Film Courage: What writing failure has taught you the most?
Tony DuShane, Writer/Podcaster/Teacher: It's funny I the first novel I wrote was terrible but I think
you have to write it to learn how to write a novel it's like you have to write a screenplay
to learn how to write a screenplay so you just have to fail at the same time you kind of gotta
as you come to your first novel you know you have to think oh it's gonna be published
it's to be great oh everyone's going to love it i'm a novelist just like and then you're just like
you know a year or two in and you're like yeah I can't do anything with this I got nothing
but you you've put in the time and you kind of get the idea of what needs to be done in order to
you know write to write a novel so did you think it was bad or did other people say it
no I thought it was bad and I it was bad it was it was all over the place
yeah I was so what was it about it was it was about a marriage that was breaking up
and yeah it's funny because it was like night I wrote it like nine years before my marriage broke
up so maybe I was for just foretelling my future but yeah it's you know I was young and precious
I think I think if I’m precious with my work that's when there's a problem I can't be precious
do you think you cared about the novel too much I know I think I cared about
the the the label of me as a novelist too much I think I was a little too hyped on that there's
there's a beauty to there's a beauty to what's interesting is once like once I got published
and then your book comes out there's a whole oh is that all there is that's
you know that Peggy Lee song is that all there is to book publishing except just different words but
but it that's that's the greatest club to be in because then you talk to other writers and you're
just like oh hey yeah yeah how's your book you know when it's out and and that's that's
usually the thing it's it's they could be or they could be excited it's on the bestseller list but
they got 12 interviews to do that day and it's like so there's still that
oh okay I gotta get you know I gotta get in this mindset of actually caring about a
book that I finished a year ago and you know it's it's bougie problems I guess
do you think people feel the same once their film comes out or that's different the when when
A Jesus Jerk came out so well I got to see the rough cut and then when I when then when I saw
it at the first film festival was at I didn't I didn't know what the final cut was gonna be
so when I so when I was there it was fun to watch but then I was realizing that I was trying I was
I was gauging the audience I was I was listening to the audience more than I was watching the movie
because I wanted to make sure the jokes were landing
and I wanted to make sure that when there was supposed to be silence there was silence
and so that's how that worked and then I saw it one more time at another festival
and and I did the same thing and I was just like all right what's what jokes what jokes are landing
what's working what's not working and it was kind of consistent I was like oh okay you know
i'm just a screenwriter i'm not the director but when he you know he was there too and then
and then after that I there was another screening and I just stayed for the first act
I was waiting for one punchline to see if the audience got it and then they all got it and then
I left and came back later to do Q&A I don't know if i've ever seen it again in its entirety and
it's a weird relationship because I you know I see the film and I see where I go oh I was
right off camera to the left oh that's the day that you know that associate producer got in a
fight with the unit production manager oh you know that's that's the day that I was hiding behind the
truck out of to make sure I was out of frame but I can see that it's so my relationship to it is
almost incestuous it's almost too much to see and it's you know very happy with it but it's it's a
little disconcerting I guess so again and I got to see it in production so seeing it in production
is a very different experience and a very lovely experience I think that was my favorite part of
the experience is to see the different takes and the different choices the actors were making and
you know I’m looking at Eric [Stoltz] and going oh my god they're making me look good and you'd be
like we're making both of us look good so yeah if the audience hadn't laughed at that one punch line
what would have happened I probably would have been we've totally failed utter failure yeah
those yeah I had definite punchlines in mind and a lot of them are lead actors Sasha had to deliver
and and he did great and yeah it was you know it worked so sure but sometimes you know
audiences don't you we've all been in a film where we're the only ones laughing and we're
like why why am I the only one that's laughing here yeah yeah that's on that example I mean I
but at the same time that movie was everything to me because that movie was about me
that movie was my life and that book was my life so it was the you know it was
I wasn't sure if I should write it as a memoir I mean I was writing it as a novel to test it out
as a novel and I wasn't sure if I should pull out some of the fictitious things to make it a memoir
when it was still in book form but it read better as a novel to me and it read better with more
more leniency into facts of the world up now I was a journal I was a journalist I took a journalistic
approach to the world of the Jehovah's Witnesses so I made sure everything was absolutely factual
to the to the ninth degree across the board so I actually had to do a lot of research on that but
that movie was that movie was me growing that movie was all me and so that movie was the most
that will be the most important movie probably of my career because that's the story I needed
to tell and I needed to tell it that way and not in the woe is me oh my goodness I grew
up in a restrictive religion no I don't want I didn't want that I wanted the levity of you know
there's of the okay and why people are there and I wanted I wanted more I didn't want a definitive
answer and to a lot of to a lot of you know those ex-Jehovah's Witnesses out there who do not like
the movie because I did because I portrayed the Jehovah's wit I don't say anything bad about the
Jehovah's Witnesses and i'm like that's on purpose because this is a just a character study and
it's essentially me so how does that character differ from Johnny Suede [1991] that's the
fictional character I should have clung on to so the character's name is Gabe and he's he's he's
just earnest he's trying to just find his truth and he's trying to live in it and he's trying
to stay a Jehovah's Witness and that's kind of what I did I was trying to find my way to stay in
because I believed it through my soul so but I also wanted to feel okay around people who
weren't Jehovah's Witnesses and I also just wanted love so a lot of that is just the yearning for
for someone to be in love with and you know me as a you know I know the backstory of me because
when I was six years old I was engaged to Pamela because I asked her to marry me and she said yes
you know I just I was very I was very romantic and just had this yearning for family and that's how
I saw my way out of feeling bad if it's like oh when I have a wife then I’ll feel better
as a Jehovah's Witness and so you know the Jesus Jerk doesn't go that far into it Jesus
Jerk [Confessions of a Teenage Jesus Jerk - 2017] is kind of ten years of my life smashed into a
six months so but johnny swayed he forgive me i'm gonna now i'm gonna go watch the movie because now
you have me intrigued I wanna see and you know who doesn't want to see a Brad Pitt movie so
what would what about that character do you wish could have been you I don't know if I wish he
could have been me I think I just related to him because he's kind of dumb but he's earnest so
there's just like he's making mistakes left and right and the you know not that time in my life
it was pretty tumultuous because that was around the same time that my friend had died and
I was I think I was just looking for something and I think the character like Johnny Suede was
trying to just fit into something and he just he just wanted he really just wanted a girlfriend
and he was he just and he wasn't mature enough to understand when the right girl was right in
front of him that it was right and and I just it yeah so that all kind of made sense to me.
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