Script Apart with Al Horner

The thing about machines is that we expect them to keep chugging on – to never break or falter. In the late 1990s, a mixed martial artist named Mark Kerr found himself struggling to shoulder the weight of that expectation. Mark was a winner – a muscular behemoth beloved by fans of a rising new fighting league, called Ultimate Fighting Championship, or UFC for short. His fans across the world knew little of his agonising behind-the-scenes struggle to keep up that facade, to keep entering the ring week after week, to keep The Smashing Machine as he was nicknamed chugging along – never breaking, never faltering. Addicted to powerful painkillers, the pressure to win was killing him.Which is why The Smashing Machine, the recent biopic about Kerr, from my guest today, writer-director Benny Safdie, is a sports movie unlike most others. Think of a sports movie you love. Break it down at its core and I bet you, it’s a tale about someone learning to win, right? Starring Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt, The Smashing Machine is about someone learning to lose. The liberation that comes with it. The power of realising that we’re not our accomplishments. What defines us is our actions out of the wrestling ring – whatever your version of that ring may be. On today’s episode, Benny tells me about the quote, “radical empathy” that guided this story – and how it was also perhaps present in his work up till now. Films and TV shows like the hugely acclaimed Good Time and Uncut Gems, both created with his brother Josh – and The Curse, created with Nathan Fielder. We get into all the key beats and scenes from The Smashing Machine in our usual spoiler-filled detail – including that mesmerising ending in which Dwayne Johnson seems to unburden himself of the expectation that he can never falter, not just within his performance of Mark Kerr, but also kind of as himself, this megawatt blockbuster star whose recent career took an interesting path to this story, filling it with metatextual meaning. Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Get coverage on your screenplay by visiting ScriptApart.com/coverage. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today on Script Apart – Harris Dickinson: star of films like Babygirl and Triangle of Sadness, John Lennon in the upcoming Beatles biopics from Sam Mendes, and now, a formidable presence on the other side of the camera too. Urchin, the new drama written and directed by Harris, is a feature debut that “I cannot escape and I cannot forget,” to quote the Atomic Kitten song that plays in a pivotal scene. It’s a story that hit close to home for me, quite literally. Harris lives kinda down the street from where I’m from. He shot a lot of Urchin in locations I used to tread every day before moving to LA earlier this year. And as we discuss in this spoiler conversation, we’ve both volunteered with local organisations a stone’s throw from each other, providing support to unhoused people in east London. In fact, it was while doing this volunteer work one day that Harris conjured the idea for Urchin – a story about a young man sleeping rough in Hackney, struggling with addiction and poverty, played by Frank Dillane. If that sounds like a gritty social realist drama you’ve seen before, well, you’re only half right. Urchin takes raw ingredients from that cinematic tradition and adds big, strange, lyrical leaps that make you feel the isolation and alienation that Frank’s character, Mike, feels. It all leads up to an ending that’s spine-tingling. In the conversation you’re about to hear, Harris and I break down key scenes and characters from the film, the real-life problems he hopes the film helps draw attention towards – and of course, Atomic Kitten, because how could we not? I hope it makes you whole again, listeners. Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Get coverage on your screenplay by visiting ScriptApart.com/coverage. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today on Script Apart – all aboard a conversation about The Lost Bus, with a writer who’s glued me to my screen time and time again over the last few years. Brad Ingelsby is the creator of Mare Of Eastown starring Kate Winslet from back in the pandemic. He also created this year’s stunning Task – an HBO drama with Mark Ruffalo about an FBI agent investigating a string of violent robberies in rural Delaware County, which is a recurring backdrop to his storytelling – and the Apple TV+ thriller Echo Valley. This year, you might also have caught his collaboration with director Paul Greengrass – a thriller that would have been an exciting throwback to the disaster cinema of decades past, were it not for one particular interesting texture to that film. The Lost Bus told the true life tale of a bus driver, Kevin McKay, played by Matthew Maconahey, who stepped up to save a class full of children amid devastating wildfires encroaching on the small town of Paradise, California. Those fires were in 2018. In January this year, California was devastated by all-new wildfires that cemented a sense of new normal. Climate scientists are warning in unison that we can expect more of the precise scenario depicted in this movie. So, how did that fact affect Brad’s approach to the script? What’s behind his love of stories set in rural communities not often depicted on-screen? Why is it that his storytelling often centres around parents being pushed away by children on the cusp of adulthood? And what lesson is there about writing and life in the fact that, at the end of The Lost Bus, McKay reaches a realisation: the only way out of the fire is through? Brad spills all in this riveting chat.Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Get coverage on your screenplay by visiting ScriptApart.com/coverage. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Aristocratic chaos agent Hedda Gabler isn’t a character. She’s a Rorschach test, and has been for over a century now. Since first appearing in 1891 as the puzzling eponymous protagonist of a play by Henrick Ibsen, audiences have stared into at this recently married woman, driven by domestic suffocation into acts of destruction, and found different meanings, reflective of who they are, reflective of their politics and personal struggles. Is she a beacon of feminist freedom, lashing out at the restraints forced upon her by a misogynistic upper class? Is she a tragic figure, numbed then maddened by the spiritual emptiness of a bourgeois life? Or is she more simply put, a monster - someone so bored, she seeks entertainment in the destruction of others?In writer-director Nia DaCosta’s new take on the character, starring frequent collaborator Tessa Thompson, she’s perhaps all of the above and more – this is a queer retelling that fizzes with intrigue and nuance and a kinda Brat Summer-era celebration of feminine messiness. Today on Script Apart, a podcast about the first draft secrets of great movies and TV shows, Nia joins me to talk about the thematic through line in her work, connecting Hedda with her 2018 thriller Little Woods and her 2023 foray into superhero cinema, The Marvels. We get into her fascination with unconventional women on-screen, the literature in her childhood that led her to Hedda and every important spoiler plot point from this new adaptation.Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Get coverage on your screenplay by visiting ScriptApart.com/coverage. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rian Johnson, celebrated filmmaker behind hits like Knives Out and Looper, dives into the complexities of his new film, Wake Up Dead Man. He discusses how his teenage experiences with faith fuelled the writing of Father Judd, revealing a deeply personal narrative. The conversation explores balancing humor and critique of religion’s intersection with politics, while detailing the challenges of his hardest script yet. Rian also shares insights on crafting compelling characters and the pursuit of truth, ultimately highlighting the transformative journey of storytelling.

Join Edgar Wright, the visionary director behind cult classics like Shaun of the Dead, and Michael Bacall, the savvy screenwriter of 21 Jump Street, as they delve into their fresh adaptation of The Running Man. They explore the eerie parallels between Stephen King's 2025 predictions and today's reality, discuss balancing entertainment with sharp social commentary, and unpack the thrilling design of their dystopian world. With insights into AI's impact on storytelling and the complexities of corporate power, this lively chat is a deep dive into imaginative filmmaking.

Today on Script Apart, we’re off to see the wizards – the wonderful storytelling wizards, that is, behind the first ever musical we’ve covered on the show. In the early ‘00s, New York-born-and-raised playwright Winnie Holzman was, like the rest of the city, still reeling from the September 11 attacks that claimed 2977 lives. It wasn’t just the attacks themselves that haunted her – it was the division they wrought too. Racial minorities – America’s Muslim population, specifically – were scapegoated and othered. All of a sudden, a war stood on the horizon. And so, Winnie got to work with composer Stephen Schwartz on a musical that would subtly grapple with the skyrocketing racism of that moment. Soon, something Wicked was to come our way.Inspired by a book of the same name by author Gregory Maguire, Winnie and Stephen's Broadway extravaganza took one of the defining stories in cinematic history – the Wizard Of Oz – and invited audiences to look at it a little differently. What if the so-called Wicked Witch Of The West in that film – all green skin and shrill cackle – wasn’t actually the terroristic threat that Dorothy and viewers thought her to be? What if there was a more tender truth to this woman, who lest we forget, in that 1939 movie, was just trying to retrieve the ruby slippers worn by her dead sister, crushed by Dorothy’s house when it’s transported via tornado to Oz? Chances are you know what happened next. Forbes Magazine estimates that 65m people have seen Wicked since it hit Broadway in 2003, quickly expanding around the globe. It’s the fourth longest-running play in Broadway history. And now, it’s a blockbuster smash too. Last year, Winnie’s screen adaptation of the musical, written with my other guest today, Dana Fox, of Cruella fame, began its emerald takeover of movie theatres. That first film, simply titled Wicked and covering the first half of the stage play, was a smash. Now, Wicked For Good is here, bringing this tale to the end of its yellow brick road, and Winnie and Dana are full of emotion and reflection. In the spoiler conversation you’re about to hear, they tell me about the strangeness of this movie arriving in this particular political moment. I don’t know about you guys at home, but the sight in Wicked and Wicked For Good of marginalised groups – munchkins and animals – rounded up and forced from their homes in a year of ICE raids and anti-immigrant anger, struck a really heartbreaking chord for me. It’s not all politics, though, I promise! We also get into the prisons of perception that Elphaba and Glinda, played by Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande respectively, both exist in and have to break free of in this story. And you’ll also hear the pair’s reflections on the huge differences between this story about the Gregory Maguire original, which saw Elphaba join an underground terror cell. Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Get coverage on your screenplay by visiting ScriptApart.com/coverage. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

James Vanderbilt, the screenwriter behind Nuremberg and known for Zodiac, explores the monumental trials that followed World War II. He delves into his fascination with 'evil' characters, examining Göring's charisma while ensuring his atrocities are condemned. Vanderbilt shares personal connections through family history, highlights warnings against authoritarianism from the past, and discusses the innovative use of film evidence in court. This conversation reveals the importance of remembering history through the humanity of its characters.

Ryan Coogler, the talented writer-director behind hits like Black Panther, opens up about his new film Sinners. He reflects on feeling unseen despite his success, driven to create a deeply personal piece inspired by his uncle's love for blues music. Coogler discusses the film's exploration of the exploitation of Black music and how cyclical harm affects communities. He emphasizes the themes of joy, grief, and honoring ancestors, revealing how loss shaped the film's emotional depth. A fascinating dive into the intersection of art and personal history!

Rowan Joffe, a screenwriter and director known for 'Tin Star' and '28 Weeks Later,' discusses his adaptation of 'Ballad of a Small Player,' exploring themes of addiction and the duality of human nature. Edward Berger, acclaimed for 'All Quiet on the Western Front,' shares insights on creative curiosity and how Macau’s sensory overload shaped his film. They dive into the moral complexities of addiction, the significance of casinos as modern cathedrals, and the personal emptiness both artists confront, making for a profound conversation on art and human experience.