PD: We haven't chatted in a while. How did it feel to win your first writing award - Best Adaptation at the 24th GRA ceremony - for Shoe Dog?
WA: It was really nice to take that award home especially with it being adapted from a book and not a comic book or a video game it could have easily went the other way and be a huge flop. I think everyone working on the project did a great job. I was really happy that we’ve had Bennett Miller directing it, because he always does a phenomenal job at all of his projects for LRF. If I’m not mistaken it was his first project after directing Chad Taylor’s The King of Hearts in season 17 so I’m glad he could follow up this highly successful movie with another award-winning project.
I remember in our last interview I was talking about wanting to win Best Original story and Best Picture but I’m not complaining I will hopefully do some more movies and eventually get a chance to win one of them.
PD: When pitching your latest film, Ruthersville, Brazil, to the studio you mentioned that it was loosely based on real events surrounding Henry Ford and Fordlandia. Why did you choose to forgoe connection to the Ford name and go with a fictional approach to the material?
WA: I would say it gives me more freedom to be creative. I actually started writing it with real names and people, it was right after I finished my second movie for LRF Antarctica but I soon stopped because I just didn’t like what I had. I loved the idea of a man building a city in a rain forest, kind of like these Werner Herzog movies Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre with Klaus Kinski as the lead, where an outsider is coming to the jungle trying to fight against the nature, but the notes I had written down were like a Wikipedia article and I didn’t know how to change that at the time.
It was only after finishing Shoe Dog when I went through some old notes to look for the next project to work on and I found the notes for Fordlandia and after doing Shoe Dog I didn’t want to do another adaptation and decided to go with a fictional take. I don’t like giving real characters characteristics or thoughts that may be even contrary to what they really thought. I noticed that for me after doing Antarctica and Shoe Dog and so this time I did it differently.
PD: Your next film is a meta-film featuring me as a character. Without going into spoiler territory, can you give us a little information on that project?
WA: It’s the fictional story of Paul Nichols a regular person with an average job trying to be a screenwriter for Last Resort Films. He is struggling to write the screenplay that gets him out of his unhappy life. It might be a similar story to how some of us writers here started out at LRF by just reaching out to you and sending in a screenplay or a pitch. We will follow his way through all the obstacles that may get in his way to be a writer for LRF.
I started working on this project almost two years ago and at that time I was also asking you which actor should be portraying you in the movie. So I’m glad I was finally able to finish the movie even though a lot has changed through the writing process I was happy that we were still able to get the actor you wished for to play you. I’m really excited to see how the movie will be received.
PD: Do you have anything in the works for after that project?
WA: Nothing really finished but I’m currently working on a story about a vacation in Italy it’s inspired by the Eric Rohmer movies I’ve been watching lately. I feel like I’ve been resonating more with those normal people stories lately. Most of my movies have been about guys trying to obtain some goals that seem very out of reach for a regular person, maybe that’s why I’m trying something new for me. But I’m more hesitant to announce anything really because I definitely have a habit of shelving ideas and working on other projects until I shelve them too. But I definitely try to write more constantly from now on.
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