Danny Strong Describes His First Screenplay | Big Think

Danny Strong Describes His First Screenplay

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Danny Strong on his first screenplay, writing process and what inspired him to write “Recount.”

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Danny Strong:

Danny Strong is best known for the five years he played Jonathan Levenson on the landmark television series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" for which he was named "One of the top ten scene stealer's on television" by the San Francisco Chronicle. He is also widely recognized for his four seasons as Doyle on "Gilmore Girls" and for his starring role opposite Amanda Bynes in the teen comedy "Sydney White." His script Recount, an HBO original film about the 2000 election debacle in Florida, was voted number one on the 2007 Black List, an annual list of the years top screenplays as determined by Hollywood development executives. Danny was named by Variety magazine as one of their "Top Ten Screenwriters to Watch" for 2007.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Question: What was the first screenplay you wrote?

Danny Strong: The first screenplay I ever wrote was called “Die, Harry, Die.” And it was about these two kind of Gen X-ers, although I don’t think Gen X even exists anymore, who were kind of lost in Los Angeles, who seek out to kill an old man for his rent controlled apartment. So it was this kind of dark comedy in the mold of “Harold and Maude.” And I wrote it. I’m an actor, so I wrote it for me to star in, as most actors do when they set out to write a screenplay. And it went very well. I really enjoyed the process. It was really fun for me. And when I finished it, I gave it to a few producer friends of mine, and they wanted to buy it without me attached as an actor. They just liked the writing. And I wasn’t willing to detach myself from it, and I ended up getting it optioned by a company for a very small amount of money with me attached as the star of it. And to show you what a bad decision that was made by the company, they ended up going under a year later, so clearly that kind of business model wasn’t effective. But just the idea that people responded to the writing so much, and that I enjoyed the process so much, I decided to pursue a career totally independent of my acting career, a writing career. And I decided then that I wouldn’t attach myself to anymore scripts, and just try and make it happen on a separate track.

Question: Did you take courses in screenwriting?

Danny Strong: Well, I had in college felt that I would write eventually, and I took a number of writing courses in college. I took screenwriting, playwriting and fiction writing. And I went to USC, so the screenwriting program is pretty strong there. But I’d also taken courses. I took Robert McKee’s famous screenwriting workshop. But I think that when you’re an actor, especially with my background, because my background comes a stage actor, you just read so many plays and so many screenplays that it’s a really helpful tool, because subconsciously you’re getting it over and over and over again. And I really think that anyone who’s interested in screenwriting, I couldn’t recommend more reading the great plays, you know, Arthur Miller and Clifford Odets and Strindberg and Ibsen, because those guys have to create the level of drama that you can only dream of in a screenplay. But they have to do it all on one set, which is much more challenging than a movie, where you can move to any location you want. I mean, even in a play, you can switch locations, but you’re still very, very limited. And you look at some of the great Arthur Miller plays, you know, “All My Sons”, or “The Price”, they all take place in one location. And in the case of “The Price”, it takes place in real time. So the entire two hours is the actual two hours that you’re watching on stage. So that kind of skill can be very, very helpful to any kind of writer.

Question: What’s the story behind Recount?

Danny Strong: Okay. Well, I had written several screenplays after that initial one I talked about, and each script furthered my writing career. “Die, Harry, Die” got me kind of started. Then my next script got me a manager who is a very, very good manager, very high level manager. And then my next script kind of blew up, and was the spec of the week in which it gets sent all over town, and many studios are seeing it all in one weekend period with the hope being that on Monday morning there’s going to be a bidding war over your script.

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