|Erik.Jendresen|
Erik is probably best known for his extraordinary stewardship on HBO’s critically acclaimed and award-winning miniseries, Band of Brothers, but most recently he was brought on board to help co-write the much anticipated Mission: Impossible 7 & 8 films. How exhilarating to get that call? You have a mission if you choose to except… and no spoiler alert here. He accepted.
There are not many people in this life that I’m charmed by, especially when I’m called “Fucking Rebecca!” right out of the gate. I received this strange little nickname from Erik a lifetime ago while I was head of TV development for Ventanarosa, Salma Hayek’s company. She and her producing partner, Jose (Pepe) Tamez had an overall deal at ABC and we worked together on a TV project called WICKED, based on the book by Gregory Maguire — mostly known for the wildly successful stage production of the same name. I quickly realized F.R. was a term of endearment and well, it’s been my favorite ever since.
Erik is one of those writers that you rarely question. He has an unwavering confidence and authority when you’re speaking to him about things he has a passion for. His intuitive discernment and humor have served him well and I could not be more thrilled to share his thoughts on writing, his creative road and incredible knowledge on the fundamentals of writing.
RS: Using a logline, tell me who Erik Jendresen is…
EJ: A youth determined to be a marine biologist finds inspiration in a high school English class and chooses to follow his heart, instead of his head because it is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye, and the only thing better than lives well-and-boldly-lived, are the stories that we tell about them.
RS: What screenplay did you read where you thought, “I need to write in this form”?
EJ: I never read a screenplay before I wrote one. Screenplays are frequently painful to read – and through no fault of the screenwriter. A screenplay is the most clumsy of literary forms, because the screenwriter is representing something on paper that is intended to be experienced on celluloid – an entirely different medium.
A screenplay is a description of the experience of a story that is meant to be seen and heard and felt – not read. I’ve spent decades trying to refine the document that is a screenplay into some semblance of a persuasive and honest form.
Watching Casablanca, To Have and Have Not, The Maltese Falcon, Treasure of the Sierra Madre and The Man Who Would Be King, however, made me need to write screenplays.
RS: Do you remember the very first thing you ever wrote?
EJ: Yes. I wrote it when I was twenty and it’s about to made into a motion picture. I’m 63.
RS: I’m thrilled that you’re a part of the next two Mission: Impossible films. I’m sure you’re sworn to secrecy, so I’ll just ask you this: Which character do you most relate to and why?
EJ: The Mission: Impossible franchise presents the most meta experience imaginable for a writer: The writing of a “next” M:I film is, essentially, and by definition, a mission impossible. How to transcend the previous films? How to deliver a story that will thrill and move an audience – and satisfy the expectant spectacle in a manner that is honest and serves the characters – while knowing that the stakes are pitched on the summit of Everest – they can’t get any higher.
As a writer, you must be Ethan Hunt – able to make the instinctive, spur-of-the-moment choices critical to ensuring the safety and satisfaction of the world (the audience).
The thing that I believe distinguishes this franchise from many other action/thriller franchises is its heart. We care about the IMF team and we care about their caring for each other – while willing to risk their lives for the greater good.
As a writer, my mission, and I chose to accept it, was to work with a dear friend (Christopher McQuarrie) to try to tell a story that is terrifyingly relevant, in a manner that will wildly entertain, provoke people to think about the now and the next, and push the limits of performance and cinema itself to a new place. I hope that we have succeeded.
It’s always and only about serving the characters and their apotheosis.
RS: Do you prefer adapting material or working on a seedling that comes from your core? Why?
EJ: I love adapting material. The harder it is properly to serve a story on film, the better. To take an author’s vision – or a true story – and deliver it in an unforgettable way – with pure purpose and impeccable intent – is a challenge that I truly relish. Translating another storyteller’s work into another medium is also an enormous responsibility that I gladly and gratefully assume.
RS: I know from experience working with you that you do a ton of research when adapting material. How do extract the best bits from the research and how do you keep yourself from being swallowed up by it all? Are there any tricks of the trade you can share that would benefit emerging writers that are about to go down the research rabbit hole?
EJ: In 1897 Mark Twain released Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World and in it lies his assertion that, “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.”
And that’s the crux of it. The most gifted writer cannot possibly conceive anything as wondrous and terrible as the truths that humankind has wrought. Truth is a treasure trove.
And here’s the thing. Two people go down a rabbit hole: One is an historian, one is a dramatist. They uncover the same facts, but the historian is constrained by academic strictures, and may only make conservative conclusions regarding what is true and what is conjecture. The dramatist is unleashed and able to see and to feel and to make connections and inferences based on human behavior and feelings. I firmly believe that a dramatist is able to recreate history more reliably than an historian, on account of this freedom and grounding in a familiarity with human behavior.
Go face-first down the rabbit hole. Savor the strange. And if the truth is inconvenient to your narrative, make that a good thing. Embrace the inconvenience. It will individuate your story from the conventional and elevate your film from the rest.
RS: What makes a scene great?
EJ: It surprises the audience with emotion. It causes them to feel.
RS: How do you help writers navigate a scene or get under the character’s intentions and motivations — to help them elevate dialogue?
EJ: This is a sensitive subject, and I’m not sure about it. I suspect that I believe that one has an ear for dialogue, or one doesn’t. It’s like having an ear for music (and I don’t). In any event, dialogue must be specific to character.
Real people are rarely expository, and less is generally more. Let’s leave it at that.
RS: Who was your best friend growing up and what did you love about their friendship?
EJ: In general, I was my own best friend growing up. I spent most of my time in the woods with my dog, and on a sailboat. For three years of elementary school and two of middle school, Fred Dekker (Night of the Creeps, Monster Squad) and I were best pals.
Then we went to different high schools. Fred was a year older, a grade above, and one of the most genetically creative people I’ve ever met. He introduced me to classic horror films (Universal) and Ray Harryhausen (an American-British animator and special effects creator). His passion for cinema was infectious. We made 8mm movies in his back yard and in an old rock quarry in the woods and made midnight expeditions to a cemetery a couple of miles from his house. We’re still in touch.
And I would add that Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson; D’Artagnan, Athos, Aramis and Porthos; and Professor Challenger were best friends. In my teens, Philip Marlowe and I spent a lot of time together.
RS: What are the benefits of working with a star of any project? (Besides the obvious.)
EJ: It depends on the star. Among those in my personal planetarium, I’ve been fortunate to work with Hanks, Redford, and Cruise – all on multiple projects. Those gentlemen share a strength of character and integrity – an idealism and a work ethic – that is hard to match. Their decades of experience are shared freely and without conceit, and their ability to get films made and protect the creative vision of their projects is extraordinary. They are true collaborators.
RS: Marathoners hit walls around the 20 mile mark of a race. As a writer, do you ever experience blocks and if so, how do you get yourself out of them?
EJ: Writer’s block is a crock of shit. It’s nothing more than the spirit-that-moves-through-all things telling you that you’ve fucked up somewhere – that you might be forcing something on your characters that you want, but they don’t, or that you might be forcing on your story something that the story is rejecting. That said…
Hemingway wrote that you never walk away from your work when it’s going poorly, because you’ll just be coming back to a problem. I’ve taken that to heart, and it’s helped me enormously.
If ever I find myself stuck or stopped in a scene or a sequence, I simply leave it alone and start to work on another scene that I know for certain will be in the film.
In other words, I might find myself stymied by something in the first act. Rather than call it a day and leave the problem for tomorrow, I’ll look ahead and commence to write a scene that might be in the second act – or even the third – but is critical to the story.
I make sure that whenever I end my writing day, I’m on fire. Sometimes, I’ll intentionally walk away when I’m doing my best work, just to ensure that when I come back to it, it’s already working.
And, frequently… when I revisit that stuck place in the first act… holy smokes! By virtue of the scene I jumped ahead to, the problem scene is solved.
Never stop writing when you’re stuck. Always end your writing day with a scene that’s working, no matter where it might come in your story.
RS: I know you live on a boat (or at least live on one part of the time). What’s soothing about living on the water? How does it feed your soul?
EJ: The surface of the sea is quite literally the space between two worlds – the world we inhabit and with which we are familiar, and the world that lies beneath. One can only experience the wonders beneath if one goes there intentionally. Choosing to live in the space between things is a powerful notion – between the conscious and the unconscious, between waking and dreaming.
When you sail, you move with the wind, with one wing in the air and one wing (the keel) in that other world. It’s magical. When you live on a boat you are floating on a metaphor that flows and fluxes with the phases of the moon. That, and the subtle – barely perceptible – movement of the floor on which you stand (when in harbor) just makes me happy.
Nothing in nature is truly stable, and I relish not being grounded.
RS: As an advisor at the Sundance Screenwriter’s Lab, what’s the hardest aspect of advising? What’s the most joyful part of it?
EJ: The final breakfast is hard. Everything else about the Lab is unabashedly joyful. The Lab is a singularity. It’s going to Asgard for five days to commune with the creative principle.
RS: How do you help writers get out of their own way, shake up their process?
EJ: I like to shame them first, then show them everything that’s amazing about the potential that they’ve already created and then denied by trying to force their characters to behave in ways they wouldn’t.
Less experienced writers (and some real veterans) tend to write toward an end rather than create a promise-filled beginning and let their characters guide the way.
RS: What makes a character great?
EJ: Honesty. And by that, I mean they behave in a manner that is true to who they are and whence they came. That’s why villains and heroes both can be great characters.
RS: Do you consider yourself a risk taker? What is the scariest thing (in your life) that you’ve tackled?
EJ: Definitely. If there’s no risk, there’s no point. As for the scariest thing… I’m still looking for it.
RS: Is there a genre you’re dying to immerse yourself in?
EJ: No. I’ve been fortunate to have submerged myself in all of the genres that invigorate me, and my sock drawer – like the sock drawers of most of my pals – is filled with camera-ready scripts that are unproduced solely on account of studio regime change.
RS: What would you consider your strength as a writer? What is your Achille’s Heel?
EJ: My greatest strength is that I genuinely love writing itself. My Achilles Heel is that I genuinely love writing itself.
RS: You began as a playwright. Was it a hard transition from writing plays to the screen? What was both easy and difficult for you to master?
EJ: Plays and screenplays are simply completely different media. They are barely related. One is kinetic and live and utterly organic and suffers no short-cuts and allows the audience to look wherever they care to and recreates itself with every performance. The other is kinetic and photographed and consciously manipulated – a guided experience through the lens of a camera placed where the filmmaker chooses – and preserved forever.
That said, playwriting is a crucible for truth-in-character and scene structure and there can be nothing phony about the interaction between characters on stage (unless that’s what the scene is about). So, playwriting is the ultimate tutorial for scene craft in screenplays.
RS: Worst and Best advice you ever received?
EJ: The worst was when I once advised myself to help a friend who had been an agent and then started a production company and wanted to be a director. I rewrote a couple of other people’s horror scripts for him, then handed him an original neo-noir of mine. The first two intentionally direct-to-video films were meh. The third film – the original one – turned into an unwatchable abomination.
It turned out he wasn’t trying to make films for the right reason, and our friendship was negotiable. He was just using me to reinvent himself.
The best was when I advised myself never to let that happen again.
RS: Advice you wish you were given first starting out?
EJ: The bar at Musso & Frank is the best place to enjoy a martini and a steak by yourself.
RS: Are you superstitious when it comes to your writing process? Is there anything you do or don’t do before you get started?
EJ: I never write the title page until I’ve typed, “The End.”
RS: Are you a sunrise or sunset kind of guy?
EJ: Sunrise. When you’re fresh from unconsciousness it’s easier not to let the mundane get in the way.
RS: What’s one of the best lessons your daughter has taught you?
EJ: When she was three years-old we were driving down the road and she was staring out the passenger side window and just… murmuring. I asked her, “What are you doing?” And she snapped her head around and said:
“Don’t interrupt me when I’m talking to myself!”
RS: What’s a phrase you tend to overuse?
EJ: “No. I won’t do a free producer’s pass.”
RS: Is there a conversation we need to be having in our industry that you don’t think we’ve yet approached?
EJ: We’re having it right now. It’s being shouted from the picket lines.
RS: Do you think it’s harder to get anything sold with an oversaturated market and with so many outlets? Or is it just different?
EJ: It’s not harder. Astonishingly original, compelling work always sells. Whether or not it gets made is a matter for the algorithm of the day and the perverse Darwinism of Hollywood.
RS: If writers (especially emerging writers) are not good at pitching, what advice can you give them?
EJ: Don’t pitch. There’s nothing that you can do with someone who isn’t good at it. Attach a non-writing producer to the project who can deliver the vim and vigor and passion that every pitch needs.
RS: How do you reset when feeling overwhelmed?
EJ: Why would you want to?
Overwhelm is rocket fuel.
RS: Best gift you ever received?
EJ: When I was six years old, my father – who was a scientist – told me that whatever I ended up doing with my life, I should wake up every morning and feel as though I was getting away with something – that going to work meant that there was no place I’d rather be.
RS: Describe your most rewarding writing experience and what made it so?
EJ: I can’t. I can’t rank them. Every one of them has a special place in my heart.
That said, Band of Brothers stands apart on account of the fact that it aired just in time for many gentlemen of the Greatest Generation to use it as a frame of reference to be able to tell their families – for the first and only time – what they did in World War Two. For that, I am eternally grateful.
RS: What was the last film or TV series you watched that you would recommend to emerging writers – as an example of great writing?
EJ: I’m just now getting around to Barry, which I think is wonderful. Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul are impeccable. I think Slow Horses is a real contender. And it’s hard to beat The Dick Van Dyke Show and Fawlty Towers.
RS: If you could only bring one book, one piece of music, one movie or TV show to a deserted island, what would they be?
EJ: Moby Dick, “Samba de Orfeu” by Luiz Bonfa, Planet Earth.
RS: What question do you wish I would have asked:
EJ: “Two spaces, or one, after a period?”
(Answer: Two.)
RS: What is one you’re glad I didn’t?
EJ: “Who are you wearing?”
There you have it. Gems from the Extraordinary Erik J.
For more Q&A’s: https://rebecca-stay.com/blog
Bio:
As co-creator, lead writer, and supervising producer of Band of Brothers for HBO in 2001, Erik Jendresen was one of the recipients of that year’s Golden Globe and Emmy Award for Outstanding Miniseries. As a writer, producer, and showrunner for television, his current and favorite former projects include a Dashiell Hammett series for WBTV; a series based on the Francis Ford Coppola film, The Conversation; The Pony Express (with Robert Duvall); The 43, a limited series about WWII British ex-servicemen fighting fascism on their home soil; A Slave in the White House, a limited series about James Madison’s relationship with Paul Jennings; Castner’s Cutthroats, a limited series about the Battle of the Aleutians; No Man’s Land, a limited series about the war to end all war; Shot All to Hell, a limited series about the James-Younger Gang; Wicked, a limited series adaptation of the novel by Gregory Maguire; and Killing Lincoln for the National Geographic Channel.
As a writer/producer for film, his current projects include Mission: Impossible 7 & 8 (with Christopher McQuarrie); Sicario 3; Broadsword (the story of an S.O.E. operation in WWII); The Mariner (directed by Christopher McQuarrie); Saint-Ex (the story of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry); Aloft (based on the book, On the Wing by Alan Tennant), La Légion – a film about the French Foreign Legion in 1954; The Windsor Knot, a mystery thriller about the son of Sherlock Holmes; and The Tracker (based on the book by Tom Brown, Jr.).
He lives on a 118-year-old Dutch former-naval vessel (a veteran of Dunkirk) in Sausalito, California and on the Catawba River, North Carolina with his wife, psychotherapist Venus Bobis.
He is an advisor for the Sundance Screenwriters Lab.
