HUMANITAS INDUSTRY 101 PODCAST

Episode 3: Eric Roth

Today’s episode comes from a writing workshop with Eric Roth recorded on March 21, 2000—the same year he won a Humanitas Prize for his work on The Insider.

Eric discusses how he chooses what to write, his process, and a little bit about his Oscar-win for Forrest Gump.

Eric Roth is a six-time Oscar nominee and won in 1995 for his work on Forrest Gump. In 2012, he received the WGA Laurel Award for Lifetime Achievement. Eric won the feature film Humanitas prize for Munich in 2000. His extensive filmography includes: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, A Star is Born, Mank, Dune Part One, Forrest Gump and many more.

The archival conversation was moderated by Greg Apparcel during the Humanitas Master Writers Workshop series held throughout the 1990s and early 2000s.

Full episode transcript appears below.

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Humanitas's Industry 101 is made possible with support from our series sponsor Sony Pictures Entertainment.

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

MICHELLE FRANKE

00:00:08:10 → 00:01:50:20

Welcome to Humanitas Industry 101 podcast. I'm Michelle Franke, Executive Director of Humanitas.

Industry 101 is a conversation series that introduces topics foundational to understanding and launching television and film writing careers. Humanitas has a long history of presenting conversations and workshops for writers exploring craft and career issues.

Industry 101 is a continuation of that work. It includes our online event series, in-person events and this podcast, which will present both new episodes and conversations from our archives highlighting our history.

Today's episode comes from a writing workshop with Eric Roth recorded on March 21st, 2000. The same year he won a Humanitas prize for his work on The Insider. Eric is a six time Oscar nominee and won in 1995 for his work on Forrest Gump.

In 2012, he received the WGA Laurel Award for Lifetime Achievement. His extensive filmography includes Munich, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, A Star Is Born, Mank, Dune Part One, and many more. As a brief introduction, we caught up with Eric recently and asked him to reflect on his life as a writer. What's changed and what stayed the same over the past 25 years?

You'll then hear the recording from 2000, where Eric discusses how he chooses what to write, his process, and a little bit about his Oscar win for Forrest Gump. Stick around for a brief writing prompt at the end of the episode. And now here's Eric.

[MUSIC]

ERIC ROTH

00:01:50:22 - 00:04:28:06

Hello. This is Eric Roth. When I think back to the interview 25 years ago. I don't remember it at all, to be quite honest, but it was refreshing to hear it. The other thing was I was laughing because I thought my voice had a slight twang to it. Then I don't know where all of a sudden I come from Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant.

I sounded like I came from Texas or something, but of course, that might be just also because my voice was 25 years younger. You know, I have the same joy of writing I've always had. I look forward to waking up every morning and doing it. I have one rule that still applies: I always try to have a scene.

The last scene I'm writing for the day, nearly finished so that I don't have to confront something that I haven't even engaged in, so that, the I know I have a sort of a success the moment I sit down. You know, it's not as daunting.

And I still have the same rules for myself. I start from page one every day, try to keep things probably a little more concisely than I used to, and I still probably haven't mastered, which is the big trick of being a great writer subtextual writing, which I'm good at but I'm not John Updike or something, you know, and that's that's the real test, and will be till I'm over with.

You know, I was very fortunate that I was able to choose mostly what I wanted to do. And once I became a career success, it became even easier. And it was always and honestly, it was on the basis of working with the best directors who ever lived. From Akiro Kurosawa through Marty and David Fincher, just beloved, wonderful, wonderful artists. And so they always kind of had my back.

You know, one of the things that is definitely the same as God is still in the details, you know, as to what the material is, how you approach it. All the things, as they say, still apply about characterization and story structure. I write or write about theme mostly, or write toward theme.

That hasn't changed. And then it's just about how adept I may or may not be at articulating something surprising, curious, different, and all that. And I've succeeded to some extent and failed in others, you know.

Well, thanks for listening and bearing with me. You're about to hear a piece of a conversation I had 25 years ago when I was 25 years younger, and I hope you enjoy.

[MUSIC]

ERIC ROTH

00:04:28:07 - 00:14:58:01

I consider myself kind of a working writer. I’ve done all sorts of things. I like to say that I was the person who wrote Airport 79 and Concord and Forrest Gump. So I had, had a wide career of some junk and some pretty good things. I, seriously, I mean, even when I did, I say, Airport 79 and Concord, half joking and I enjoyed writing it and it was garbage, but it was good garbage.

And, and I guess it has the same criteria you have for anything. You know, that you like the insider. I mean, you have to have drawn to it three acts or four acts, and John's the same sort of strenuous criteria you have to have for the architecture of the piece, the characters that have developed, but has humor as stupid as a lot of it may be.

And I got to learn a lot about airplanes, so I guess I would say that the journey and adventure would be the reason that I. It's always exciting to me how I don't know how I choose things. I mean, I guess as I've been able, at least have maybe more choices, I choose things, I guess that I think.

I guess I like things that are kind of brave. In other words, you take some chances. I'd rather, sort of. There's an expression in playing cards, bridge. It's a big, big, bold and go down. You know, I'd rather take a chance and fail and then if you succeed I think you succeed kind of mightily, but that's not me trying to sound pretentious. I think I've always- You come out of the experience. Are you growing in some way? Might have gone backwards in some ways that you think, you, you take something away from it. And it’s so exciting, I mean, I think, you know, when things work, when they don't work, and then, of course, you get a feel lucky enough to have the movies made.

There's that magic of when you see what you've done and it’s realized the way you wanted it realized But I think the main thing I would say excites me is that I find it a thrilling adventure. I mean, it's a great journey that you get to take when you put into the world you haven't been to before.

So I guess it's sort of being part journalist, meaning, If you never met your characters, getting to meet people you've never met before, find out how they tick how they might react to things. And I think anybody can do it in a way. It's just them. Both people are well, you know, I'm not sure it's about how well you do, it’s about how brave can you be in doing it.

So my hat’s off to all of you for trying it. I think about it here for a while. I don't, I just take little notes about things I want to include in it. Try to get a gestalt of the whole piece. If it's an original, a book, you usually have no way to go. And that's the other vantage to do in a book. I always know at the beginning of an end and that never changes.

I've never changed an ending, ever. I mean, on originals I knew I was going. And the middle is a big blur, and I'll outline like the first 3 or 4 scenes, and then I'll see when I get there where I'm going to go next, or when I'm approaching that fourth scene. Then I'll outline three more because it's kind of fun sometimes.

See things you're not expecting that were characters or detail something might take you. I mean, just quickly, I try to always write, see that reflect the theme of the piece. I think that's really important, even if it's an unconscious or subconscious kind of thing. But also I just, I really adhere to structure. I think the architecture of the piece is about as important as anything else, and trying to find ways to tell things imaginatively.

So I only do three to 2 or 3 scenes ahead, and then I'll think of a scene that would be great. Somewhere I put it, you know, sort of file it away. I mean, I write it down. I think that rules always the same rules apply. And that's just a dramatic structure of things. You can not, I don't care if you wrote the stupid-ass comedy, if it's a liar, liar, whatever you write.

I mean, you have to have some catharsis at the ending, at the beginning introduce the characters that have some motive. Someone's motivating them, you know they don't have or they have, and you've got to end up with the catharsis of that piece. So, I mean, I think all the the real laws of drama just apply. And maybe I didn't know it when I started and I, you know, came to recognize it.

I don't know, I guess the other things I learned try not to be too indulgent, which is hard. The hardest, the hardest thing, I think, is to learn how to write a scene that is not about, what the scenes about, subtext, you know, and that's that, and which I showed an example of something that's against all rules, which is, you know, don't explain things.

Show them, you know, exposition is the other hardest thing to write. Most writers I find, I read scripts, just write exposition. I don't, I mean, and another big thing to do is force yourself to do it. I really believe this, and it's one of the ways you sell your scripts. And I didn't care about the stories to a certain extent. I mean story has to be, it should be good.

But have your characters all have a different voice, they all end up sounding the same and a lot of bad screenplays, whether it's just people recitation of exposition, having to go down to the corner, I'm going to meet the guy and and you might end up doing the same thing, but there must be a better way to say it, you know?

And, I don't know, that's the stuff of stuff. I mean, at least I’m big on. The most thrilling part of the whole process for me, except for when you write fade out and then you have ten minutes and then you have a sense of how you screwed the whole thing up. That is the table reading, because you just see how the thing, first of all, you proud of the fact that you brought all these people in a room and given your husband work and someone else work,

And at the end, the other thing, when you see on credits, you have 150 people. That's pretty great. Feel pretty good about that. But that's, the table reads are just spectacular because there's no ego involved in it. I know you're going to have some lines that are real clunkers and some things that are magical, and it's like a play that way, everybody's on the same team, at least at that point. And want to make a great movie, and it's all inspirational to everybody.

But that's, the main thing that how actors can do things with looks or one word, or they can change things that they can make it come out of their mouth was much more natural than me. I say, not saying, well, you know, so that's the main thing I'd say, you know,

I'm known for when I'm not happy on it, I don't feel I'm accomplishing what it needs to. I just give the money back. So I just rather be happy with my time doing it. As I think you learn something out of everything. I never felt comfortable with The Horse Whisperer. I can't tell you why. I think I may have agreed to do it for the wrong reasons.

I was in New York and I just won the Oscar for Forrest. And my agent called me, said there was a big hot book, but they only had half the books written and would I be interested in doing this, the producer would like to attach you to it. And I said, what's the story? She started telling me the story and I finished the story for her.

I mean, it was just pretty obvious. I said, I don't think so, not for me. And then I got home and she said, Robert Redford called and I always wanted to work with him cause I think he was one of the most sound guys around. So I went in and I think we both kind of kid ourselves in the way. I mean, I think I did it because I wanted to work for him

rather than believing so much in material I thought it would be kind of interesting. I could see him doing it, and I had some things I felt could be done with it. One of the things I wanted Bob to do that, I think, I think I was right about, by the way, Bob would probably disagree with me, but I thought I should play the age more in the movie.

I felt it’d be very touching. And he’s such an icon that you bring other things to it rather than just the character in the book, and he was a little uncomfortable with that. I thought it made it a little more textured. The movie was a little too pretty for me.

Going backwards- You, I spent a lot of time on most of the sets I’ve- I normally had a good relationship with my director, you know, so that I usually have been able to stay much or as little as I want. And there's danger in both. If you go to much, they, some directors use you, you they think, first of all, you can just sort of write great stuff that you spent a year working on. All of a sudden you do it in 30s, or they sometimes use you as a buffer between an actor's having problems, and that's a bad idea. If you, so that's when you get a little too often.

You don't go enough, you kind of lose sense of what's happening. So you're not a real value. Sometimes Directors, if they're, if they don't mind, can you use another pair of eyes so that I think that's valuable. So I would normally pick out what I think are really key important scenes to me or the project or to an actor, the director where I can feel like I'm there to be helpful.

I'll tell you the problem as a writer, you really are not thought of that much functionality. You barely get a chair. So you have nowhere to go. And I want you to work with nowhere to sit and do this. And it's just true. And it's part of the thing that we need to rectify. But also that's, that's life. You know? Forrest Gump, the most memorable part about that evening at the Oscars was my wife and I walked in and had our tickets and went to go see.

And there was, the other people were competing against the front, but our seats weren’t ready. Other writers- You sit with the people you’re sort of with and there was no seat for me. They brought up a camera podium and she was young. So now they start flicking the lights on and off, you know, and I don't know where, I don't know, I don't know if that was a good or bad omen, but they eventually raised the chair and then bolted into the floor.

It's kind of funny. So that was pretty memorable. And then I was a nervous wreck, obviously. And I'm not good at giving speeches particularly. I'm so shy. And before the, I knew we were the next category and before the commercial, I said to my wife, you think I'm going to win? She said, how the hell am I supposed to, to know if you’re going to win, you know?

And so that's, And then, and then when they call your name, you get this gigantic adrenaline rush and the first thing you think of, well, they can't take this away from me, you know, that bounces you up there. And then I made a mistake. My parents were sitting up in the balcony and I forgot this was going out on the television in front of everybody. And I said to my parents up there, you know, so they got calls, well, we didn't know you’d died.

[MUSIC]

MICHELLE FRANKE

00:14:58:03 - 00:15:48:18

Thanks again for listening to the Humanitas Industry 101 Podcast. Industry 101 asks writers to apply lessons learned from the episode to their own writing.

Eric Roth challenges you to write a scene and then rewrite that same scene, but change the weather. What if a bright, sunny day becomes a dreary, windy one? Does this affect the character's mood and dialog?

Simple changes like these are a good way to work through a sequence you might be struggling with.

And with that, thank you for listening to the Humanitas Industry 101 podcast. This work is made possible with support from our series sponsor, Sony Pictures Entertainment.

If you'd like to learn more about Humanitas and the work we do, please visit our website at Humanitas Prize dot org.

Until our next episode, be well and be writing.

Credits:

Host/Writer-Producer: Michelle Franke

Featuring: Eric Roth

Audio Editor-Producer: Campbell Moore

Writer-Producer: Daniel Plagens

Mixing/Mastering: Jeff Schoeny at Voxstop

Music: "We Don't Stop" and "Got to Be" by Mooveka

Music Licensing: Artlist.io