Nice story on Patrick Goldstein's Big Picture blog (LA Times) about Nick Schenk, screenwriter behind Clint Eastwood's new film, Gran Torino. Haven't seen the film, merely finding this story inspirational for any scriptwriter trying to find some glimmer of hope to keep them going.
The script was so well crafted and understated (and the credits went by so fast) that after seeing the picture, I immediately called Bill Gerber, one of the film's producers, to find out which one of the many A-list screenwriters who must always be knocking down Eastwood's door had penned the story. "Are you sitting down?" Gerber asked. He had quite a surprise. The writer, Nick Schenk, who lives in Minnesota, had never sold a feature script in his life. In fact, the only writing work Schenk had done was for "BoDog Fight," a mixed martial arts TV show, a game show called "Let's Bowl" and some comedy sketches collected in a DVD called "Factory Accident Sex." ("That title doesn't exactly help my career, does it?" Schenk jokes.)
Schenk says he wrote the script, using a pen and a pad of paper, sitting at night in a bar called Grumpy's in northeast Minneapolis. It was a good release for Schenk, who was holding down a series of day jobs, driving a fruit truck and doing construction work. "I just scribbled away every night," he told me. "The bartender there is a friend, so sometimes I'd ask him questions about where I was going with the story as I was writing. When it came, the words just came. One night, I knocked off 25 pages right there in the bar."
I really enjoyed Gran Torino, what a great story behind it.
Posted by: Erin Donovan | December 13, 2008 at 03:47 PM