John Gray, Writer, Director, Producer: Please just tell me how to write, just please tell me
what I did? Here's a formula, you do this, you do that…
Film Courage: How does a character drive plot? John: It's about what they want and what
they need and their conflicts and their flaws. It's one of the first things most actors will look
at and then when they're judging a script they want to play this role is What's the character's
flaw? What's the problem with this character that they have to overcome or that drives them?
I think it is all about what does the character want and what are they willing to do to get it?
What can they do to get it? What are the stakes going to be? Then it just builds hopefully from
there. There's always that great debate about what comes first, plot or character? I've always found
in my work there's no rule. Sometimes I'll get an idea for a plot that will kind of like something
I'll read in the newspaper or something I'll see I'm like Oh wow! Wouldn't that be interesting and
then I have go to figure out how to populate it with people and and how can I invest this person
with a need and a flaw and an opportunity and now put them in that plot and then there's other
times where I just I come up with a character where it just knows man that is a funny person,
I'd love to see that person and so then it's about how to build it around around them.
Either one can come first but ultimately it's what the characters want I think. Film Courage: Why
do you think so many writers bicker about plot versus character? John: I
think it might be because we're all looking for formula, we'd all love a template, Please just
tell me how to write, just please tell me what I did. Here's a formula, you do this,
you do that, that's why I think so many of these screenwriting books are so successful
because they sort of promise Okay, you've got the idea, that's great but now I'm going to show you
how to apply that idea and make it work and not that there aren't great. I've read them all and
not that there aren't great things to learn from those books but ultimately you just have
to be careful to not rely on something outside yourself to come up with a plot. A friend of mine
once wanted to be a writer so badly and he wasn't very good and I was recommending books for him
to read and he read a bunch of them and I said to them So did it help? Was it helpful? He said well
not really I mean there's a lot of stuff about how to write but there was nothing about what to write
so I said man if you don't have anything to write about you're not in the right business
you just have go to do something else yeah that's that's the real problem is you have
too much to write about there's too many types yeah right right right do you ever find yourself
being too precious with your characters where you don't want to give them certain flaws or
that's never been an issue it's almost the opposite I sometimes find myself
hobbling them with too many too much darkness too much stuff they're fighting
and get feedback and saying well it's hard to root for this person because they're a little too dark
so often I have to kind of pull back on that sometimes and give them a little more light
than heaviness sure well just off camera we were talking about White Irish Drinkers
and that's from 2010 yes okay and so and I felt all of the characters were
had some flaws maybe some more than others but I felt that each one I could see
maybe where they were coming from I didn't see one that was even even the one unlikable you could say
I won't give it away but you could see where his character might be coming from right and cut him
some slack yeah and and yeah so so I enjoyed that because even the one that was supposedly the the
squeaky clean one there were a few flaws nothing too bad but where everybody had their own things
they were struggling with it was a beautiful job well thank you yeah it's great to hear that and
I think that one of the most important things to keep in mind from a writing point of view and also
from an acting point of view is that even like the worst villain in life doesn't think they're
a villain everyone thinks what they're doing is the right thing even if it's just for them
so people don't go man I'm really bad and I'm going to do this now because I'm a bad
person they're they're thinking that I'm misunderstood I'm hated no one likes me
I never got the breaks and I've got the ch whatever it is that leads then they say I deserve
to rob this bank it's not I'm a bad person I just do and so that's I think an important thing with
characters that's why it's fun for me to write villains because I love them I love them and
I want them to have full lives and and I don't think I don't expect the audience to like them
but I want them to understand them and to feel and to recognize them that's the most important
thing yeah I I've seen that person I know that person when all the family first premiered
which for many of your viewers would probably be too young to remember that but it was the
first time on television there was that kind of overtly prejudiced bigoted working-class character
the switchboard the cbs lit up because they say hey my dad's on tv that's my uncle that's my
and so there's nothing more magical I think than hitting that button with an audience of like oh
he's a there's a specific character but there's a universal thing that I recognize and feel with
that character and it was so great to have the Rob Reiner character butt up against
Archie Bunker and two polar opposites and both very very strong in their opinion right it was
right it was excellent yeah and the longer you got to know Archie Bunker because at first you hated
him like this guy's despicable but the more you got to know him the more you start to understand
the more they led you into his past and how he was brought up and his situ his experiences
as a kid and the disadvantages he had and and you start to understand what formed his world
view so even though you can't agree with it you say yeah I understand how a guy like that
comes to this place where he hates people who are different he can't stamp you there he's frightened
by people who are different and that's a huge step towards making people understand each other
how do you develop a character flaw well again I look within start inside
one of the things I hate about myself that I would like to change
I like to think that sometimes by writing about it I can even maybe fix it it just
hasn't happened yet so I mean that's the basic thing and I always think that any time you
pull from yourself not in an egotistical way but just in an honest way you're halfway there in
making a real character and then it's just about trying to figure out how does this flaw how how
has it affected this character growing up what's it made other people think of him how has it
made other people treat him does this flaw become worse because of the way people have treated these
characters it is self-perpetuating so you can kind of go off on a whole bunch of your tangents I try
to start simply and specifically about the flaw that's going to help me serve this plot and and
drive it forward and make for interesting twists and turns and it's another thing just not to go
away from that subject but specificity also is I think one of the most important things in writing
and so often it's missing I think people beginning writers or writers who just don't work that hard
will describe things in vague ways or talk about emotions in general vague ways I miss
my wife so much she died two years ago I miss her so much this is sort of the simple example
as opposed to saying when my wife came down in the morning the first thing she did was
put this put the cup upside down on the something specific that you really feel like you're you can
almost see and hear and smell and so that also plays into flaws and just something that's you
can exhibit the character can because characters also of course all about behavior and especially
in films in novels you have the luxury of having this inner life that you can use words to describe
but in movies and tv we're just limited by what we can see you've got to just deal with what
people are seeing so you really have to explore and illustrate behavior it comes
out character through their behavior what we're seeing them do how they treat each other what
they do when they're alone are they different when they're alone and when they're with somebody else
how are they different with two different people this is all little tricks you can
use behaviorally to really set up who your character is and make them recognizable
and in your character's arcs do they always let's say a dark character does it always turn
themselves around or no there's just some sort of resolve but they're still the same I think
that the best drama you the characters all make a journey of some kind I don't always feel like
you have to do the network television version of it where the bad guy has to see the evil
of his way it's it's not I mean people a great example is I think is uh there's three billboards
you know the character Sam Rockwell played was just a brilliant actor
that's a guy who makes a fantastic arc and he starts off as this hateful racist and in his
relationship and dealings with Francis Mcdormand he starts to come around a little bit and he ends
up helping her but by the end of the movie you don't feel like this guy is going to go out now
and go on a march but he has regained a little bit of humanity so you have some hope for him
and so to me that's a perfect and an expertly done character arc for someone like that
where if he suddenly became this touchy-feely lovey guy oh you wouldn't believe it and
wouldn't honor the work that was done in setting up who this guy is so people I
don't think sadly I think people don't tend to change very much I think they change increments
and so you don't have to necessarily reflect that in drama because you want to give people something
a little higher to aspire to but I think you have to any evolution of a character has to be true
ultimately to who they really are and and how they're going to manifest that change
and in Francis Mcdormand's character in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing,
[Missouri] how does she change well I certainly think that she becomes less angry I think that
when particularly Sam Rockwell helps her and and she starts to feel she's not alone
I think she finds a way to deal with her pain and you get the sense by the end of the movie that
okay she's probably going to be all right she's probably she's going to learn how to live with
this pain it's always going to be there but it's not going to just keep her stalled and I think at
the beginning of the movie she is just stalled she can't go forward and so she's not going to
be this happy-go-lucky person but you do feel like she has now maybe found another color in her life.