to break into television as well as the feature world - so I was doubly rejected) and then be turned away. There were a bunch of really painful times when I thought -- that's it, I'm moving on, it's over. And then the next morning, I'd wake up excited to work on whatever script I was in the middle of and I'd realize I can never give it up. I just love writing too much.
I heard something once that, if it's true, makes me laugh. (I think it was Susan Sarandon, but it could be someone completely different) - let's just say someone like Sarandon said she just stayed in it long enough that eventually she HAD to make it because everyone else who started with her had dropped out. That sounds quite modest for someone with her talent but the sentiment I agree with: it's just about meeting enough people and sticking around long enough that people know your name and your work and eventually they'll think of you.
Your first produced movie is coming out, BLUE CRUSH, tell me what it's about and what led you to write it?
Blue Crush is a sports/action/love story/coming of age movie about surf girls. It's kind of a "one-girl---one-wave" movie about overcoming your fears. It's coming out August 16th from Universal.
Blue Crush was my first assignment - I wish I had been the one to realize what a great idea surf chicks is for a flick - but I wasn't. Imagine optioned an article from "Outside" magazine about a bunch of girls in Hana (a small town in Maui) who live to surf. A couple years before, I had written a spec about girls this age that some of the producers had read and liked, so I think I was probably on some sort of "coming of age" list that they turned to. They gave me the article and asked me to come up with a story. I pitched them and they hired me. I was literally jumping up and down in my apartment when my agents called with the news that they had picked me.
I guess the useful thing to remember here is that I had a specscreenplay (TWO screenplays, in fact) - and neither of them sold. I had spent months working on those scripts and when they didn't sell, I was really down. But they got me a ton of those meet-and-greet meetings around town, and eventually, one of those meetings (and both of those scripts) paid off in that they led, circuitously, to this assignment. Someone once said to me, "Career is a marathon, not a sprint" - and I think that's true. It's also true that nothing is for waste and it all eventually leads to something, even if it takes a long time to see what that something will be.
I assume you know something about surfing and that culture?
Well, I certainly do now. But no, when I was hired - my sole familiarity with surf girls came from watching reruns of Gidget. Initially, the studio hired me to do an ensemble coming-of-age movie (a la Mystic Pizza and Breaking Away), so surfing was more of a backdrop. With each draft, the movie became more and more specific and surfing-focused, and I became more surf savvy. You just jump in and get your feet wet (literally, in this case), and it all becomes clear eventually.
After I had written a couple drafts, the studio sent me and the director to Hawaii to soak up as much authenticity and texture to that world as possible. I met with the real girls from the article, interviewed housekeepers at all the luxury hotels, got all the great stories. I got all my best stuff from that trip.
How important is it to "write what you know?"
I don't really think it's that important at all - IF you're willing to do the research. I'm doing an assignment now based in the venture capital and finance world - something which I knew absolutely nothing about two months ago. But I've read a ton of books and interviewed bankers and VC guys and management consultants, and now I do. That's actually one of the most fun parts of writing, I think. I can be quite narrow in my interests, so writing about a brand new topic is a great way to educate myself on things which I never would learn about on my own.
You've also some assignments and rewrites. Tell me about your experiences working on the CRAZY/BEAUTIFUL screenplay?
crazy/beautiful is a love story about a white, upper-class teenage girl from the wealthiest part of LA (played by Kirsten Dunst) who falls in love with a Latino kid from East LA. The twist is that Kirsten's character is sort of the "bad kid" while the Latino guy is the hard-working, determined, A student who's just trying to keep his nose clean so he can get out of the projects and make something of his life.
I was in well into my second draft of Blue Crush, or (what was then "Surf Girls") when I heard a production rewrite was available on an interracial love story based in Los Angeles. I had never done production work, had no produced credits, and certainly wasn't the first one the studio pushed for. But I really, really wanted this job. I have a bit of a love affair with the Latino culture -- after living in Spain, traveling throughout Mexico and Central America, and working as a bilingual kindergarten teacher in downtown LA. The director, John Stockwell, read some samples of mine and then I went to his house on a Saturday and we just talked. I had dated a Mexican-American teacher at the school where I worked, and I told John about that and all the ways in which race and class had come between us, and I gave a ton of ideas for how to give Carlos (the Latino character) and his world a bit more authenticity. So we talked for a long time and I think he just got a sense of me as a person. John works very much on instinct, and if he likes someone, he'll take a chance on them. So he did. Lucky break, I guess.
Were you on set much during BLUE CRUSH's filming?
The studio asked me back for a one-week polish. The first night I arrived in Hawaii and ran down to the set was one of the most thrilling moments of my life. Meeting the actress who was playing the lead - after so many thousands of hours of imagining her in my head - was quite amazing. I wish I could've stayed longer but I was doing a pilot for FOX at the time and I had to get back to complete an assignment by the end of January. The interesting part about Blue Crush was that there were two entirely separate units - land and water. So some of the most spectacular footage - the surfing, of course - I wouldn't have been there for anyway.
What are you working on now?
I'm doing a comedy for Paramount called "The Glass Ceiling" about women in the workplace. I like to mix the security of assignments with the risk of pitching and spec-ing my own stuff. So I'm right now in the middle of a pitch about female war correspondents. And I have a thriller spec in my head that I just need a few free months to lay out, whenever that might be.
Any advice for aspiring screenwriters?
If you're doing it for the right reasons (i.e. not money or fame but because you love writing and movies), then it will eventually happen. You just gotta be willing to stick around long enough and work hard enough and go to a helluva lotta meetings.
I'd also say : get an agent, be nice to everyone you meet (as assistants become executives very fast in this town), and have a lot of supportive people in your life who prop you up when you're down.
For Movie Trailer and more info...
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