Speaking about the intention behind writing the movie, Ben said this: “The whole thing of Good Will Hunting was really just to make – at the time – a video cassette that was like an acting reel. Like, we can’t get the job to show that we can do interesting stuff, so the whole thing was to have a reel and show casting directors, and so we’ll write these parts for ourselves.” The two had to keep things as cheap as possible, hence the movie mainly being “talking in rooms.” It clearly paid off big time, as their “acting reel” ended up winning an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay alongside Robin Williams’ award for Best Supporting Actor. Funny enough, those four pages of the screenplay that Gene wrote down actually made it into the final edit! The movie is now a frequent part of “best comedy movies of all time” lists, and evidently, there was no one better to portray the brainchild of Gene than Gene himself! Within three days he had his script finished (only about a third of it would be used in the final film), and he showed it to the producers at a casting call that he didn’t get the part for. The producers offered him $360,000 for the script on the condition that someone other than Sylvester would play Rocky because they wanted a Hollywood name. But he knew that if the film was a success, he would never forgive himself for not being the star. So, Sylvester held out, insisting that he’d only let them make the film if he could play Rocky, and they eventually relented, giving him a $1m budget to make and star in the film. Rocky went on to be nominated for nine Academy Awards (winning three), and become one of the most profitable film franchises of all time! There was a variety of motivations for creating the show, Donald said that “what was important to me was that this show was personal and that this show had a specific take.” Describing the series, Donald said: “The show is about being Black and it’s hard to write that down.” Atlanta ran for four seasons and won a host of awards including a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for Glover himself. His passion for the show and disregard for his own characters means that he’s actually forgotten to write Barry into an episode – he then received a note from HBO saying he had to be in the episode. Having said before that he could never direct himself because he couldn’t bare to look at his face, he chose to put that aside when he was inspired to write Barry after visiting the set of Better Call Saul. The dark, violent humour that Barry is full of indeed has a Better Call Saul quality, and the series has been a great success, as highlighted by its three Emmys! “I went into the trailer at lunchtime and started looking at myself in the mirror, making faces at myself. […] I don’t know what I said. And then I did that opening monologue, all at once, and I didn’t know where it came from. It was kind of spooky.” While the film isn’t autobiographical, a lot of the characters in the movie are based on people Billy knew, and the stories are inspired by things that happened where he was brought up. Billy started performing it as a one-man show, but with help from his agent, he was able to make it into a movie that he wrote, directed, and starred in. The movie won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, adapted from the show, and Billy was also nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role. “When agents and managers said my script wasn’t good and actors shouldn’t write, I recall wondering why they were angry. They fired me. So, I changed the material into a solo stage show. Rita Wilson saw the play and said, ‘This should be a movie’” Thankfully Rita Wilson decided to help make it happen, and Nia herself starred as the lead in a movie that many would find inspiring due to its honest storytelling and personality. She stressed the importance of never giving up, saying: “You can’t make anyone embrace change, marginalised voices or new ideas. So love yourself. And write your story.” Emma would become the first person to win an Oscar for acting AND screenplay writing when she took home the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Sense and Sensibility, having won Best Actress a few years previously. Emma would go on to write various other screenplays, some of which she’d star in too, including Nanny McPhee and Bridget Jones’s Baby. The show was a real passion project for Seth, who starred as Captain Ed Mercer, with him saying: “I think I’ve done more actual draft writing on the show than I ever had on the animated shows. […] That was a real joy, and I found that the genre was something that I was really comfortable in, actually even more so than the hard comedy.” The Orville has run for three seasons, and may still be renewed for season four. She thus took inspiration from her mother’s job as an ob-gyn doctor, which entailed working a similar amount of hours, and produced a number of “juicy” stories. Mindy also wanted her show to be less idealistic than The Office, particularly in terms of relationships.This is why there aren’t really any Jim and Pam equivalent storylines, and everything in Mindy’s life is more chaotic. The movie was also Wiig’s first leading role after being a star on SNL for years. Bridesmaids received multiple accolades including Melissa McCarthey getting nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and Wiig and Mumolo getting nominated for Best Original Screenplay. According to Vin, Steven was disappointed not to have seen him continue to do more directing, saying to Vin: “When I wrote the role for you in ‘Saving Private Ryan,’ I was obviously employing the actor, but I was also secretly championing the director in you, and you have not directed enough.” Despite being only 21 minutes long, Multi-Facial had a lasting impact on Vin Diesel’s career. The movie, which won various awards, launched Leena’s career, and two years later the TV series Girls came out, which Leena also created and starred in, winning her a Golden Globe too! The show ran for seven seasons, winning a host of Emmy awards in the meantime. Tina would go on to write and star in other hugely popular movies and TV shows, including Mean Girls, and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
“When I was feeling at my most down and angry and rageful standing at the precipice of whatever that is in your mind and I looked at the bottom of the chasm and the very bottom was Fleabag. So I was like ‘I’m going to write her to stop me from becoming her.’” The one-woman show was written and performed by Pheobe at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where it won the famous Fringe First Award. That really kickstarted things for Pheobe, who went on to star in the TV adaptation of Fleabag that would make her an international sensation. Her stardom has only risen since then of course, with her going on to be a writer on Killing Eve and being one of the writers for No Time To Die. Rob was on the same page, saying that the industry is so tough, so if you’re going to try to do something, you may as well go for exactly what you want: “It’s so hard to get a show made. You might as well talk about exactly what you want to talk about.” The two drew from their own personal experiences with pregnancy, parenthood, and their different backgrounds to create a comedy show that would also deal with serious issues without the rose-tinted glasses, as Rob put it: “A show that purports to be about real life but doesn’t have those things to me wouldn’t be a real show.” The show was a great success, running for four seasons! The screenplay had been knocking around in his mind for a while but hadn’t ever been fully completed, but three years on, he made his directorial and screenwriting debut with That Thing You Do. Tom spent a lot of time considering the music that would go into the movie, in which he also played a role as the manager, and that time clearly paid off with the song That Thing You Do! becoming a hit in its own right. The dramedy sought to highlight the more harmful side of love, something the pair had witnessed amongst their friends and felt themselves. Rashida starred as Celeste who is going through what starts out as an amicable divorce with her husband, played by Andy Samberg,
